Page 106 of The Queen's Box

“The information is only worth sharing if it’s an incontrovertible record of what happened.That’swhat Jace had.” Maeve bugged out her eyes:Do you get it now, you idiot?“She captured everything in her scrying spoon.”

Willow didn’twantto be an idiot. She tried to catch up. “The spoon behind her ear?” she asked.

“It’s a truth-teller. It holds a visual record of anything witnessed by its owner. It doesn’t lie, and it can’t be tampered with.Thatwas the proof Jace had for Brody.” Maeve blinked ferociously. “Only Jace is dead, and her spoon is gone.”

Willow’s pulse quickened, and everything became a thousand times more urgent in the space of a heartbeat.

“Maeve? We have to go, and we have to go now.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out Jace’s spoon.

Maeve dragged the back of her hand beneath her eyes. With her vision cleared, she took in the spoon. On Maeve’s scarred face, bewilderment bloomed into wonder, and then her wonder reshaped itself into grim and beautiful resolve.

She shoved her feet into beat-up footwear that might once have resembled shoes. “Yes. Let’s go.”

~

Willow fashioned Miriam’s gray blanket around Maeve’s head like a hood, then led Maeve through the palace halls to the tall stone door that led to the topiary chessboard. She heard Maeve suck in her breath, which confirmed her suspicions. This garden wasn’t known to all.

They darted from square to square of alternating grass and petals. Through the moonlight that made the dark grass darker and the pink blossoms glow like hope. Past the serpent, the unicorn, the gryphon with its leafy wings. Past the dragon made from brambles, only this time, it didn’t hiss when Willow and Maeve crossed before it. It lifted its mighty thorned head and roared, and the roar swept up Willow and Maeve like a magic carpet or an unfurling tongue.

Buffeted by dragon breath, they flew above the grounds until they reached the palace gates. There, the stream of air bucked, and Willow was thrown off. Maeve was carried onward, perched on the thorny dragon’s roar as if she’d been born for this.

Maybe she had. Maybe the thorn dragon had sensed it—like to like—and would carry Maeve, with her bad ankle and crooked spine, all the way to the mysterious Brody.

“Good luck,” Willow called, though not very loudly for fear of drawing the attention of the palace guards.

The gray blanket-turned-hood had fallen backward, allowing Maeve’s hair to stream out behind her like a banner. She thrust Jace’s spoon in the air—a standard in miniature, small in size but as mighty as any sword.

Willow watched her until she was swallowed by the night. Then Willow doubled back to the low iron gate, passing through it into the borderlands where the wild things grew.

Her feet were sure and steady. Her heart was sure and steady. Broken? Yes. But reaching for home. Her home.

Not Atlanta. Not Hemridge. Lost Souls was where she ached to be, with its fireflies and bleating goats and the sweet chime of silverware hung from wire and swaying together—music made by the breeze.

She wanted Ruby and Brooxie and their home-cooked meals. She wanted Cole and his muddy boots and his love for blue Pixy Stixs—or his willingness to give them a chance anyway. Shewanted his arms around her and his lips on hers. Heart to heart, like to like.

She picked up her pace. Ahead was the thicket and the moss and the stagnant, scum-slicked pond—the place where the world frayed at the edges.

This was a threshold. She’d known it from the first time she’d come. She’d plucked living creatures from the normal world and brought them here, so hopefully the reverse would hold true. Hopefully, the veil would part and let her out of this cursed world.

She hesitated at the water’s edge, the pond’s surface a smear of algae and filmy residue. She thought of the dragon that had risen from its depths, its eyes lit with some private fury. What if it lingered below? What if it was hungry?

On the other hand... what if it helped her, the way the thorn dragon had helped Maeve?

She waded in, the muck pulling greedily at her jean-clad calves. When the water reached her knees, she paused. Nodded. Then she lifted her arms over her head and dove.

The surface closed over her, and the world above vanished. All sound dulled. The water pressed in from every side—green, vast, thick as jelly. Her limbs moved sluggishly, her dress a dragging weight. Her eyes stung, but she kept them open. She searched.

A shimmer. A flicker. Something scaled and serpentine darted just out of reach.

She kicked upward and broke the surface, gasping.

Still Eryth.

Still the same foul-smelling pond.

She slapped the water. “Come on!” she shouted. “Let me out!”

She dove again, pushing herself down into the murk, cupping her hands and scooping water behind her. She swam harder,deeper. Her ears popped. Her limbs burned. Just when the lack of oxygen threatened to crack her ribs, her palms struck something smooth.

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