Page 46 of The Queen's Box

“He wasn’t the first—or the last,” Brooxie said.

“It doesn’t happen often,” Ruby added. “But it shouldn’t happen at all.”

Willow clutched her cloth napkin. She wanted to know more, but she didn’t want to overstep.

“The parents—myparents—look the other way,” Cole said angrily.

“From their children going missing?” Willow said. “No. No parents would look away from that.”

“They have other mouths to feed,” Brooxie said.

“And wealth, an awful lot of it, to buy food and clothes and shoes with.” Ruby exhaled. “Wealth they didn’t have before. Wealth that came from nowhere—”

“Like stardust from the sky,” Cole said darkly. “And could disappear again just as fast,” Ruby finished.

Willow wanted to say something that mattered. But what? She could point out the obvious: that their world was built on cruelty and corruption. That she planned on escaping it for that very reason. But would that ease Cole’s pain, or Ruby’s or Brooxie’s?

Cole’s jaw worked as he struggled to control his emotions. “Everyone’s too scared to go poking around for the truth, so we’re doing it ourselves. Me, Ruby, Brooxie. A few others.”

“What do you think is happening?” Willow asked.

“We don’t know,” Brooxie said. “Whatever it is, it’s been happening a long time. And it’s dark. It’s been covered over in honey and Scripture and wishful thinking, but we think—”

Ruby put her hand on top of her sister’s, giving her a meaningful look.

“We don’t know what to think,” Ruby finished. “But that’s what brought Cole to us.”

“Yep,” Cole said tersely. “I brought my grief. Ruby brought questions. Brooxie brought sight.”

“Hon, you know I’m not Sighted,” Brooxie murmured. “Not in the way you mean.”

“You see more than most,” Cole pointed out.

Brooxie gave a funny shrug that said,That may be, but where has it gotten us?

Willow studied the three of them. The way their pieces fit together. She wasn’t part of it, but they wanted her to be. She could feel it.

“I can’t help you,” she said, needing to put it out in the open before things went any farther. She nodded at Cole. “People come here looking for lost things. That’s what you said. Well, I have my own lost thing to find.”

Brooxie studied her over the rim of her mug. “Which is?”

Willow felt the weight of the question. She could lie. Or she could tell them about Serrin, but vaguely. Something in Brooxie’s gaze made her hesitate, however. She’d rather be as honest as possible.

“I don’t want to say,” Willow said.

“Of course you don’t,” Cole muttered.

That stung. Wasn’t telling the truth better than giving them a pretty lie—something covered in honey and wishful thinking?

“It’s my choice, isn’t it?” she said. “It’s my business.”

He lifted his hands in mock surrender. “Sure, sure. You’re different. Special. You’re a tourist, just passing through.”

“That’s not fair,” she replied.

“The world never is,” Cole shot back.

Exactly, and that was the problem. Cruelty and corruption, injustice and deceit, those things would always exist. If Cole and Ruby and Brooxie wanted to fight to save all the Lost Souls—and eventually die trying—Willow wouldn’t stop them. She admired them. She didn’t like what it said about her, necessarily, but sure, she even accepted that maybe, probably, they were made of better stuff than she was.

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