Page 107 of The Queen's Box

A barrier.

She pushed against it, and it gave—just slightly, like Saran Wrap stretched over gelatin.

She pushed at it and poked at it and tried her best to gouge it open, but the seal refused to break.

She kicked back toward the surface and broke through with a ragged cry, dragging air into her body in gulps. Why couldn’t she cross through?

There was definitely a boundary. She could feel it. But she’d pulled birds and goats and even a possum across that divide, which meant lifecouldpass through. So why not her?

She breaststroked to the shallows near the pond’s edge. Her feet found the soft bottom, and she rose, water sheeting from her hair and clothes. Her breath came fast. Her mind reeled.

And then—

Amira.

The memory struck hard: Amira’s clever hands, the dagger, the sting of having her finger pricked.

The blood oath. Of course.

Willow pressed her fists to her forehead, lifted her face to the sky, and screamed, knowing she was too far now for any guard to hear her.

She tromped out of the water and onto the bank, each step squelching through moss and mud.

She had to find a duskwyrm.

~

She slogged toward the pond’s far edge, her hair clinging to her face and neck, the hem of her jeans catching on stones and roots. Here, there was a marshy stretch where the pondnarrowed, forming a sluggish inlet choked with slime and rotting reeds.

If Willow were a snake, this was where she’d make a home.

She crouched, pushing her hands into the fetid mud.

“Come on,” she whispered. “If you’re there, come and show yourself.”

An owl hooted. A night frog burbled. Then came a slithering, shivering noise, and Willow opened her eyes.

A duskwyrm emerged from the shallows, its sapphire-colored scales muted by a film of algae. It was small. Misshapen. The midpoint of its spine curved wrong, like a bow pulled too tight.

Willow didn’t move.

The wyrm rose halfway from the sludge. No hiss. No fangs. Just its narrow head, which tilted toward her with recognition.

“I know you,” Willow acknowledged. “You’re the one from before. From the vision.”

The wyrm hitched forward, sliding through bog gunk until it reached the moss Willow knelt on. Willow held her breath as—slowly, slowly—it extended the top of its snout toward her hand.

It wanted her to touch it.

Willow hesitated, primal caution pinging in her chest. But this sad creature hadn’t hissed or struck. Its body was trembling. She looked at the wyrm and nodded her permission.

The duskwyrm glided over her hand, and Willow was transported as magic sucked the air from her lungs. Her vision blurred and cleared, and she was no longer in the bog. She was somewhere else, hidden in the folds of memories not her own.

She saw Aesra. Younger. Pale and grim, standing in a moonlit garden.

A small ring of women stood around her: Secret Sisters in their distinctive white uniforms and silver sashes. One held aduskwyrm—not just any duskwyrm but the duskwyrm from the bog, the one whose head lay right now upon Willow’s hand.

Only, in the vision, the wyrm was sleek and healthy, its iridescent body winding like a sapphire ribbon around the Sister’s arm.

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