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“No,” I cry, pressing both hands around the wound as if I can push the blood back inside him, as if I can hold him together with my fingers. “No, no, no, Arlo!”

His knees buckle, and I go down with him.

We hit the deck hard, his weight half against me, my hands slipping in blood while I try to keep pressure where there is no safe place to press.

“Help him,” I scream, looking around wildly. “Somebody help!”

The battle is still happening. Cannons still fire. Men shouting while the dragon still circles above.

But all I can see is Arlo’s face, the way his eyes struggle to focus, the way blood keeps filling his mouth no matter how many times he tries to swallow.

“Ali,” he gurgles then coughs, spraying my face with his blood.

“Don’t talk,” I sob, pressing harder, my magic rising so violently that gold light bursts under my palms.

I reach for my magic, trying to heal him, but with the steel still inside him, I have no way to heal around it. The wound is too deep, and taking it out will only make the bleeding come faster.

I push harder when I start looking for Kylian. I need his blood, anyone’s blood.

“Ali,” Arlo coughs, drawing my attention back to him.

“No,” I choke, my hands glowing brighter, my arms shaking from the force of it. “No, you are not doing this to me.”

Eagan’s voice cuts through the deck from somewhere behind me.

“The other ship is retreating.”

I barely hear him.

“Get Kylian,” I scream, though the bond has gone wild inside my chest, already dragging him toward me.

Kylian appears beside me before the words finish leaving my mouth.

He drops to his knees, eyes blazing, one hand going to Arlo’s throat, the other gripping the blood-soaked fabric around the wound.

For one second, his expression is impossible to read.

Then he looks at me.

And I know.

I shake my head before he says anything.

“No,” I breathe, voice breaking. “Do not look at me like that.”

“Alessia,” he says, and there is something in his voice I have never heard before.

“No,” I scream, my magic flaring so violently that the deck beneath us cracks, light bursting through the boards in thin gold lines. “Fix him.”

Kylian’s jaw tightens.

Eagan reaches us a breath later, sliding to his knees on Arlo’s other side, his hands already moving, already trying to find some way to help.

Arlo coughs, and the jolt of the action causes blood from his wound to spill over my fingers.

“Stay with me,” I beg, bending over him, my tears falling onto his face. His eyes find mine again, and the pain in them is awful because it is not fear.

“Ali,” he whispers again.