My stomach turned over. Setting my jaw, I pushed myself upright and started to limp back down the aisle. Find Garret, find Riley, deal with Dante. Those were the items I had to focus on now, in that order. And not passing out before we could leave; that was on the list, too.

A sibilant chuckle behind me froze me in my tracks.

“Oh, Ember,” Faith crooned, as the ripple of a Shift went through the air. “Haven’t you learned anything? What did Lilith teach you about showing mercy to your enemies?”

I spun painfully, knowing I wouldn’t be fast enough. The Viper was already in midleap, jaws gaping, talons fully extended to tear me apart.

A shot rang out, slamming the dragon aside. The Viper collapsed to the cement and rolled into a pile of crates, screeching in pain as she came to a halt. Heart pounding, I looked over to see Garret, pistol raised, step out of the shadows between aisles, keeping the dragon in his sights. His eyes were hard and dangerous, his expression a flinty mask as he aimed the gun at the fallen Viper.

Faith screamed in rage and defiance. Tail thrashing, she tried clawing herself upright, but a second shot followed the first, jerking her to the side. The Viper struck the crates and crumpled to the floor, leaving a bright crimson smear across the wood. Her wings twitched, frantically at first, then growing slower and slower, as a trickle of red seeped over the floor from her body. Her jaws gaped, gasping for breath. Her eyes glazed over in pain and fear.

“No,” I heard her whisper. “Not yet. Not like this. I can’t die…like this.”

I felt sick. My legs wobbled, and it was uncertain whether they could hold me up much longer, but I gritted my teeth and staggered toward the dying dragon. She was a Viper, she’d been sent to kill us, but she was still part of my race, someone who had been just like me, once.

The Viper stared vacantly as I stepped up beside her, trying not to glance at her heaving sides. At the two round holes seeping blood right behind her foreleg. A perfect shot to the heart, from someone who knew exactly how to kill a dragon. Faith blinked, and I caught my reflection in one golden eye that was slowly turning to glass.

“I wanted…to be her best student,” she whispered, as a thin line of red trickled from her nostril. “Her…only…student. I wanted to make her proud. To prove…I could be like her.”

A lump rose to my throat, and I swallowed hard. “You are,” I told her, my voice a ragged whisper. “You were a true Viper. Lilith would’ve been proud.”

Faith didn’t answer. Her wings had stopped moving, and her gold eyes stared up at me, fixed and unseeing. She was dead.