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The boy didn't flinch. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a heavy, dirt-stained handkerchief. He unfolded it to reveal a handful of raw, uncut garnets and a gold dental bridge.

"Keep your gold. If it rains by Tuesday, you owe me. If it doesn't, you keep the stone to remind you why we leave the desert."

Elias watched him go, then turned back to his workbench. He didn't believe in the stone, but as he looked out the window, he noticed the horizon. For the first time in three months, the air felt heavy, and the far-off mountains were fading behind a curtain of bruised, turquoise gray.

The dust in Elias’s shop didn’t settle; it hovered, suspended in the shafts of desert light like powdered bone. He wasn’t a jeweler by trade, but a seeker of "old sky"—the high-grade, spider-webbed turquoise from mines that had long since collapsed into the Nevada silt.

"No," the boy replied, his eyes fixed on the blue. "It's a promise."

"I need to buy turquoise," the boy said. His voice was thin, but steady.