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“I like her,” Poppy’s mother said, encouraging Poppy to lie across the seat. “Now, keep these in your armpits and on your neck, as much as you can. You’re still too warm. And here, prop your ankle on this…” She tucked the cooler under Poppy’s ankle.

Poppy cast her mom a sidelong glance, even as she curled forward so she could see Rai’s face. “You’re surprisingly calm,” she murmured.

“I don’t know why,” her mother replied with a shaky laugh.

“I’m surprised I’m not still curled in a ball on the floor.

But you needed to be saved, and there were things I could do…

” She smiled, gently, adjusting the ice pack on Poppy’s ankle.

“I’ve been letting you do too much. You saved me, when you came to live with me, and it was…

It was easier to let you take care of me.

Just like your father did. But I’m not blind.

I see how you work, how you worry. And…” She glanced at Rai, her lips thinning.

“I just spent hours helping this man search for you, risking his life. And I can see how you’re looking at him now. You love him.”

Poppy inched away from Rai, guilt washing through her, but her mother reached out and took her hand. She was trembling, Poppy could feel it, but it was…under control.

“I don’t know what happened,” she said in her Mommiest Mom voice.

“And I’m not going to tell you what to do.

But it’s been…” She laughed, a little incredulous.

“It’s been wonderful getting to save you for once.

I’m your mother. And I’m not… I still need help.

I know I do. But I’d be… I’d be a fucking shitty mother if I expected you to throw away the sort of love that I had with your father, just to keep on saving me. ”

“Language, Mom.” Poppy laughed weakly.

“Sorry.” Her mother laughed, giving her hand a final pat and returning her attention to the ice pack. “My profanity may have been developed on the Illinois streets, but driving in Tucson made of it an art form.”

“Says the woman who hasn’t driven in years.” Poppy sighed and indulged the urge she’d been fighting, reaching down to stroke Rai’s cheek. His head and knees were all that protruded from the water, though the level was already sinking.

“Swearing’s like riding a bicycle,” her mother said primly. “Once you find your fucking balance, it all comes right the fuck back to you.”

Poppy was still laughing, if hazily, when Ofelia returned. She gracefully drew several gallons of drinking water out of thin air and settled them in the front footwell. “Shall we depart?”

“You’re coming with us?” Poppy shoved up on her elbow .

Ofelia’s lips twitched. “Indeed. I wish to see how this fairy tale ends. I will ride shotgun.” She gathered her skirts and seated herself regally in the front passenger seat.

Poppy’s mother fussed a bit more, retrieving the hose and filling Rai’s plastic bed to the brim and adjusting Poppy’s ice packs yet again, but soon they were on the road.

Ofelia seemed perfectly familiar with riding in a car, turning the mariachi music down to a low trill and engaging Poppy’s mother in conversation.

Poppy tried to listen and participate, but as Ofelia related the way that she’d tracked Rai’s location updates and engaged the local earth fae to discern the rest of their progress so she could intercept them, on and on in excruciating detail, Poppy’s mind went hazy again, and she turned her attention back to Rai.

He was a better shade of purple, and his face had lost its harsh angles, but he still had not moved, not even a twitch.

Please wake up, she thought fiercely at him. Please. I thought I could live without you, but now… I could try. I might even succeed. Just like I could have crawled to safety, rescued myself. But I don’t want to. I don’t want to live without you. It would hurt too much. Please wake up.

He continued to breathe and not move, and she sighed, despair gripping her throat.

Her phone buzzed again, and she grimaced and pulled it out.

It had been vibrating almost constantly.

She’d thought several times to silence it, but they’d been so busy.

But she might as well clear out some of the notifications while she was packed in ice like a fucking salmon on the way to the sushi market.

She ignored the voicemails—those were almost certainly her mother—and dismissed the spam emails.

The texts were harder—there were so many from her mother, speaking of her worry and then despair when she hadn’t returned home—and a sweet, heartbreaking series of notes from Rai, pledging to come to her, save her.

She’d read those through a few times, tears silently rolling down her cheeks now that she was hydrated again.

She leaned forward and kissed Rai on the forehead after, letting her tears fall into his little pool. They were water, too, she reasoned. With electrolytes.

There were a few other notifications from apps, but she was already tired of looking at the screen, so she put her phone back to sleep, thinking she might try to sleep as well.

While she wanted nothing more than to curl up next to Rai until he awakened, no matter how long it took, her ankle really did need an X-ray, which meant waiting rooms and stiff chairs were in her future.

She was just starting to doze when a final buzz from her phone roused her, and she stared at the email notification blearily, then with more focus .

Thought you might be interested in this , read the subject.

Which she might have dismissed as spam, but she recognized the sender.

It was one of the authors Beaumont Book Group published—not one she’d worked with, but they’d met at publishing events a few times.

Brendan hadn’t liked the woman, she recalled, and the feeling had seemed to be mutual.

Which at the time had meant keeping a professional distance, but now was the greenest of green flags.

The email was brief, just a polite greeting, a link, and a warmly signature block.

Then P.S. Give ’em hell.

Poppy clicked on the link and read.