Page 99 of The Queen's Box

So she was done for. And what about Serrin? Would the rebels stop to ask whether Serrin dined on goat meat raw or roasted? Would they care that he might have refused it altogether? No. They’d see him as Severine’s son. The boy who shared her blood. Her hunger. Her shadow.

Willow reached the final hallway, her chamber door just ahead.

A figure stepped out of the gloom, and Willow startled.

“I don’t recall giving you leave to roam the halls,” Aesra said.

Willow forced a smile. “I don’t recall you forbidding it.”

“You should be in bed.”

“I will be, soon,” Willow said. “But . . . just now . . .”

“Yes?”

Willow’s heart said no, but her mouth said yes. “I saw something,” she said, aghast at the words and yet unable to stop them. It was as if an invisible hand was bending her will—but how had an invisible hand found its way into her mind? “It’s probably nothing, but... it’s Jace. I think she’s been spying on the queen.”

Aesra’s eyes turned to slits.

“That’s all,” Willow said. She felt woozy. “Like I said, it’s probably nothing.”

“Go to bed, mortal,” said Aesra.

Willow slipped past her without another word.

Inside her chamber, the fireflies in the coverlet glowed softly, as if nothing in the world had changed. She crawled beneath the quilt fully clothed and pulled it to her chin.

Jace was strong. Jace could survive another week in whatever pit Aesra tossed her into.

Willow had chosen Serrin—and herself—and that was that.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

THE MORNING OF the Mating Ceremony broke, soft and golden, a dawn without edges. Mist still clung to the palace turrets, burnishing them with light. From her chamber window, Willow watched the fog curl across the upper lawns, then vanish as if it had never been.

She turned. The air inside the room was lavender-scented and hushed. Poppy stood ready, arms braced in the soft bell of the gown Willow was meant to wear, her face flushed with pleasure and the faintest sheen of worry.

“Arms up, please,” Poppy said.

Willow obeyed.

The gown slipped over her skin like poured cream. The silk was the softest she had ever touched, and the tiny pearls sewn into the bodice caught the light like dew on cobwebs. The skirt trailed long and luminous behind her. Bridal, unmistakably.

Poppy stepped back to admire her handiwork, then clicked her tongue. “Where’s Jace? She was meant to help with your hair.”

Willow feigned a yawn. “Maybe she overslept.”

“Not likely,” Poppy muttered. She bustled to the wardrobe and fetched a silver comb, fretting as she worked. “She was off last night, I’ll say that. Kept checking the windows, asking what I’d heard. I told her, what’s there to hear? It’s spring. The frogs are just chatty.”

Willow opened her mouth, then shut it, forcing images of lip soup from her mind. Poppy was prone to exaggeration, and anyway, Jace was strong. She’d endure whatever Aesra decided to do with her. A week in the ice vault—whatever that meant—wouldn’t kill her.

Poppy finished twisting Willow’s hair into a crown of braids and slid the comb into place. “There. You’ll take their breath away.”

Willow looked at herself in the glass. She didn’t recognize the girl staring back. Pale. Poised. Swaddled in splendor.

“Ready?” Poppy asked.

Willow nodded, though she didn’t feel ready. She felt like a door someone else had opened.

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