The car’s engine sputtered and died. Rowan guided it off the dirt road and onto the shoulder. The sun was setting, but the air was still warm. The desert-scape was dotted with scrub brush and tall saguaro cacti.

“We’re out of gas,” Rowan said.

The cooling engine made a ticking noise. Still in her small tabby cat form, Gretta let out a baleful meow.

“More walking?” Sofia asked.

“Unless you learn how to fly,” he said. “Which, by the way, would be helpful.”

Sofia unbuckled her seat belt and pulled on her little backpack. “I wish I could be a bird, but the only magic words I know help me hide and clean.”

“Those are very useful magic words,” Rowan said. “Unfortunately, we need to distance ourselves from the people chasing us.”

“It would be fun if Gretta turned into an elephant and carried me,” Sofia said with a hint of hope.

Rowan looked at Gretta, who shook her head. “Gretta’s elephant form is hurt. Besides, I think she’s drained right now. You’ll have to walk until you’re tired, and then I’ll carry you on my back.”

“Where are we going?” Sofia said.

“You see that mountain?” Rowan asked.

Sofia nodded. “Are we going to climb it?”

Gretta let out a meow that sounded grumpy.

“No, we’re not going to climb it, but near the base of it, there used to be a few houses there, back when this was still the wild west,” he said. “It’s sort of a ghost town, or it would be if there had been more houses.”

Sofia’s eyes widened. “Are their cowboy ghosts?”

Rowan smiled. “If there are, I haven’t seen any. There’s not much there, but I keep some supplies hidden. It’s sort of where I live.”

“You live in a ghost town?”

“There are barely two boards still put together, so you’ll have to lower your expectations a little, but yeah, that’s where I live. I spend most of my time as a coyote, so I generally don’t need a roof, but we’ll find a way to make it comfortable for the three of us while we rest up.”

Rowan and Sofia started walking into the desert. Gretta let out an angry meow back near the car.

“Oh, sorry,” Rowan said, clicking the keyfob to lock the car.

Gretta ran to catch up, then sprinted past them into the desert, presumably to scout ahead.

“Do you think we can find my mom?” Sofia asked.

“I think so,” Rowan said. “We don’t know where she is, and we’ll need to get away from those people, but I’ll do everything I can to get you back to your mother.”

“My mom knows everything, and she probably knows we’re looking for her,” Sofia said. “I’ll bet she’s coming to get me right now.”

“She might, but she needs to be careful because there are many dangerous people around,” Rowan said.

“My mom is going to be so mad at them,” Sofia said.

Rowan’s smile was sad. “I believe that.”

As the sun set and the temperature dropped, Sofia grew tired. A fifty-pound child might not sound like much until you carry her a few miles, but the poor kid had been pushed as hard as the adults.

Rowan knew the surrounding desert better than anyone. He had spent years hunting and roaming this area as a coyote and knew every cactus, tree, and rock. Soon, they came to a dense scrub.

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“We’re here,” he said.

He led the way into the scrub, and nestled between them were piles of rocks that might have once been walls but would be unremarkable from a distance. One corner-shaped section of stacked rocks looked more like old walls than anything they had seen so far.

“You can shift back to human now if you’d like,” Rowan said to Gretta.

She stared at him and let out a meow.

He shrugged. “Or you can stay in cat form if you’d like, but you might have a tough time climbing a ladder. I suppose I can carry you down.”

She blinked at him.

He shrugged, walked over to a patch of dirt, and brushed off debris. Under the loose sand was sun-bleached wood. Rowan grabbed a corner and lifted it. A trap door with rusty iron hinges opened, revealing a musty cellar. A wooden ladder led down into the dark. The cellar’s floor was maybe five and a half feet down, meaning he had to duck while down there, but Gretta might barely be able to stand without hunching much.

“It smells,” Sofia said.

“It’s not too bad,” Rowan said. “A little musty, but we won’t have to worry about being spotted by planes overhead or people on ATVs. I keep some supplies here for emergencies—food, water, a blanket, and such..”

Gretta let out a meow again.

“It is not that bad, especially in human form,” Rowan said. “You’ll barely smell it.”

“I smell it,” Sofia said.

“Look, this is my home. I don’t have anywhere else to take you.”

“You live down there?” Sofia said.

“When I’m human,” Rowan said. “Sure, I spent more time as a coyote, but when I need a safe place to be or decide it’s nice to have hands for a few days, that’s where I live.”

Gretta blinked again.

He sighed. “I’m going to go and lay down. You two can stay here if you’d like,” he said.

Gretta and Sofia didn’t even know he was a god, and the degree to which they were unimpressed by his hovel was evident. All of the other immortals had their magical domains outside the realm of mortals that they could shape to their will. And Rowan? Rowan had a dusty old root cellar. His cellar wasn’t even impressive by the standard of a homeless person.

He climbed the ladder and found the small solar-powered lamp he used to light the place. He kept it charged, and while it wasn’t bright, it was better than pitch black when getting situated. The lamp sat on a blue plastic barrel near the ladder's base.

The cellar had old shelves along the walls, filled with jars that had been there since the house was abandoned. The shelves were made of heavy planks but bowed due to age and damage from termites and water. The space was big enough for a twin-sized foam mattress and a blue plastic barrel filled with his emergency supplies.

He unsealed the barrel, removed a wool blanket, a gallon jug of water, a bowl, and a few protein bars, and then resealed it. He put the blanket on the foam mattress and the water and bars on top of the barrel next to the lamp.

Sofia climbed down the ladder.

“Are there any animals in here?” she asked.

“Nothing here but you,” he said.

Gretta let out a meow from the top, looking down at him. So, he held out his hands, and she let him pick her up. He set her down on the mattress. Then he put the bowl on the ground near the mattress and poured water into it for her.

“Sofia, hand me your water bottle, please,” he said.

She obliged, and he filled her bottle.

Rowan smiled. “Drink some water and have a snack. I’ll keep a watch for trouble while you guys rest.”

“You are leaving us down here?” Sofia asked.

“It’s not big enough for three of us, and Gretta needs rest more than I do right now.” He took a swig from the water jug and then climbed the ladder.

“Uh, if you need to go to the bathroom before you sleep, let me know. There is some toilet paper in the barrel, and I can show you a spot to go.”

“I’ll hold it,” she said.

Rowan shrugged. “That lamp probably won’t have enough juice to last all night, but you are welcome to leave it on for as long as it’ll last.”

He started shutting the trap door.

“I’m scared,” Sofia said.

“You have Gretta, who is the strongest person I know,” Rowan said. “And I’ll be out here keeping an eye out for trouble. This door doesn’t lock, but it’s difficult to spot.”

Panic crept into Sofia’s voice. “What if they have dogs again?”

“Then I’ll lead them away,” he said. “Get some rest. You’ll be fine.”

He shut the trapdoor and heard Sofia whisper, “Tenebryn.”

He didn’t feel any magic and suspected she didn’t have enough strength left to cast the spell, but if saying it made her feel better, he was glad she knew the word. After brushing loose dirt back over the door, he used his remaining strength to shift into coyote form. He curled up in the corner the ruins of the wall made and laid his head down, waiting for danger.

Gretta and Sofia had been on the run for too long now, and now, he’d save his strength for when trouble found them. He wasn’t a fighter, but they had nowhere to go, and Gretta desperately needed time to recover. Gretta’s ability to heal her tiger form was paramount to Sofia’s survival. In a way, he was jealous of her healing ability.

As he lay there, listening to the desert night sounds, Rowan wondered if he’d ever take raven form again. He had no healing magic and thought of the void he had been in while last in raven form—that place in the astral between domains. Was that where death waited for him?