Page 89 of The Queen's Box

Severine’s smile, when it came, was soft and proud. “A cat would do nicely.”

Willow knelt, dampness soaking into her skirt. The water reflected nothing. She could not see herself in it, nor could she see the sky above. She gathered herself, reaching inward for that strange thread of power she had grasped before, the connection that had pulled somethingthrough. She pressed her hands together, as if in prayer, and reached into the water.

It was thick and unmoving, and she willed herself not to draw back as slime slid over her wrists. She flexed her fingers, searching for something, anything, to indicate life stirring below.

Nothing.

She plunged her hands deeper, fingers splaying wide. Her breath hitched as something slithered past her knuckles, and for one thrilling, horrible moment, she thought she had found it.

But no. The pond was only teasing her.

Willow drew back and sat on her heels, flicking pond water from her fingertips. She was being tested, that much was clear.But it wasn’t about the cat. Not really. It was about control. Mastery. Whether she could wield the strange power that kept blooming in her, unpredictable and wild.

Okay. Think.

She had two gifts. The first was the Fade, the gift from Wrenna’s lover, Orrin, that allowed her to slip between places, to exist in the cracks that others had forgotten or erased. But this pond was neither forgotten nor erased. The Fade would do nothing here.

The second of Willow’s gifts was the gift of Sight, and this gift came from Wrenna. It was the hint of fae in Wrenna’s blood that allowed Willow to see visions, after all, and what were visions but things that were and weren’t there at the same time?

At Amira’s house, with the scrying bowl, Amira had awakened Willow’s ability to see with a drop of Willow’s blood. If her blood had carried her before, perhaps it could do so again?

She found the sharpest stone she could and raked it across her palm, hard enough to raise a red line. She clenched her fist, willing the blood to pool in her palm. Then she opened her hand and pressed it to the water’s surface.

The blood should have vanished. Instead, it lingered, a smear of red against green scum. Trembling, shimmering, alive.

Yes.

Willow focused everything into that single point of contact.

A ripple spread outward. The water thickened, darkening like tar. Something rose from beneath, and Willow leaned back, heart galloping, as it broke the surface—a slick glint of fur, a flash of teeth, a ridge of scaled spine. Golden eyes stared through the murk, furious and unblinking. Then the creature spun and vanished, its tail whipping like a blade.

A dragon.

She had seen a dragon.

Behind her, Severine sighed. Willow turned and saw that the queen hadn’t seen what she’d seen. The dragon had revealed itself only to her.

“I rather hoped you’d be quicker than this,” Severine murmured. “Unless Serrin’s time doesn’t matter?”

Willow’s spine straightened.

She could do this.

Shewoulddo this.

She’d just seen a dragon, after all.

This time, she thought not of Cricket but of the goats she’d seen in Lost Souls and again at World’s End—scrawny things with ribs like rungs and knotted coats clotted with burrs. Survivors. She remembered the girl sitting on the fence rail, barefoot and silent, holding onto her goat with a length of frayed string.

Willow had smiled at the girl. The girl hadn’t smiled back.

She thought of the boy with the bad buzz cut. She thought of Cole.Sometimes all someone needs is a little blue sugar stick that tells them they matter, just for a second,he’d said.

No, not now. This wasn’t about Cole but about Serrin.

Her prince. Her match.

A goat for Serrin. Okay.

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