Page 51

Willow nodded, but thoughts of Serrin prodded cruelly.

The dreams he had for when he became king—they were all built on a lie.

He’d said—how had Poppy put it?—that helping the Blighted was the central tenet of his future stewardship or something like that.

What he didn’t realize was that his mother was the one who’d marked them in the first place.

Severine was pure evil, and she got away with it by making the Secret Sisters do her dirty work.

~

It was dark by the time they got back to Ruby and Brooxie’s, but the darkness here was nothing like the darkness Willow knew she had to return to.

Lost in her thoughts, her hand slipped from Cole’s without her noticing.

He recaptured it, his fingers squeezing hers.

She looked at him and forced a smile, squeezing his hand in return.

Then she turned away before he could see too much.

The sisters fussed over them when they entered the house.

“You look like you’ve seen the dead,” Brooxie exclaimed. “Both of you!”

Cole offered a tired smile. “Not far off.”

“Pour them some iced tea, sister,” fussed Brooxie. “Cole? Tell us what happened.”

Cole moved with them toward the kitchen, and Willow heard the low murmur of their voices.

How much would he tell them? Willow stayed back, eyes sweeping over the familiar clutter of the living area.

The spindly mint and basil plants crowding the windowsill, reaching for the sun.

The small stack of clean linens left neatly folded on the arm of the sofa.

And there, on the low tea table in the center of the room: a hand-embroidered cloth, stitched in painstaking loops and puckered at the corners where the tension had slipped.

It reminded Willow of the doilies her great-aunt used to keep under bowls of hard candy.

Pointless, fussy things—but made with care.

She needed to lie down.

She didn’t go to the little guest room at the end of the hall, the one the twins had assigned to her. She went instead to Cole’s room.

The blankets were still rumpled from that morning, and seeing them made her stomach lurch.

Had it been only this morning that they’d slept together?

She could almost feel Cole’s hands on her skin and the scrape of stubble at her collarbone.

The ache of being chosen and choosing back and coming together as one.

But the Box pulled her attention, silent and squat in the center of the room. Willow moved to it and sank to the rug. She grazed her fingertips over the lid, following the outline of the carved serpent curled around a pomegranate tree in full fruit.

Was it pulsing, or was that her own blood thudding behind her eyes?

When Cole spoke, she jumped.

“I should have known,” he said from the doorway, a glass of iced tea in each hand. He stepped into the room, hurt radiating from the tight set of his shoulders. “I did know. I just talked myself out of it. Told myself that finally—finally—you might choose me.”

“I do choose you, Cole. I do!” Willow said.

He crossed the room and set both glasses on the bedside table. “Then what are you doing? Why are you stroking that goddamn Box like it’s your lover?”

She retracted her hands and curled them in her lap. “I have to tell Serrin. You know I do.”

“Serrin,” he said. “Always Serrin.”

“It’s not like that. It really, really isn’t.”

“No?” He crouched beside her. “And yet you’re leaving me and going back to him.”

“But not because I love him. Or maybe I do—”

Cole scoffed.

“But not the way I love you. It’s like...” She struggled for how to put it. “I feel something for him. We’re connected. We just are. But Cole, the love I feel for Serrin is nothing compared to the love I feel for you.”

“Then stay here,” Cole said. “Stay here and love me, and let me love you.”

Willow’s hand crept back to the Box as if beckoned. “When I think of Serrin, what rises up isn’t longing. It’s... worry. It’s the need to protect him.”

Something flashed in Cole’s eyes, both vulnerable and furious.

“Severine is his mother, Cole. She’s also a woman who burns babies into monsters just to punish their parents. What do you think she’ll do when her own son challenges her? When he tries to lift up the very people she’s devoted herself to keeping down?”

“He’s a big boy,” Cole said. It came out like a growl. “Let him take care of himself.”

“He’s not, though!” Willow cried. “He’s... a kid in a young man’s body. And Severine’s not just dangerous. She’s a nightmare in the shape of a woman. How can Serrin protect himself from a threat he doesn’t understand?”

“How can you?” Cole countered. “What if you go back and Severine imprisons you?” He took her chin and made her look at him. “What if she has the Secret Sisters punish you—the way she punishes anyone who steps out of line?”

She would not think of Jace. She wouldn’t—she wouldn’t.

“I’ll go and come back, just one last time.”

“Don’t,” he said, voice cracking. “Please, Willow. Don’t leave me again.”

Willow blinked back tears. Her lower lip trembled, but she willed it still.

Wordlessly, she turned to the Box and lifted the lid. She climbed inside and folded herself into the space, a wooden coffin carved just for her. She pulled down the lid, and blackness closed over her.

~

She braced herself for the rush and chaos that came with crossing worlds, but the air stayed still. No movement, no shift—just the heavy hush of wood and dark.

The Box held its shape. And it held her, too. Right where she was.

She swallowed, heart beginning to race. Had she done something wrong? Why was the Box rejecting her?

Please. Please.

She thought of dragons’ roars and tiny toes. She saw the pond, covered with scum. She saw Severine covered with scum —and her mouth stretched wide in a soundless scream. The churning was so much worse this time, the pressure enough to flatten her.

As before, all sound dulled. Water pressed in from every side—green, vast, thick as jelly. And pressing in from the other side, her face as vast as the universe, was Severine.

You are not welcome here, she said, not with her mouth but with her mind. You outlived your usefulness.

A great hand replaced Severine’s face, cold jelly fingers pressing into Willow’s mouth, her eyes, her nostrils. Willow kicked and thrashed.

Go, Severine said, back to the mire where you belong.

Willow thought of Serrin. She thought of poor Jace. She bit down hard, and Severine cried out, yanking her hand away.

You’re the one who does it! Willow said. You choose who is blighted. You think it’s all a game.

Severine’s face loomed large again. Monstrous. Isn’t it? Faeries are playthings. Mortals, too.

Willow shook her head. How could she get through to Severine’s heart if Severine had no heart?

Serrin, she said.

Severine stilled slightly.

You love him. He’s the only one you love.

Maybe. And so?

So you’ll break him. He thinks he’ll be king. That he’ll make a difference. He wants to help the Blighted!

Severine smiled fondly. Oh, Willow, he’ll get over it. Once I explain how much better my way is... She pushed closer. Her nose grew long and witchlike. He’ll see reason. I’ll make sure of it.

Willow wanted to retreat, but not yet. Not yet.

He’s not like you. He’s good, not evil.

Severine smiled. He’s adapted in the past. He’ll adapt again.

Willow went weightless in the pond scum. Her pulse went whoosh. Whoosh.

I lost my baby. She was taken from me, ripped from my very arms, Severine said. So I chose a new one.

Whoosh. Whoosh.

Well, I went through quite a few, Severine admitted. They all served one need or another.

Her face grew enormous again, slick and green and vile. But Micah. Sweet Micah. She smiled. He came to me when he was four, and I created him in my own image. Renamed him in my own image. Severine... Serrin... I do love a good renaming.

And I do love Serrin, Willow. Very much.

Her face became a thundercloud. You created quite a mess with that Maeve misfit, as I’m sure you know. But I will destroy her, as well as her little rebel friends.

She wavered. Rippled. Her eyes swelled and shrank to pinpricks. And I will destroy Micah if you ever return. So don’t.

Severine opened her mouth and roared, filling Willow’s lungs with slime and scum and muck. And then Willow was falling, falling, a twig in the wind, an ember from a funeral pyre. Her head hit wood. Hinges creaked, and arms grabbed—Cole’s arms—pulling her out of the dark and into the light.

“Willow? You’re crying. Why are you crying?”

She flung herself against him, and Cole held her fast. He buried his face in her neck, crying himself but also laughing, and Willow clung to him as if her life depended on it. She didn’t speak. She couldn’t.

Micah was alive.

Not lost, not dead. Just taken. Renamed. Rewritten. And Severine was still at work, shaping him into something he was never meant to be.

A sob choked out. It tasted of seaweed.

“Willow?” Cole said. He tried to draw back, tried to get a look at her face, but Willow shook her head and clung even tighter.

“Just hold me,” she whispered. “Please?”

“Of course,” he said, crushing her to him and stroking her hair, rocking her in his strong arms.

Earlier, when they’d sat on top of the picnic table, Willow had kept the truth about the baby and the pond to herself, afraid it would split Cole’s heart clean in two. But this? The truth about his little brother? It wouldn’t crack his heart. It would shatter it.

So Willow would carry the truth alone. For now. She wouldn’t bury it. She wouldn’t let it rot. She would keep it close and let it sharpen her.

Severine thought she was strong, that she always won. But Willow was stronger. She would find a way.

Behind her, she felt the Box sitting open, its lid thrown back like a coffin kicked open from the inside.

It pulsed softly, a heartbeat only she could hear.

It waited.

Empty—but not done.

* * *