Page 87 of The Queen's Box

“Can’t you go to her?” Willow asked.

“I could, but I’d be punished. So would she.” Jace fisted her hands. “I help her in other ways as best I can.”

“Mucky Maeve, Mucky Maeve, crawled from the cradle too ugly to save,” jeered a handsome fae boy with pale green eyes. His friends joined in, their jabs a cruel singsong. “Teeth too sharp and soul too black—no nurse nor nip would take her back!”

Maeve curled farther inward. Her thin arms moved in furtive jerks as she cleaned up the mess she didn’t cause.

“Isno onenice to her?” Willow asked.

Before Jace could answer, a whistle split the air. She turned to see two tiny men at the entrance to the hall, each dressed in stiff brocade jackets. The shorter of the two removed his thumb and index finger from his mouth and nodded. Both men marched to the threshold, turned smartly on their heels, and raised a pair of silver trumpets. A blast of music silenced the crowd and shook pink puffballs from the roof beams, clouds of it floating down like cotton candy.

There was the clink of boots, and Aesra stepped through the archway. Her pale eyes swept the hall before locking on Willow.

“Willow Braselton, please rise,” she said, her voice low but carrying.

Willow turned toward the dais where Severine still sat at the head of the long table. She appeared absorbed in the pink puffballs, eyes half-lidded in thought.

Then—almost absently—her gaze flicked to Willow. She smiled and inclined her head.

Before Willow could fully register it, Aesra’s gloved hands were under her arms, assisting her to her feet and escorting her out of the dining hall.

~

Aesra said nothing as she walked, her boots clicking evenly over the stone. Willow trailed behind, quickening her steps every few yards just to keep pace. The corridors turned in on themselves—looping through archways, spiraling beneath colonnades, leading nowhere and yet onward, onward still. Once, they descended a narrow stair and emerged—impossibly—on a level they’d already crossed.

It reminded Willow of dreams she’d had as a child, ones where she wandered a house with too many doors, each opening into another version of the same hallway.

Gradually, the air changed, and the palace grounds opened onto something wilder. From behind a bower of flowering glassvine, the queen stepped out.

“Thank you, Aesra,” she said.

Willow blinked, startled and a bit annoyed. Was this why Aesra had taken the long way—to give Severine time to get here first, to allow for this “surprising” reveal?

They resumed walking, with Aesra following at a polite distance behind. Severine asked after Willow’s sleep. She commented on the size of the roses—apparently, they were particularly large this summer—and wondered aloud whether the white squirrels spotted recently in the palace trees were an omen of good things to come.

“White squirrels,” Severine repeated. “In Eryth, of all places. Isn’t that a marvel?”

“It is,” Willow said, though she hadn’t spotted one of these possible good omens. All the squirrels she’d seen in Eryth were the garden-variety type, brown and chatty with lovely full tails.

Willow wasn’t interested in squirrels of any hue, however. She was weary of polite conversation altogether. “I was wondering, Your Highness, about Serrin.”

Severine’s smile grew fixed.

“What if I just sat with him?” Willow asked. “We wouldn’t even have to speak. I wouldn’t bother him, I promise.”

“You will meet Serrin at the Mating Ceremony,” Severine replied, her tone gentle but absolute. “As I’ve said.”

“Yes, but... can you at least tell me when the Mating Ceremony will be?”

A high, needling whine cut through the air. Willow turned to see Aesra flinch and draw her sword from its sheath.

“Aesra?” Severine asked mildly.

Aesra was crouched low, eyes locked on something flitting near her cheek. She swiped at the air once, then again. The blade nicked a hedge.

“It’s just a mosquito, isn’t it?” Willow asked Severine. She searched for the word Poppy had used. “A mordrek?”

“Aesra, that’s quite enough,” Severine said.

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