“I’m dying.”

“No,” I said, panic making my voice tremble. “You can’t.”

“My blood loss disagrees with you.”

Maybe that was meant to make me laugh, but I burst into tears instead. Jember didn’t tell me to stop. He just held me while I held him. I heard movement, saw Magnus lie in front of Saba, head in her lap, and reach over to rub my shoulder. He had gotten a throw blanket from the other room, hugging it around his shivering nakedness.

“One amulet left,” Jember said. And then he swore quietly and leaned his head against Saba’s as she leaned on his shoulder. “I’ll try to hold on until you finish…”

I saw Saba pull up his sleeve and write with her finger on his bare arm. He sighed in agreement, and then none of us said another word.

Magnus quickly dug in the satchel hanging off Jember, handing me another silver disk with trembling hands.

I stayed where I was to keep Jember’s arm around me, just shifted onto my side to get both arms where they needed to be. And I got to work.

The amulet to bar the Evil Eye from returning was really similar to the ones we’d created as shields. It felt almost too easy compared to the other one, almost like a trick. But, as I worked, the temperature was creeping back to normal, the regular chill of the desert night pleasantly warm compared to the supernatural temperature it had been.

And then I couldn’t sense any more strokes.

“Finished?” Jember murmured, even though I was sure he could sense it, too.

“Yes,” I said, but I wished I wasn’t. I wished it had hours and hours to go. I wished Jember wasn’t injured. I wished the four of us were leaving here together … “I’m finished.”

“Good girl…”

His muscles relaxed a little more. He was no longer trying to stay.

We stayed that way for what felt like an hour, at least, though it couldn’t have been that long … until I could no longer feel Jember’s fingers tremble on my back, until his muscles went slack against me … until his heart sounded like nothing in my ear.

By then I had prepared myself for the end. I felt … calm, almost. When I sat up to look at him, it just looked like he was sleeping. It was only the blood soaking his clothes and pooling beneath him, and Saba’s freely flowing tears that told me otherwise.

But no, not freely anymore. Just streaked, dripping from her soulless nose and chin … like rain running off a statue. She was frozen as she had been sitting—cross-legged, her head against Jember’s shoulder, her fingers laced through his.

Both of them, still. Both of them, lifeless.