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“I knew it! I knew it, and that’s why you like me, right? Because we’re alike, you and me!” He grinned, all gap teeth and sun-chapped lips, and ran off down the hill, calling out for Eliza and rhapsodizing about the doll he was going to get her, his voice floating back like birdsong.

Willow and Cole watched the boy disappear down the hill, his arms flung wide like he might take off flying.

Cole crossed his arms, tucking his hands under his armpits and out of sight. “I used to think the only thing that mattered was truth. Dig out the rot. Force people to see it.”

Willow glanced at him. “But?”

“But sometimes a person doesn’t need to be shown the rot. They’re already living in it. Sometimes all they need is a little blue sugar stick that tells them they matter, just for a second.”

The lump was back in Willow’s throat, lodged so tightly it hurt.

Cole exhaled. “Shall we?” he asked, jerking his head at the last of the falling-down structures. It was a sagging house at the end of the trail, its porch half-swallowed by honeysuckle.

They picked their way down the path and up the rickety porch steps.

There were bones nailed above the door—small ones, maybe bird or maybe rabbit—stripped clean and tied with red thread in a crisscross pattern.

A rusted coffee can hung from the eaves, filled with what looked like dried beans and ash.

Beside the doorframe, someone had smeared a handprint in dark clay, then pressed in a handful of animal teeth. Willow hoped they were animal teeth.

Cole knocked on the door. Then he stepped back and waited, his mouth a grim line.

The door swung open, and Cole took Willow’s hand and led her inside.

The squalor of the settlement fell away, and Willow drew in an astonished breath.

The interior of Amira’s house was far larger than the exterior had suggested, and the walls and the ceiling extended wider and higher than they had any right to.

She released Cole’s hand and stepped forward.

Outside, the sun had been merciless, beating down with sweltering intensity.

But inside Amira’s house, the light was golden and diffused.

Stained glass lanterns hung from the ceiling, and Willow held out her arms and moved through the pools of color that puddled on the floor.

Her pale hands turned amber, then cobalt, then emerald.

All the while, the loveliest music whispered at the edges of her awareness. The song came from no visible source but seemed instead to emanate from the very walls.

“Isn’t it lovely?” she said to Cole.

“Isn’t what lovely?”

“The music!”

“What music?”

He didn’t hear it, she realized. Perhaps the music was meant only for her, another sign that she was different, special—chosen.

She turned her attention to the objects displayed throughout the room.

On a polished wooden table was a collection of stones arranged in a circle.

Next to the stones was a jar of clear liquid.

Suspended within was something that resembled a human hand.

Its swollen fingers pressed against the glass, and Willow turned away.

Bundles of dried herbs hung from the ceiling, handwritten labels identifying them as sage, wormwood, mandrake, and belladonna. Crystals of various sizes sat by tarot decks in tidy piles. Nowhere, however, did Willow spot the Queen’s Box.

“It’s not here,” she told Cole.

She felt the heat of him as he leaned in from behind. “I don’t see it, either. But Willow, nothing here is what it seems. Remember that.”

A voice rang out from the recesses of the room. “Well, hello. Who is this lovely visitor who has found her way to me?”

A woman emerged from the shadows, middle-aged and graceful, with the posture of a ballerina. She wore dark lipstick and a musky perfume, and a gold coin flickered between her fingers, catching the light as it moved from knuckle to knuckle.

“Amira, this is Willow,” Cole said. “Willow, Amira.”

Amira dipped her head. “You’ve come a long way only to complain that I don’t have what you’re looking for.”

Willow swallowed. “I—I didn’t mean—”

“You’re disappointed. I understand. But you have no need to be.” She smiled. “It’s my job to grant wishes, some would say. The Box you’re seeking? I know all about it.”

Willow’s heart leaped. “Is it here? Can I buy it from you? I brought money!”

Amira laughed. In her slim fingers, the coin kept moving. “It’s not money I want.”

“Then what?”

“Would you steal in order to have it, if stealing was required?”

“What? No!”

“Would you lie?”

“I’m not dishonest. I just want the Box.”

“But the Box has to want you back, you see,” Amira said. She moved her fingers, and the coin winked. Willow couldn’t drag her eyes from it.

“The Box has its own price, one not measured in money. If I told you the price was blood—would you bleed for it, Willow?”

“Don’t answer that,” Cole said. “You don’t have to play her games.”

“Cole,” Amira chided. The coin flipped from finger to finger. “Willow is hardly a child. She can speak for herself. Can’t you, Willow?”

Willow nodded as if in a trance.

“Then tell me this. The Queen’s Box, which you crave, would you sell your very soul for it?”

Willow’s lips parted, but before she could answer, pain exploded in her foot.

“Ow!” she cried, ripping her gaze from Amira’s twinkling coin. Cole took his time removing his boot from her own. He’d stomped on her sore foot, of course—the one Willow had kicked the rock with. She glowered at him. He held her gaze and raised his eyebrows.

Amira flipped the coin one final time before making it disappear. She crossed to a nearby shelf and retrieved a shallow bowl. “Let’s find out if we can come to an agreement, you and I.”

The bowl was lovely, made of silver and etched with flowering vines. Amira placed it on the counter and filled it with water from a jug. She set the jug aside and gestured to the bowl.

“This is a scrying basin,” she said.

“A what?”

“Give me your hand,” Amira commanded.

Willow placed her hand in Amira’s, and Amira pricked her index finger with a needle pulled seemingly from thin air.

“Ow!” Willow cried.

Amira positioned Willow’s finger over the bowl and squeezed. A single drop of blood hung suspended for an instant, then fell and hit the water.

“Water tells stories that voices cannot,” Amira said. She peered into the bowl, and Willow did, too, while at the same time drawing her hurt finger to her mouth and sucking on it.

Within the bowl, the drop of blood was behaving strangely.

Instead of dispersing into the water, it appeared to be calling the water into it.

It grew larger and larger, and yet its deep red hue didn’t fade.

Willow thought of horseflies and fat-bellied spiders, of ticks burrowing into flesh.

She pictured a mosquito on her arm—Atlanta was rife with them in the hot summer months—and how, if she slapped it as it drank from her, it was her own blood that spurted out onto her skin.

She had always found blood fascinating.

“Yes, Willow, you have the Old Blood,” Amira said, sounding pleased. “Look into the bowl and tell me what you see.”

“Why? What does this have to do with the Queen’s Box?”

“Look into the bowl and tell me what you see,” Amira repeated. “In return, I’ll speak to you of the Box. That is my price. Do you find it too steep?”

The condescension in Amira’s tone reminded Willow of Ash’s taunts. Is life too hard? Is reality too cruel? Go, then. Go to your imaginary dream boy with the pointed ears and live happily ever after.

Willow gathered herself and leaned over the basin. She saw nothing but her own reflection—eyes too wide, lips pressed tight.

She was about to pull back when a spray of water leaped up, just a flicker, then splashed back down and vanished, leaving the surface smooth again.

Willow’s breath hitched. Had that really happened?

She stared into the bowl. She calmed her racing thoughts.

Slowly, very slowly, the water began to move.