Jasper tapped his foot on the floor over and over, an anxious twitch he kept becoming conscious of, stopping, and then unconsciously starting again. The Winking Wizard was nearly empty on this dreary Monday evening. The weather gods must have been making up for the beautiful weather they’d granted over the weekend, because now the temperature had taken a nosedive, and a torrential rain had started. Not too many people wanted to come out to the bar on a Monday, anyway. But with the weather outside as bad as it was, Jasper was one of about four crazy people who had braved the storm to come get a pint.

Of course, he wasn’t really here for the Dragon’s Breath lager. He was here to see Julia, and he wished she’d hurry up. The clock had already passed the six o’clock mark, and he hadn’t heard from her at all. He’d come to the bar right after work, hoping she might show up just after five, since she would know that he’d be done at the Advocacy Bureau by then. He’d been disappointed when she wasn’t here, but he figured she’d show up soon enough, or at least text him to give him an estimated time of arrival. But so far, she’d been silent.

Jasper knew he was acting a bit like an obsessed teenager at the moment, but who could blame him? Julia was beautiful, and he knew deep in his soul that she was his lifemate. He had a burning desire to tell her this, and to find out whether she felt the same. He’d never pined for a girl before, but right now he was pining for Julia.

His pining continued for another hour, and he started to get worried. As the clock inched past seven and he still hadn’t heard from Julia, the nagging feeling that something was wrong began to grow stronger. He began to worry that she had somehow gotten into an accident. This rain could have made driving somewhat treacherous. The only other possibility at this point seemed to be that she was standing him up. It was late enough now that she should have at least let him know what time she planned to be there. They’d agreed to drinks after work, after all, and it had been two hours since work ended.

Jasper pulled out his phone and held it in his hand, staring at the screen and trying to decide whether he should text. He didn’t want to seem desperate, even though he was starting to feel desperate. He still had quite a bit of dragon pride, after all. He swiped to unlock his phone, then locked it again, then changed his mind and swiped to unlock it. He went back and forth several times before finally telling himself that he had to get a hold of himself. Now he really was acting like a foolish teenager. Grunting in frustration, he typed out a quick text and hit send before he could change his mind.

Hey! I hope you’re feeling a bit better? What time do you think you’ll make it to the WW?

He set his phone down on the table in front of him, telling himself to give her at least a few minutes to respond before getting too antsy. But almost as soon as he’d let go of the phone, it rang. In the nearly empty bar, the phone’s vibration against the hard wood of the table sounded unnaturally loud. Jasper saw Julia’s name flash onto the caller I.D. screen, and he reached for the phone so quickly that he nearly knocked it onto the floor. He managed to catch it though, and tried to sound casual as he answered, despite the fact that his heart felt like it was about to pound right out of his chest.

“Julia?”

“No, it’s Rachel. This is Jasper?”

Jasper’s heart dropped. The fact that Rachel was answering Julia’s phone instead of Julia herself only increased Jasper’s gut feeling that something wasn’t right. But he took a deep breath and told himself to stay calm. Dragons didn’t panic, after all. “Yeah, this is Jasper. What are you doing with Julia’s phone?”

“I have her purse. She…she…”

Rachel paused, her voice breaking. Even over the phone, Jasper could tell that she was fighting—and failing—to maintain control of her emotions.

“Rachel, what’s wrong?”

“She’s in the hospital, Jasper. She’s really sick. She called me at about four-thirty, telling me she thought something was wrong. She said when she tried to stand up she felt dizzy, that she felt nauseated, and that she had a weird tightness in her chest. I told her to call an ambulance if she felt that badly, but she didn’t want to. She said she had somewhere important to be tonight and that she’d tough it out. From your text just now I’m assuming that you were meeting with her?”

“Yeah, we were supposed to meet at the Winking Wizard after work.” Jasper was already standing up to leave the bar. He held his phone up to his ear with his shoulder so he could fish some cash out of his wallet to throw on the table to cover his tab. “She’s at the hospital? What’s wrong?”

So much for dragons not panicking. Jasper could feel the panic rising in his stomach right now. He had known deep down that something was wrong. Why had he ignored that feeling? His lifemate was in trouble. He started running toward the exit as Rachel answered him.

“The doctors don’t know. I went by her house to check on her because she stopped answering my texts. I wasn’t sure whether she was ignoring me because I was trying to get her to go to the hospital, or if something was really wrong. It’s a good thing I checked, because when I got to her place she was passed out in the middle of her kitchen.”

“Oh my god. Is she still unconscious?” Jasper was running toward his truck now, completely oblivious to the fact that the cold rain was quickly soaking him to the bone. He had to get to Julia.

“She’s completely out of it,” Rachel said, her voice breaking again. “I called an ambulance and stayed with her until they got there, of course. Then I grabbed her purse from the kitchen counter and drove to the hospital. I thought she might want her phone when she woke up.”

“But she’s still not awake?”

“No. The doctors says she’s feverish and in a coma. They don’t know what’s wrong with her, but they think it’s some sort of dark magic. It’s not a normal illness, Jasper. I’m really worried about her.”

“Which hospital is she at?” Jasper’s truck roared to life and he peeled out of the parking lot, leaving a spray of muddy rain water in his wake.

“Torch Lake Main. The doctors have called in a specialist from St. Merlin’s across town. Apparently there’s a doctor there who specializes in dark magic, and they think he might be able to tell what this is.”

“I’m coming to see her. What floor are you on?”

“Third. I’m in the waiting area on the third floor, outside of the magical emergencies department.”

“I’m on my way. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

The ten minute drive to the hospital felt like it took ten hours. Jasper’s heart was pounding, and his palms were sweaty as he zoomed through several stale yellow lights and drove way too fast on the roads that were slick with fresh rainwater. He knew he should slow down. It wouldn’t do anyone any good if he crashed his truck and ended up in the hospital, too. But he couldn’t think rationally right now. All he could think about was the fact that something was wrong with Julia. He felt bad for assuming earlier today that she’d only said she was tired because she was embarrassed over the incident with Kai. She must have already been getting sick at that point, and he had just misread the signs.

The hospital parking lot was packed, and Jasper was forced to park near the back row. He cursed as he killed his engine and hopped out, already at a run. Every second he wasted was another second that he wasn’t there with Julia, with his lifemate and the woman he loved more than anything. He hadn’t even had a chance to tell her how he felt about her, and now it sounded like her life might be in danger. How in the world had she been affected by dark magic? Surely, it hadn’t happened at work. The Advocacy Bureau was probably one of the safest places in Torch Lake. But who would have targeted her outside of work? Of course, Jasper thought she was really special. But she wasn’t some big name or important person that dark wizards would be motivated to attack. There were plenty of more “important” people in the city to go after if a dark wizard was here and wanted to cause harm. Any of the High Council members or dragon shifters, for example.

The deluge from the sky continued, and Jasper was once again soaked through as he ran from his car to the hospital entrance. Not that it mattered. He was still dripping wet from leaving the bar. He didn’t slow down as he reached the hospital entrance, which earned him several angry yells from the receptionist at the information desk.

“Hey! Excuse me, sir! You’re tracking water everywhere. Please, stop! And besides, you need to check in. All visitors need a badge!”

Jasper ignored her and ran to the stairwell, where he quickly started taking the stairs two at a time up to the third floor. He had more important things to worry about right now than wet floors and visitor badges.

When he burst into the third floor waiting room, he immediately saw Rachel, who was sobbing into her hands. Rachel’s lifemate, Jake, was here now, too, and had his arm around Rachel. Jake felt his heart dropping, and the world felt like it was spinning.

“Is she still alive?” he asked, his heart tightening in his chest as he took in the grim, sorrowful faces of Rachel and Jake. The two of them did not look happy, and for a moment Jasper feared the worst. Rachel looked up at him with a tearstained face, and he held his breath as she tried to choke out an answer.

“Sh-she’s still a-alive. B-but…” Rachel broke down into complete sobs then, and Jake held her tighter.

“But what?” Jasper asked, trying to be sensitive to how upset Rachel was, but too upset himself to remain calm. Whatever was going on was not good.

It was Jake who finally answered. “Come sit down, man.”

Jasper came to sit on the row of waiting room chairs across from them, his feet squeaking on the tile of the hospital room floor as he did. He left a trail of water in his wake, but he hardly noticed. His mind was only focused on one thing right now: what was wrong with Julia?

“I got here right after Rachel finished talking to you, as did the doctor who specializes in dark magic. It only took him about two minutes to figure out what was going on.”

Jasper felt his chest tightening up again. “So it was dark magic?”

“Yes. He said she’s suffering from an ancient curse that sterilizes magic.”

“Sterilizes magic? What does that mean?” Jasper could take a guess, but he didn’t want to believe that this might be happening to Julia.

“It means that whoever suffers from the curse loses their ability to do magic,” Rachel said between sniffles.

Jasper felt like the floor had fallen out from underneath him. He might not be a wizard himself, but it didn’t take a genius to realize that losing one’s magical ability was one of the worst things that could happen to a wizard. It would be especially bad for someone like Julia, whose entire career depended on the use of magic. Everything she had worked so hard to achieve at the Advocacy Bureau would be lost. She could not become an Advocacy Defender without magical abilities. Jasper felt his heart breaking for Julia. He knew her career meant the world to her. She had poured her whole life into it. It didn’t seem right that it could all be snatched from her in an instant. He hopped to his feet and started pacing like a wild animal caught in a cage.

“Surely, there’s a cure for that? A magic spell or a wizard potion that can fix the problem?”

He knew, of course, by the way Rachel had reacted to the news that there was no cure. Or at least not a reliable one. She wouldn’t be sobbing in Jake’s arms if there was an easy fix to this.

Jake was once again the one to answer. He looked up at Jasper and shook his head sadly. “There’s no known cure. The doctor said a small percentage of people manage to fight off the curse on their own, but that usually those people don’t go into a coma like Julia has. He said that it looks like, unfortunately, she’s not one of the lucky ones with the natural ability to fight this off. There’s nothing they can do except make her comfortable and try to keep the pain down with meds.”

“There’s also a chance she could outright die from the fever and other side effects,” Rachel said in another choked sob. “The doctor said thirty percent of people die in the first twenty-four hours.”

Jasper felt anger, frustration, and despair all tearing at his heart. He knew Julia would probably rather die if she was going to lose her magic. But he couldn’t bear the thought of losing her. “How did this happen?” he roared. “Have dark wizards infiltrated Torch Lake again?”

It seemed like no matter how much security was tightened, dark magic always crept in. But why had Julia been a victim here? She was one of the brightest, most promising citizens in Torch Lake, but not many people knew that. How had the dark wizards figured it out?

Jake cleared his throat, agony etched in his face. “It wasn’t a dark wizard. At least, the doctor doesn’t think that’s the most likely possibility.”

Jasper frowned. “If this is a dark magic curse, then how could it not be a dark wizard? Surely, no one could accidentally perform a dark magic spell.”

Jake shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “This particular curse isn’t usually caused by a wizard casting a spell. It’s caused by coming into contact with a cursed object.”

It took a few beats for Jasper to process what Jake had just said. But then in a flash, it all came rushing back to him. The look on Kai’s face when Julia had touched one of the balls in his precious pile. He hadn’t been angry merely because she’d been touching his things. He’d been angry because he’d known the balls were cursed.

“Oh my god,” Jasper said sinking weakly back into his chair. “I know what happened.”

“You do? What?” Jake asked sitting up even as Jasper slumped down. “The doctor is assuming she came into contact with something at the Advocacy Bureau, although security protocols should have kept that from happening. But nothing else makes sense. There aren’t many places in town where cursed objects might be stored, and the Advocacy Bureau is one of those places. And since Julia works there…”

Jasper nodded as Jake trailed off. Then he explained to them what happened earlier in the day. Jake and Rachel looked back at him with growing looks of shock.

“Are you sure that’s what happened?” Jake asked when Jasper finished. “I can’t believe that a top-level senior Advocate would be so careless with cursed objects!”

Jasper shrugged wearily. “I can’t be sure. But that’s the explanation that makes the most sense.”

His heart felt like a lead weight in his chest. He couldn’t keep himself from feeling like this was somehow all his fault. He knew it was irrational, but he also knew that Julia wouldn’t have been in that room with the cursed balls if she hadn’t been working with him to give him a tour. Somehow this made him feel responsible. He rubbed his temples and closed his eyes, trying to think. Now was not the time to fall into some sort of self-blaming spiral. Now was not the time to panic. There must be some way to fix this. There was always a fix, if you thought creatively enough. But Jasper was worried that he didn’t understand magic and curses well enough to come up with a realistic solution.

“I have to talk to the doctor, and I have to see Julia,” Jasper said, suddenly hopping to his feet.

“They’re not letting anyone in the room,” Jake said gently. “And the doctor is still on the phone with the Advocacy Bureau, as far as I know.”

“I don’t care. I need to talk to him. And I’d like to see them try to keep me away from Julia.” Jasper knew he had no right to Julia. They weren’t family. They hadn’t been friends long. They weren’t even officially dating. But he didn’t care. He knew in his heart that she was his lifemate, and that was reason enough for him. Even if she was in a coma, he had to see her for at least a few moments. He knew if he held her hand in his, she would sense his presence. She might not know what lifemates were, or that Jasper was her lifemate, but she would know there was someone there who would fight tooth and nail for her, and for her magic.

Jasper didn’t wait for another protest from Jake or Rachel. He ran straight toward the visitor information desk that was a few dozen feet down the hallway from the waiting area. The receptionist was facing away from Jasper and didn’t hear him approaching. She was too busy eavesdropping on a man in a white doctor’s jacket, who was deep in conversation on one of the desk’s many telephones. Jasper had been intending to ask for information on Julia’s room number, but when he saw the doctor, he realized that this must be the specialist who had diagnosed Julia. Jasper slowed his walk and started eavesdropping, too. He desperately wanted to know what was going on.

“She displays all the classic signs of it, yes. I’d get those balls quarantined and away from all humans as quickly as possible.”

The doctor paused as the person on the other end spoke, then nodded slowly and resumed speaking.

“Well, yes. I mean, I am not a legal expert so I can’t tell you what to do there. But I would definitely take Kai in for questioning. It seems he might have some breaches of security protocol to answer for. But most importantly, we need to know everything he can possibly tell us about those balls. The more we know, the better our chances of helping Julia.”

Another pause, then the doctor resumed again.

“Right. Well I did tell Julia’s friends who are here that the odds of her recovering without losing her magic are astronomically low. But there is one doctor I know of who has been doing some experimental treatments for this sort of thing. I don’t know if he’s had any success, but if there’s a chance at all of helping Julia, he’d be the one who could do it.”

Another pause. Jasper’s heart pounded as he waited for the doctor to speak again. If there was a chance of saving Julia, however small it was, they had to try!

“Well, that’s because he’s kind of, um, eccentric,” the doctor was saying. “He’s been quite belligerent in the past when people tried to tell him he needs to do a better job of adhering to the Shifter and Wizard medical code of ethics. His sometimes shady antics have made it difficult to take him seriously. Still, he’s the only one I know of who might be able to help Julia.”

Another pause.

“No, no. He’s a shifter, from a shifter clan, so he’s relatively new at dealing with magical medicine. Most of his theories are unproven, but he’s still the best chance Julia would have. My understanding is his clan started accepting wizards after the Great Dark War, and that’s how he got interested in magical medicine. He’s spent all his spare time learning about it and trying to develop new cures.”

Another, longer pause.

“Yeah. We should try, at least. He’s from the clan that famous dragon shifter saved. What was the guy’s name? Something with a J? Jasper?”

A short pause. Jasper’s eyes had widened. It wasn’t possible was it? They were talking about his old clan? Which meant the doctor they were talking about, the only one who could save Julia was…

“Harry Pasko. I should give him a call now, actually. Time is running out. The longer the curse is in Julia’s body, the less chance the experimental cure will work.”

The doctor said a few more things to whoever was on the other line, but Jasper no longer heard him. His whole head was ringing with the reverberations of two words: Harry Pasko.

Dr. Pasko was the doctor who had so uncaringly sued Jasper for payment after Jasper saved the whole clan but couldn’t pay for his medical treatment. The very sound of his name made Jasper’s entire being twitch with rage. Jasper hated his whole former clan for how they had repaid him for his heroism, but he hated Dr. Pasko most of all.

How was it possible that the person he hated most in the world might be the only one who could save the person he loved most in the world?

Jasper barely had a second to ponder the question before the receptionist turned around and noticed him standing there.

“Can I help you, sir?” she asked, squinting at him as if trying to place who he was. Jasper had seen this look before. It was the look someone gave him when they recognized him as someone famous but couldn’t quite place who he was. In that moment he made a split-second decision. He was going to do whatever it took to save Julia, and he would start by using his fame to get him some special favors. He normally hated doing that, but he wasn’t above special treatment if it meant saving his lifemate’s magic.

“Hi, Penny,” he said, glancing at the nametag the receptionist was wearing and flashing her a brilliant smile. “I’m Jasper. Jasper Moffatt. I need a big favor, if you don’t mind.”

He watched as Penny realized who he was, and her eyes widened. She glanced behind her for a moment to see whether the doctor had realized who was in the room with them, but the doctor was already busy making his next phone call. “J-Jasper Moffatt!” Penny explained. “What an honor to meet you. I’m such a big fan. I mean, I’ve been following your story since before the war ended. And when you came to Torch Lake I was so excited I could hardly stand it! What do you need? I’ll do whatever I can!”

Jasper’s smile deepened. “Thanks, Penny. It’s just one thing. I know there are strict rules on visitors here, but I need access to Julia Nalley’s room.”

Penny was already nodding and reaching for a visitor pass. “Of course. That’s no problem. I’ll just give you a pass and the security code to the room. I’m sure no one will mind if Jasper Moffatt wants to visit! Are you friends with her? Oh, she’s so lucky!”

Penny kept talking a mile a minute, and Jasper couldn’t help but think that it seemed a bit ridiculous to call Julia lucky at the moment. Losing your magic, and potentially your life, didn’t exactly seem lucky. But Jasper only smiled and let Penny keep talking, until he had the visitor pass and security code in hand. Then he quickly thanked Penny and left the star-struck girl behind as he raced toward the room number on his visitor badge. If time was of the essence, he wasn’t going to waste a single second. Before the doctor here even finished yakking on the phone with Dr. Pasko, Jasper would have taken matters into his own hands.

For Julia’s sake, he was about to bury some very old, very painful grudges.