Tyler Locke (Connor Jessup) likes Jackie Veda (Genevieve Kang) from the moment he first meets her on Locke & Key. Sure, their relationship may have started off on the rocks in Season 1, but just when the two lovebirds are on the cusp of turning 18, a whole new fear sets in: losing their memories. This is just the reality of becoming an adult in the Locke & Key universe — your memories of using the magical keys that unlock new realms will go away — and Jackie and Tyler are navigating this imminent loss in very different ways. 

Let’s take a step back to Season 2, where the dark twist to their love story first started: To celebrate Jackie’s birthday, Tyler uses the Anywhere Key to transport her to Bath, England (she’s a huge Jane Austen fan). But the romantic getaway goes south once she starts forgetting where they are. Tyler offers that he use the family’s Memory Key on her to stop her from losing her memories of all the magic. She declines, leaving Tyler crushed, but her story takes a dark turn when Jackie is turned into a demon and ultimately dies. 

What Happened To Jackie? | 'Locke & Key' S2E9What Happened To Jackie? | 'Locke & Key' S2E9

So why did Jackie die in Season 2 of Locke & Key?

As fate would have it, the person who didn’t want magic ends up getting the shortest end of the stick. Dodge, who wasn’t actually thrown into the Black Door in Season 1 (it was Ellie, who’d been made to look like Dodge thanks to the Identity Key), turns Jackie into a demon by using the Demon Key. 

Tyler turns to his uncle Duncan (Aaron Ashmore) for help to forge a new key that will “unlock” Dodge’s victims — including Jackie — from their demons. They use Whispering Iron to create the Alpha Key. Tyler goes to find her in the woods and manages to jab the Alpha Key into her back. Magically, it works, and they’re both so relieved after the demon is released from her body. “I didn’t think anyone could save me, but you did. Thank you,” Jackie tearfully tells him. 

But using a new key with unknown side effects comes with a cost: The key doesn’t just kill the demons inside humans, but the host as well. So just when they say that they love each other, Jackie starts crying liquid metal tears and loses her ability to breathe. 

She falls to the ground, dying in Tyler’s arms not long after. After the paramedics take her away, Tyler tells Kinsey that the doctors thought it was an aneurysm. But little do they know of magical keys and demonic entities. You may now be wondering, “Where does this leave Tyler in Season 3?” At the end of the last season, when the battle against Dodge is over (turns out the Alpha Key did come in handy), Tyler is so devastated over Jackie’s death that he decides not to use the Memory Key on himself after all. He plans to go off on a road trip, resolved to leave his time at Keyhouse (and his pain) behind and forget about magic once he turns 18. And now, we have to wait and see what happens to Tyler next. The new season of Locke & Key is currently streaming on Netflix.