Page 34 of The Queen's Box

“We can,” Cotter replied. “It’s called protective custody. The Lord calls on us to guard His flock.”

Willow opened her mouth to scream—and an invisible force slammed down and shook the very air around her. The ground beneath her buckled, not physically, but as if it had rememberedsomething ancient and cruel. Her teeth rattled from the inside out.

None of the others seemed to feel it. Only her.

The deacons reached for her, and she twisted sideways, knowing it would do no good. Their hot and heavy hands found no purchase on her skin. They reached through her as if she weren’t there.

Willow gasped. Her gasp was soundless. She spun around, but her sandals didn’t scrape the sidewalk. Her backpack didn’t thud against her back.

Hemridge was still there. Still gray. Still hollow.

Willow, on the other hand . . .

Cotter whirled every which way, confusion drawing cracks in his sanity.

Moore’s hand cut the air where her shoulder was, but it passed right through her.

Willow laughed soundlessly. She was in a box. A box! An invisible box, that’s what it felt like—a space outside time, behind the veneer of the world. The slam she’d felt? That had been a lid.

But not to capture her. To shield her.

She knew the silence of being trapped, silenced, and held down. But not now. Now she had slipped inside this... thisbox, and the box was her protection.

“She was right here,” Cotter barked.

“She couldn’t have just disappeared,” Moore snapped.

Willow moved past them like a shadow folding through mist. She didn’t run. Why bother?

Although... she wasn’t sure how long this mercy would last.

A voice inside her whispered,Yes. Go.

It wasn’t Wrenna’s voice or Severine’s or even Serrin’s. She didn’t know whose voice it was, and she didn’t need to.

Go,urged the voice.

She went.

CHAPTER NINE

WILLOW WAS EXHAUSTED.

One moment, she’d been riding high, strolling—no, strutting—out of Hemridge while Jefferson, that traitor, and Cotter and Moore, those deacon shitheads, had stood slack-jawed and foolish, pulling at their hair. She’d been untouchable, a shadow tucked between heartbeats.

But that high had long faded, as had the tingle of... whatever it was... that had offered her such generous protection.

Magic.Why couldn’t she say it? Admit it? Embrace it?

She, Willow Braselton, had magic in her blood. Hadn’t she always known it?

Magic didn’t keep her feet from hurting, though. She was trudging up a narrow mountain road, the trees crowding close on both sides like they’d grown tired of being left alone. She’d been trudging up this road for hours now. Her lungs burned. Her legs ached. Her tongue was dry as flint.

Dusk was coming on, although the light didn’t behave normally here. It filtered through the branches in slanted ribbons, golden and green, like something seen through stained glass. It was lovely. But her eyes were gritty, and she had a stitch in her side, and the only food she’d had all day was a lint-covered mint and a single bite of a stale pastry.

Magic didn’t ease those physical discomforts, either.

The asphalt gave way to dirt and gravel, and a stick she nearly stepped on hissed and rattled its tail. She shrieked and jumped back, and the rattlesnake slithered into the underbrush. But if it hadn’t? If she got bitten up here, all alone, what would she do? Rattlesnake venom was quick and deadly.

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