“Gin,” Jo-Jo prodded in a soft voice.

I nodded, then tightened my grip and slid the knife out of Owen’s chest as quickly and gently as I could.

Blood gushed up out of the wound but not nearly as much as there would have been if Lorelei and I hadn’t used our Ice magic to stop the bleeding. The knife slipped out of my fingers and clattered to the floor. Finn grabbed the weapon, while Bria took hold of my shoulders and moved me back out of the way so Jo-Jo and Cooper could resume their work.

The feel of Jo-Jo’s Air magic flooded the room, and everyone stood absolutely quiet and still again, not daring to move or do anything to interrupt her concentration. Seconds passed and turned into minutes, and I stayed rooted in place, as cold and frozen as Owen’s heart.

The gushing blood slowed to a trickle, then stopped. The milky-white glow of Jo-Jo’s Air power burned as bright as a star in the center of Owen’s chest, and streaks of coppery red flickered in the mass of magic as Cooper poured his own power into healing Owen. With their combined strength, the jagged edges of the knife wound closed together, and the mark faded away completely.

But there was still more work to be done thawing out the rest of him.

Ten minutes later, Jo-Jo slumped forward in her chair, the milky-white glow snuffing out of her eyes and fading from the palm of her hand. The wound on Owen’s chest was healed, and his skin, while still pale, was a more normal color, free of the frozen crystals of my Ice magic.

Jo-Jo got up and gestured for me to take her seat next to him. I sank down onto the chair and clutched his hand, a sigh escaping my lips when I felt the warmth of his skin. I leaned closer, expecting his eyes to flutter open and for him to make some teasing remark about how I’d almost killed him.

Nothing happened.

Owen’s eyes remained closed, although his chest rose and fell with a steady rhythm. Worry shot through me, and I wondered if I’d used too much Ice magic on him after all.

“I’ve repaired the damage from the knife wound and raised his body temperature back up to where it should be,” Jo-Jo said.

“But?”

“But he was right on the edge of death when you froze him, and he lost a lot of blood.” She bit her lip. “Maybe too much blood.”

“What about giving him a transfusion?” I asked, throwing my hand out wide and gesturing at my friends. “Surely one of us here has the same blood type as his.”

The dwarf shook her head. “It’s not that simple. One of us might have the same blood type, but nobody else has metal magic. I’m worried that Owen will have a bad reaction if I try to give him someone else’s blood, especially blood that contains a different kind of elemental magic. He’s so weak right now that it might kill him outright.”

I knew she was right, that we couldn’t take the risk, but frustration pulsed through my body all the same. I felt so damn useless right now. The knowledge that there was nothing I could do to help Owen burned through my heart like acid.

“Will he wake up?” I whispered. “Did I kill him after all?”

Jo-Jo gave me a helpless look. “I don’t know, darling. Let’s give it a few hours and see. Okay? He’s been through a hard trauma. Maybe his brain just needs a little time to catch up with his body.”

I nodded and dropped my head so no one would see the tears scalding my eyes and streaking down my face.

Jo-Jo reached down, took hold of my injured arm, and used her magic to heal my own wounds. It only took a minute. She laid her hand on my shoulder a moment, then left. The others followed, and Bria shut the doors behind them, so that I was the only one left with Owen in the salon.

I gripped his hand in mine, waiting for him to open his eyes. But he didn’t, and I didn’t know when he would—if ever.

More tears streaked down my cheeks, but I scooted my chair up as close as possible to Owen, tightened my grip on his hand, and willed him to wake up with all the love I had.

24

For a long time, I sat by Owen’s side, my gaze locked on his face, my body rigid and tense, ready to run and get Jo-Jo at the slightest sign that something was wrong and that he was getting worse.

He still looked far too pale, but his breathing remained clear and even, his chest rising and falling in a reassuring rhythm. Every once in a while, his closed eyes would twitch, as though he were squinting at something only he could see. I wondered what he was dreaming about. I hoped that it was something good—and anything other than what had happened to him tonight.

His steady, continued breathing slowly lulled me into relaxing and putting my head down on his shoulder. The tension leaked out of my body, and I found myself sinking into my own dreams, my own memories . . .

I stared down at Renaldo Pike’s body, his own mace still sticking out of his back.

“You killed him,” Lorelei whispered. “You actually killed him.”

I grunted and cradled my broken wrist to my chest. I hadn’t killed him so much as I’d gotten lucky and survived him, but I’d let her think what she wanted.

Lorelei got to her feet and hobbled over to her father. She stared at him with wide, frightened eyes, as if she were afraid that he was going to leap up like a zombie and attack her again. Maybe he was a zombie to her—a nightmare that just kept coming back no matter how many times you tried to forget about it.

Footsteps crashed through the trees. My heart lifted, and I hoped it was Fletcher or one of the Deveraux sisters, but instead, a boy ran into the clearing. Black hair, blue eyes, handsome face. I knew at once that it was Raymond, who’d wrecked Sophia’s convertible with her, Jo-Jo, and Fletcher inside.