Severine stilled slightly.
You love him. He’s the only one you love.
Maybe. And so?
So you’ll break him. He thinks he’ll be king. That he’ll make a difference. He wants to help the Blighted!
Severine smiled fondly.Oh, Willow, he’ll get over it. Once I explain how much better my way is...She pushed closer. Her nose grew long and witchlike.He’ll see reason. I’ll make sure of it.
Willow wanted to retreat, but not yet. Not yet.
He’s not like you. He’s good, not evil.
Severine smiled.He’s adapted in the past. He’ll adapt again.
Willow went weightless in the pond scum. Her pulse went whoosh. Whoosh.
I lost my baby. She was taken from me, ripped from my very arms,Severine said.So I chose a new one.
Whoosh. Whoosh.
Well, I went through quite a few,Severine admitted.They all served one need or another.
Her face grew enormous again, slick and green and vile.But Micah. Sweet Micah.She smiled.He came to me when he was four, and I created him in my own image. Renamed him in my own image. Severine... Serrin... I do love a good renaming.
And I do love Serrin, Willow. Very much.
Her face became a thundercloud.You created quite a mess with that Maeve misfit, as I’m sure you know. But I will destroy her, as well as her little rebel friends.
She wavered. Rippled. Her eyes swelled and shrank to pinpricks.And I will destroy Micah if you ever return. So don’t.
Severine opened her mouth and roared, filling Willow’s lungs with slime and scum and muck. And then Willow was falling, falling, a twig in the wind, an ember from a funeral pyre. Her head hit wood. Hinges creaked, and arms grabbed—Cole’s arms—pulling her out of the dark and into the light.
“Willow? You’re crying. Why are you crying?”
She flung herself against him, and Cole held her fast. He buried his face in her neck, crying himself but also laughing, and Willow clung to him as if her life depended on it. She didn’t speak. She couldn’t.
Micah was alive.
Not lost, not dead. Just taken. Renamed. Rewritten. And Severine was still at work, shaping him into something he was never meant to be.
A sob choked out. It tasted of seaweed.
“Willow?” Cole said. He tried to draw back, tried to get a look at her face, but Willow shook her head and clung even tighter.
“Just hold me,” she whispered. “Please?”
“Of course,” he said, crushing her to him and stroking her hair, rocking her in his strong arms.
Earlier, when they’d sat on top of the picnic table, Willow had kept the truth about the baby and the pond to herself, afraid it would split Cole’s heart clean in two. But this? The truth about his little brother? It wouldn’t crack his heart. It would shatter it.
So Willow would carry the truth alone. For now. She wouldn’t bury it. She wouldn’t let it rot. She would keep it close and let it sharpen her.
Severine thought she was strong, that she always won. But Willow was stronger. She would find a way.
Behind her, she felt the Box sitting open, its lid thrown back like a coffin kicked open from the inside.
It pulsed softly, a heartbeat only she could hear.
It waited.
Empty—but not done.
* * *
