“Even now?” Keenan asked. Heat radiated from him, to him, as if his skin was breathing the extreme temperature in and out. He was the Summer King as he had only ever been in the moments when mortal girl after mortal girl risked everything for him. Now that he was unbound, he would be fully himself all the time, but the memories of seeing him like this pushed against her as fiercely as the heat.

When Rika didn’t answer, he added, “You’re free of the ice.”

“I still dream of it.” Rika turned to face him even though she knew she still looked vulnerable. “I wake up convinced that winter is still inside my veins. What you did—”

“I didn’t do that to you.” Keenan’s voice filled with frustration and the heat around them flared momentarily stronger. “I didn’t want you to suffer. I never wanted any of you to suffer.”

“Did you choose me?” Rika asked softly, tilting her head so that her short hair, cut in a modern way she knew he hated, brushed her shoulder. She moved so he could see the silver jewelry piercing her ear. She was not going to live in the past, not going to look like the girl who was foolish enough to trust him. When he didn’t reply, she added, “Did you convince me that you loved me?”

“I did, but—”

“Did I carry ice in my body for years because of that mistake?” She stepped closer. “Because I believed you loved me?”

“Yes, but—”

“So why wouldn’t it bother me to see you?” She moved so close that she was in his space. He could crush her without any effort, incinerate her with the sunlight he carried inside of him, but she didn’t care. She’d decided many years ago that she would never bow before him. All she had left was her pride. He’d taken everything else, and when she hadn’t been the girl with sunlight inside of her, he’d rejected her.

Keenan ran his hand through his hair in a familiar gesture of frustration. The strands shimmered like glistening copper, like solidified sunlight, captivating even now. He couldn’t argue without lying, but he wanted her to bend.

Rika couldn’t. In the desert, the passive were less free. Maybe it had been the same in the faery courts and in the human world. Back then, however, she didn’t know how important it was to speak for what she believed. She’d learned though. “Look at where we are. Cities are poisonous to me, Keenan. Iron, steel, they leave me sick now. . . .”

Despite her still-raw anger, the Summer King didn’t flinch. “That’s part of being faery. Almost all faeries have that limitation. It’s not—”

“—fair, Keenan,” she finished. “It’s not fair.”

She turned her back to him and sat in one of the sand chairs.