Page 48 of The Queen's Box

She rose and opened the door.

Cole stood there, barefoot and shirtless. His muscles were equally impressive from this angle, but Willow dragged her eyes to his face and kept them there.

“I just wanted to say...” He toed the floor. “I was an ass earlier. At dinner.”

Willow shrugged. “I deserved it, probably.”

He shook his head. “You’d had a hell of a day, and all I did was pile on. I’m sorry.”

Her throat thickened. “Thanks,” she said, meaning it.

“You’re not wrong to want out,” he said. “Some people want to burn the system down. Some people just want to escape it.” He shrugged. “I don’t know which one of us is dumber.”

“Micah’s your brother,” she said, bowing her head. “You can’t... that’s not... it changes the equation.”

Cole stood there. Willow didn’t want to know what he might be thinking, so she stared determinedly at the floor. Eventually, he stepped back. “Good night, Willow.”

“Good night, Cole.”

She shut the door and stood there, her hand resting on the knob.

Then she turned, crawled into bed, and pulled the covers around her. The pillow was just the right amount of soft.

She waited for sleep to claim her—had she ever been so tired?—but her mind refused to settle. Thoughts unraveled, looping back on themselves.

Cole.

Serrin.

Magic.

Cole.Serrin.

Magic.

What if the Box could bring them all together?

Impossible. And yet . . .

As she finally drifted off, she dreamed of Serrin calling her name, just beyond the veil.

CHAPTER TWELVE

MORNING CAME COLD and bright. Mist clung to the ridgeline, and the scent of woodsmoke curled low over the hollow. Willow followed Cole single file down a narrow footpath, one she hadn’t seen the night before, though it cut directly behind Ruby and Brooxie’s house. Cole’s boots crushed wet leaves. He’d hardly spoken since they’d started the trek.

They passed a sagging wire fence and ducked under a chain of spiked dog collars that hung between two trees. A spike grazed Willow’s upper arm, and she winced, stopping to see if the scrape had drawn blood.

Blood was so fascinating. So vital. When she was a kid, she’d loved picking off her scabs and watching the welling red bead.

She didn’t like seeing other people’s blood, of course. Only her own. And only in manageable amounts.

“You good?” Cole called over his shoulder.

“Yeah, just...” She twisted to show off her scrape, which hadn’t drawn blood. Still, the spike had traced a vivid white line through her flesh.

Cole grunted, unimpressed. “Be more careful. You could get tetanus in a heartbeat.”

“From a dog collar?”

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