Page 110 of The Queen's Box

Heat sparked, as real as if she’d lit a match and pressed it between them. Reluctantly, she dropped her hand.

Cole crossed to a shelf and retrieved an empty ceramic vase. He took the duskwyrm from Willow, his thumb and forefinger sandwiching its jaw, his palm cupping its weight like he’d handled far worse.

“Be careful,” Willow said as he lowered the wyrm into the vase.

The duskwyrm gave a single unhappy flick of its tail but didn’t resist.

Willow knelt, peering in. “You’re okay, little guy.”

Cole slid a book on top of the vase’s opening.

“Will he be able to breathe?” Willow asked.

Cole pushed the book half a millimeter to the right, creating a thin gap. “Yes, Willow. Your snake friend will be able to breathe.”

“Oh. Good,” Willow said, though the room was going tilty. The strength went out of her legs, and Cole was beside her in an instant, catching her and holding her safe.

“Willow?”

“I’m fine,” she said. Her teeth began to chatter. “Just... cold.”

Cole’s eyes swept over her, taking in her drenched jeans and blouse and the way her hair stuck to her cheeks in soaked, tangled ropes. “Willow,” he said carefully, “why are you wet?”

The pond. The sinking baby. Severine’s disappointment and her cold, cold eyes. And Serrin, his eyes full of someone else.

“Serrin,” she murmured.

Cole stilled. “What happened? Did something happen?”

Willow wanted to tell him everything, and she would, but the room was blinking in and out of focus. “He didn’t...Ididn’t... and Jace!” She didn’t want to cry. She was too tired to cry. The tears came anyway.

“Come on,” Cole said gently. He guided her to his bed, where the covers were already pulled back. He must have been sleeping when she’d arrived—when she’d crashed through the Box and upended everything.

She sank gratefully down. The sheets were warm and smelled like soap and sunlight and a trace of clean sweat.

Cole tugged at her clammy blouse, and Willow let him. Her body trembled uncontrollably with deep, bone-sunk cold. The cotton peeled away from her skin, and Cole placed it aside. Then he tugged off her jeans. Not once did his touch stray. Not once did his gaze waver from what was appropriate.

He pulled one of his T-shirts over her head and tugged it down around her. He steered her until she was lying down, shivering, her eyes fluttering closed even as her limbs resisted rest. Cold clung to her like a second skin. She curled up on her side and thought of Maeve. Jace.

“I’m so tired,” she said, the words hitching. She felt like a little girl on the verge of tears. Shewasa little girl on the verge of tears. She just happened to be in a nineteen-year-old body.

Or was she twenty now?

How long had she been in Eryth?

“I want to sleep. I want to be warm. I want—” She shook her head. “I don’t know what I want, but Cole, I’m s-so cold!”

Cole exhaled, and the mattress dipped as he climbed in beside her, joining her beneath the sheets. His warmth enveloped her, one arm hooked around her ribs, his breath steady at her neck.

He addressed her as gently as she’d addressed the duskwyrm, saying, “Shh. You’re okay. You’re home now.”

~

Willow woke slowly.

Her body felt heavy in the most delicious way, as though gravity had wrapped her in cotton and pinned her to the earth. Her muscles were no longer coiled in panic or clenched against cold. She was warm—truly warm—and for a moment she just breathed it in.

She smelled soap and sunlight and, again, a trace of something muskier.

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