Ariel turned around when she heard one of the dragons shouting behind her. Jett had collapsed to the ground.

“No!” Ariel ran to him. She suddenly felt terrible for making fun of his apparent tiredness earlier. What if it was more than tiredness? What if—

And then Jett coughed blood.

“Oh no, no no no,” Ariel said. She wrapped her arms around him. “Jett, my Jett. What’s happening?”

When he looked at her, his eyes were so sad that Ariel couldn’t help but cry.

“What is it?” she tried again.

“My lioness,” Jett said. He seemed barely able to keep his eyes open. “It seems... I must bid you farewell.”

“Never!” Ariel said. She cradled his head in her arms. “My dragon. My life. My love. You can’t die. Not now. Not after everything. If you die, this was all for nothing. All of it.”

“I’m sorry,” Jett said. “I tried... my lioness. I really tried.”

“What is it?” Ariel said. “Where are you hurt?”

He weakly lifted his shirt, revealing the terrible pitch black, festering wound on the beautiful skin of his side. Dark veins spread outward from the septic pustule, crawling up his skin, forming an evil looking spider web around the black core. Some of those veins had already reached his heart.

“Oh my God, this can’t be happening!” Ariel said. “My Jett. What have you done? Why didn’t you go see Ephephany immediately?”

“There was… battle to fight,” Jett managed. “Didn’t know… how bad it was.”

“Someone get Ephephany!” Ariel shouted. “Jett needs healing!”

A few of the dutiful dragons bounded off.

“It should have healed by now,” one of the bystanders said.

“It’s some sort of poison,” Gwendoline said, the terror evident in her eyes. “Obviously designed to circumvent dragon healing.”

Jett coughed again, spewing more blood, this time tinted a darker red that was almost black. Ariel didn’t care. She let the liquid splash all over her. She was covered in blood already anyway.

My poor dragon…!

Jett closed his eyes and his breathing began to slow.

“Open your eyes!” Ariel said. She slapped him in the face, feeling a mixture of anger and terror. “Open them, my dragon!” She was tearing up. She hit him again. “Damn you, don’t give up on me Jett! You told me you’d go to the gates of hell for me!”

She was about to slap him again, but then he opened his eyes a crack and smiled sadly. “It seems… that is exactly where I’m going.”

His eyes rolled up in his head and his breathing stopped.

Ariel stared at him. She hit him again. And again.

But he didn’t respond.

Jett was gone. Not even Ephephany could save him now. Witches could not Heal death.

All of this was for nothing, like Ariel had said. There was no point in going on.

It wasn’t supposed to end like this.

She and Jett were going to live happily ever after. Have dragon-lion babies.

Now all of that was gone.

She squeezed her hands into knots in his hair. “Jett.”

The absolute sadness was replaced by an overpowering anger, and she tore her fists from his hair, ripping his beautiful locks away.

“How dare you give up on me!” she shouted. “How dare you! I never gave up on you, not once!”

Ariel swallowed hard, trying to get her emotions under control. Jett hadn’t given up on her. He had kept himself alive, willing his body to endure long enough to see her after the battle, just one last time. Just once. That’s all he wanted before he died. His death was entirely beyond his control, as it is for most people.

The thought made fresh tears well.

“I’m not going to let you leave me so easily, my dragon,” she whispered into his ear. “You’re mine, and don’t you forget it. I didn’t give you permission to go. I love you. And I always will.”

She bent over and kissed those lips, ignoring the black blood that stained them. She didn’t care. She wanted him to feel her touch, if a part of him was still alive inside.

And then she breathed into his mouth, giving him the breath of life. Using her CPR training, she repeatedly pressed against his chest, willing his heart to beat.

“I love you,” she whispered into his ear before breathing inside his mouth again.

Her words and actions must have sparked some last strength inside Jett, because his chest began to rise and fall once more.

Hope welled inside of her.

“Come on, my dragon,” Ariel encouraged him.

But he didn’t return to consciousness. His breathing was strained, wheezing, and seemed to be growing weaker with each moment. Some of those black veins had emerged from his collar and were moving up his neck now, crawling toward his face. Left on his own, she knew Jett wouldn’t last for much longer. The poison had penetrated too deep.

But now at least there was a chance he could be Healed. Unfortunately, she knew Ephephany would never get here in time, especially if there were surviving members of the Black Guard still confining her.

Ariel forced the tears away and steeled her resolve.

Jett hadn’t given up. That he was breathing once more was testament to that. She wasn’t going to give up, either.

She was going to save Jett.

She had forgotten who she was: one of the most powerful non-dragon witches this world had ever seen, according to Gwendoline, and others in the Steel Tower who had trained her.

Yes, Ariel knew she had it in her to Heal him. If anyone could do it, she could. She essentially knew the Weave, after all, thanks to Mathis. She’d just never tried it on anything other than a rotten apple before.

She retrieved the severed arm that she had dropped, and wrapped her fingers around the Strength bracelets, trying to touch as many of them at once as possible. Then she reached inside. She could feel the Strength waiting just beyond the bone, but she couldn’t touch it. She was simply too weary after all that fighting. And the magic suppression in this place wasn’t helping, either.

She considered having Jett moved outside the city, to the shoulder of the mountain, but she doubted he’d last long enough. Already those dark veins had reached his face.

She began to despair, but she quickly banished the feeling, knowing that would only make things worse. She would touch the Strength. She would, if it killed her!

Swallowing, and closing her eyes a moment to steady herself, she reached deeper inside herself, searching for the stamina she needed. Then she tried Siphoning through the dragon bones once more.

No good.

She tossed the arm aside, frustrated.

“I’m sorry, Jett, I can’t do it,” she said.

As she stared at his face, his sweet, tender face, watching his breath come in ever weaker wheezes, she realized she didn’t need the arm with its lifeless dragon bone bracelets.

All she needed to touch the Strength was within Jett himself. His living bones.

She wasn’t sure this would work, but she tried anyway.

She rested a gentle palm on his forehead, where the skull was essentially covered only in skin. It was the thinnest bone-skin barrier in all the body. If there was anywhere she could reach through his dragon bones, it would be the forehead.

She searched for the Strength. There, a glimmer, in the frontal bone of his skull. She reached into the bone and found the Strength. Still she couldn’t touch it. She took a long breath, and delved deep inside herself to a reserve well of stamina she didn’t know she had—she had to if she wanted to save the man she cherished more than anything.

And then she touched the Strength.

A river of power swept though her. It was weaker than the amount of Strength she usually Siphoned from other dragon bones, but that was because Jett had no ability to Siphon himself, and was not a witch. She knew she’d find some Strength inside him, though, as all dragons had a little magic in them—it was what let them transform, after all.

Ariel dismissed her wondering thoughts. She had work to do.

From the river of Strength she extracted the necessary affinities, replacing Earth with Life, and recreated the healing Weave Mathis had taught her from memory.

As she worked, she remembered the exploding apples… one mistake and she would be the one to kill the man she loved, not the poison. And so she Weaved with a concentration rooted in devoted love, Weaved as if her life depended on it, because in fact it did: if he died, so would she shortly thereafter, from a broken heart.

When she was done the complicated Strengthwork, she rested it on the source of his affliction—the black wound in his side—and waited for it to take. She held her breath, terrified that she had made a mistake.

Nothing seemed to happen at first. But as the seconds passed, the veins on his face reversed their course, retreating. Soon the spiderweb around the wound was receding, and in moments was gone entirely. The blackness in the wound faded to red, and seconds later it too sealed up. It was almost like watching a video playing in reverse.

She hadn’t expected it to work so quickly, but it was likely the Weave acted in concert with his own dragon healing, speeding the process. In moments all that was left was a puckering red scar, and even that was beginning to fade, already turning pink.

Jett opened his eyes.

“My dragon!” Ariel wrapped her arms around him and lifted his upper body to him. She kissed him on the lips. She had never seen such a sight so beautiful as the opening of those eyes. The utter relief she felt after everything she had been through was indescribable.

He kissed her right back. Powerfully.

She choked up. She couldn’t help it.

When he released her, he said: “What’s wrong? What happened?”

She smiled through the tears and answered each question in turn: “Nothing. Everything.” She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tight. “Love you love you love you. Never do that again.”