Page 90 of Tracking Snow

Queen Fairchild sits behind her desk, writing. The pen moves steadily across thick paper. The lamp casts a soft glow over her hair, pinned perfectly in place. Pearls at her throat. Silk blouse.

She doesn’t look up. "You’re late."

I step inside. "What happened to Carolee?"

The pen keeps moving. "Who?"

"The woman I brought in. Will-o’-the-wisp magic. You said you could help her." My voice sharpens. "She’s dead."

She finishes the line, sets the pen down, and lifts her calm, measured gaze. A dark blue sling sets her broken arm tight, the only thing out of place. Recognition flickers.

"Oh. Her."

Heat spikes under my skin. "Her body was dumped outside Poison Apple."

Queenie exhales slowly. "Yes, I just heard and that was…unplanned."

"Unplanned?"

"The subject declined rapidly." Queenie folds her hands on the desk. "We tried to help her, but her disease was resistant to treatment."

She died, Six says and for once there is emotion bubbling under his thoughts. We brought her in to help her, and she died. That is not an acceptable outcome.

Failure happens, Seven cuts in, cold and absolute.

He sounds just like her.

That’s not what we were told, Two snaps, sharper than usual. We were told we were saving them. Not delivering them to die.

We are saving them, Seven insists, pressure building, pushing down on the rest of us. Queenie is the only one who can fix the magic-plague. This is the right thing to do.

And if she’s wrong? Two presses.

Seven surges, furious. She is not wrong.

Then why does this feel wrong? Four whispers, raw and shaken.

Silence ripples through us.

I have always been the next one to back Seven up, along with Six, but this isn't right. A woman is dead. Someone Snow considers a friend.

The look on Snow’s face, the tears pouring down her cheeks as she let us hold her, it rips through us, sharp and relentless. It burns under our skin, crawls up our throat, making it hard to breathe. How could we ever explain to her what we did, what we allowed, and expect her to understand?

We can't, Three says with quiet defeat.

We don’t need her to understand, Seven says. We need her safe. And we are making the world safer for people like her.

She won’t be safe from us if we keep doing this, Four says, his tone heated.

"In the pursuit of great change," Queenie says, watching my face carefully as if she can read what we are thinking, "risks are taken, and sacrifices must be made for the greater good. Every medical miracle has bodies buried underneath it. Anesthesia. Blood transfusions. The polio vaccine. We remember the lives saved because that is what history rewards. This is how progress is made."

My jaw tightens. I've already heard all of her campaign speeches.

"I trusted you to help her. To make her better."

Queenie tilts her head slightly. "You brought her somewhere that could help her, and we did our best."

"So you and your people could dump her on the street?" Anger seethes through my tone in a way I've never dared with Queenie Fairchild before.