We elected to set up camp off the shoulder of the road, a stone’s throw from Chandler lands. Close enough to accommodate Graeson and Dell visiting, but far enough to keep us on the right side of fae and human law.

We looped our caravan into a tight arc formation: truck, trailer, truck, trailer, trailer, truck, trailer. Magic flowed easier through circles, and the shape gave us a compact shared backyard within the boundaries of the protective magic Aunt Dot cast while Isaac and I made the trailers level on the uneven ground.

Sweaty from establishing our base, we each retreated to our homes for a much-deserved rest break. The satellite dish mounted to Isaac’s roof twitched to wakefulness as I scanned the woods for signs of life and found none. The soft murmur of Aunt Dot’s soaps drifted from her living room window and coaxed a sigh of contentment from me. Even with crusted blood on my hands, it was good to be home.

Home being relative considering Gemini were rooted in people and not places.

I climbed the two steps leading into my trailer and grabbed a hot shower. I remember sitting on my bed to dry my hair, but the heat must have flipped my switch, because I woke to a quiet camp and found a note taped to my door. Aunt Dot and Isaac had gone into town for supplies, taking the grocery list off my fridge with them.

After stretching out the kinks in my back, I hauled my laptop out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. One of my favorite nooks in the whole house was the booth with built-in dining table. Sliding across the vinyl seat, I set up my workstation—computer, sticky notes, pen, legal pad, pencil and freeze-dried banana chips—then opened my web browser.

A quick check of my empty inbox set off a pang in my chest. Thanks to my forced leave of absence from the Earthen Conclave due to my friendship with the now-missing Harlow Bevans, and the murky nature of my relationship with a certain absentee beta warg, I was cut off from my usual resources and most of my contacts. Most. Not all. I still had one willing to stick her neck out for me. And then I had Graeson. Maybe. I’d thought we shared the same goals, but now I wasn’t as sure.

Fist pressed into my cheek, I rested my elbow on the table and started combing over my notes on the Charybdis case files, focusing on the kelpie we had taken down in Abbeville, Mississippi. When nothing new jumped off the page, I rubbed my eyes and began pondering dinner options.