People gathered around her, and all was confusion and mayhem. Some shouted for a physician. Some cried to give her air. Some thought she’d been hit by an arrow and they ran to the window to see who fired. Others ran away from the window to see what was happening. In the midst of the chaos, Anora felt her dragon form start to flee the dying body. In moments, claws would erupt from delicate little hands. Scales would glisten in the place of smooth, fair skin. The simpering mouth would elongate and fill with razor teeth. She could not stop it. She had to accept it. She had to decide what to do and quickly, for she was in danger. It would take time to shift from the human form into the dragon. During that time, she would be vulnerable to attack.

The one weapon she had was her magic, for she could cast spells in either the human form or dragon, though the dragon was far more powerful. Yet, even using the magic required her to wait until the dragon emerged more fully.

As for the humans, she trusted they would be in such a state of shock and bewilderment at seeing the demure and gentle Izabelle developing a snout and a tail that Anora doubted they’d be able to think clearly enough to react. The only one who might pose a threat was Marcus, and she still had him in her power.

Anora was thinking all this through—the dragon mind working coolly and logically as the human mind was fast spiraling into death—when she felt Evelina’s hand slip beneath Izabelle’s long hair, that had come tumbling down in her thrashing. Concealing her hand in the mass of chestnut hair. Evelina stripped off Izabelle’s emerald earrings. Her hand than slid down to the back of Izabelle’s neck and took hold of the chain of the golden necklace.

“Seems a pity to waste your jewels by burying you in them, my lady,” Evelina whispered.

Anora realized, too late, what the girl meant to do. Fear gripped the dragon, fear that almost paralyzed her. She made a desperate effort to try to stop Evelina, but the human body was in its death throes and useless to her. The dragon body was just starting to emerge.

The chain of the golden locket that held the human’s heart snapped and so did the magic, lashing about like a snake with its head cut off, flopping and twisting, completely out of Anora’s control.

The magic coiling about inside her, Anora shifted back into her dragon form, but the alteration wasn’t happening as it was supposed to. She had no control over it, and so some parts of her body were changing and others were not. If she didn’t retrieve that locket and soon, she could be trapped in this form—half human, half dragon.