CHAPTER 26
Mallory
Mallory drifted in and out of awareness as Jakob moved her around. Her body wouldn’t respond enough so she could find out where they were going.
Jakob’s arms were locked around her, strong and unyielding, as if his grip alone could keep her blood inside her body.
Each step jarred her wounds and sent white-hot pain streaking through her ribs and shoulder.
She tried to tell him she was still alive and wanted to tell him not to look so afraid, but not even her mouth would cooperate.
The world narrowed to fragments. Shadows that leapt along vaulted walls, and Jakob’s voice, rough and breaking as he called for the healers.
Then hands were on her to lift her from Jakob’s arms and onto a narrow bed. The scent of crushed herbs filled her lungs, sharp and familiar, tugging at something buried deep in her mind.
She slipped under again.
When Mallory surfaced, the ceiling swam above her, blurred by tears she didn’t remember shedding. Pain pulsed in steady waves, but it was muted now and dulled by magic and medicine.
“She’s losing less blood,” a woman’s voice said gently. “The spell is holding.”
Mallory turned her head, slow and heavy, and saw her.
White hair pulled into a neat bun. Deep lines around sharp, kind eyes. A familiar tilt of the head that made something click into place inside her chest.
Ingrid.
The name came to her all at once and with it, a flood of memory so vivid it stole her breath.
Fur and teeth and screaming. Jakob saving her. Waking up in this very room, terrified and shaking while Ingrid pressed a warm cloth to her forehead and told her she was safe. That she was brave. That healing took time, but it always came.
Flying.
Mallory sucked in a sharp breath. She had flown.
“I know this place,” she whispered.
Ingrid froze mid-motion. “You… do?”
Jakob was suddenly at her side again with one hand gripping the edge of the bed as if it were the only thing keeping him upright. “Mallory?”
She swallowed hard, her throat burning. “The cat. After the attack. I was here before.” Her gaze locked on Ingrid’s face, details sharpening as recognition settled. “You stayed with me all night.”
Ingrid’s eyes softened with wonder. “You remembered,” she said quietly. “That hasn’t happened before.”
Mallory shook her head but the movement made her dizzy. “I didn’t… not until now. It just came back. All of it.”
Ingrid pressed her lips together and emotion flickered across her face. “Memory returns when the heart is ready,” she murmured, then squeezed Mallory’s hand. “Rest. I’ll let you talk, but not for long.”
She stepped away to give Jakob space.
Mallory turned her head toward him, every movement an effort. His face was pale, jaw tight, and eyes rimmed red with something dangerously close to grief.
“I know,” she said.
Jakob stilled. “Know what?”
“The truth,” she whispered. “About you. About flying.”
She watched the fear in his eyes and it broke her heart. She reached up and cupped the side of his face. “I’m sorry I didn’t remember flying when you saved me from the cat. I should have remembered.”
He kissed her fingers. “There’s no way you could have, as accident prone as you are.”
She snorted. “Please don’t make me laugh.”
He brushed hair from her head. “Only royals are dragons. I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t. I wouldn’t have been able to survive it if you had rejected me.”
“So, Sven is a dragon, too?”
Jakob nodded.
“Is Bryn?”
“No, she’s just like you. Human with a twist of magic.”
“What does that mean?”
He kissed the tip of her nose. “It means there’s something very special about both of you ladies. Especially you, as far as I’m concerned.”
“I’ll bet Sven says that about Bryn, too.”
He grinned but instantly sobered. “I’m sorry about your sister.”
She turned away from him. The name cracked open her chest.
Jakob’s shoulders sagged slightly, as though he’d been carrying the weight of that moment for years. “Mallory—”
“She was my whole childhood,” Mallory said finally, her voice rougher than she meant it to be. She turned her head just enough to look at him. “Not in a dramatic way, just… literally. If you asked me who I was up until two-ish years ago, the answer would’ve been Meg’s little sister.”
Jakob’s mouth tilted into a small, careful smile. “That doesn’t sound like the worst thing.”
Mallory huffed softly. “It wasn’t. Not even a little.”
She shifted against the pillows. “She’s four years older, which when you’re a kid feels like a lifetime.
But Meg never acted like I was annoying.
She never told me to go away.” Mallory swallowed as memories assaulted her.
“She taught me how to ride a bike but let go of the seat before I was ready. I still have the scar on my knee from when I wiped out and she cried harder than I did.”
Jakob’s gaze flicked to her knee under the blanket, then back to her face.
“We shared a room until I was fifteen,” Mallory went on. “Tiny thing. Twin beds pushed together because neither of us liked the space in between. We’d whisper after lights-out, make up stories about the people in town. Decide who was secretly in love with who. Plan our great escapes.”
She smiled despite herself.
“We were bad influences on each other,” she admitted. “Sneaking out, skipping school, stealing fries off strangers’ plates at the diner If one of us thought of something stupid, the other would say, ‘Okay, but hear me out.’”
Jakob let out a quiet humph.
“That was Meg’s favorite phrase,” Mallory said. “She said it right before everything. Good ideas, bad ideas, it didn’t matter. As long as we were together.”
Her fingers curled into the blanket. The room seemed to shrink, like it always did when she got this far.
“She knew me better than anyone,” Mallory said. “I didn’t have to explain myself to her. Ever. If I was mad, she knew why. If I was scared, she already had a plan.” Her voice softened. “And if I screwed up, she stood in front of me and took the hit.”
Jakob shifted in his chair, something tightening behind his eyes.
“She wasn’t perfect,” Mallory said quickly, as if that mattered. “She could be reckless. Stubborn. She hated being told what to do.” A pause. “But she loved fiercely. That’s why it felt so strange when things started changing. Not wrong at first. Just… different.”
Jakob didn’t prompt her. He didn’t rush her. He waited.
“It was the boyfriend,” Mallory said quietly. “The last one. Before she disappeared.” The words sat heavy in her chest. “Before him, it was always Meg and me against the world. After him…” She shook her head. “It was like there was suddenly a door between us. Not locked. Just closed.”
Her throat tightened. “And I didn’t know how to knock on it. And then two years ago, poof. She was gone.”
Silence stretched between them, thick but not uncomfortable. Jakob reached out and took her hand.
Mallory let out a slow breath. “That’s the part people don’t get,” she said. “When Meg vanished, it wasn’t just losing my sister.” Her eyes burned, but she kept going. “It was losing the person who remembered every version of me that ever existed.”
She finally looked at Jakob again. “So when I say I need to find out what happened to her,” she said, steady now, “it’s not because I’m stuck in the past.”
Jakob met her gaze, unwavering.
“It’s because half of my life just… walked away one day,” Mallory finished.
“Without a word and without a thought of how it would affect me. And now she left me after I got shot,” Mallory said with her tears spilling freely now.
“I stepped in front of her to protect her, and yet when I was shot, she ran as if she had pulled the trigger. I can tell myself there has to be another explanation, but there isn’t.
” Her breath hitched. “My sister is the enemy.”
Saying it out loud hurt worse than the bullet.
Jakob closed his eyes briefly, then leaned closer, careful not to jostle her. “I’m so sorry,” he said, voice low and steady. “I don’t know what to say.”
Mallory laughed weakly, a broken sound. “At least now I know I wasn’t crazy. And at least…” She took a shuddering breath. “At least I know why everything felt wrong.”
Jakob nodded once. “Meg will have to be brought to justice,” he said gently but firmly. “No matter who she is. It’s my duty.”
“I know,” Mallory said. The acceptance surprised her with its solidity. “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t destroy me.”
Silence stretched between them, heavy but honest.
Mallory reached for him with trembling fingers. Jakob took her hand instantly and pressed it to his chest.
“I need to tell you something,” she said. “Because when I thought I was dying, when everything started to go dark, I realized I couldn’t bear it if you never knew.”
His breath caught.
“I love you,” Mallory said simply. “And I would have been haunted forever if I hadn’t said it.”
Jakob bent forward and rested his forehead against her hand with his eyes shut tight. For a moment, he couldn’t speak.
Then he looked at her with his emotions raw and open.
“I will fight for you,” he said. “For us. I swear it.” His thumb brushed over her knuckles, reverent. “And I will find a way forward that doesn’t cost you your family. I don’t know how yet but I will not stop trying.”
Mallory exhaled and something inside her finally loosened.
He rubbed her face. “And I love you, too.”
For the first time since the gunshot, she believed there might still be a future waiting on the other side of the pain.
And she let herself rest in that hope, with Jakob’s hand in hers, as the healers worked to send her back to the world.