Page 91 of Tracking Snow

Her expression tightens and pinches as she stands up. The fingers of one hand press into the desk while the navy sling keeps her other arm tight against her chest. "You do not speak to me like that." Her words, heavy with command, reverberate through my bones. I fight not to flinch.

The lamp light hits her face in a way that emphasizes the blue bruises that she tried to cover with makeup but failed to completely conceal.

A part of me, I'm not sure which part, wonders if that's deliberate to force people to look upon what a mage had done to her.

Don't talk about her like that, Seven growls. She's been trying to help us, save us. She has done everything for us.

Everything except tell us the truth, Two mutters.

Careful, Six warns, tension threading through him now. We cannot fracture here.

We already are, Four says.

Silence stretches.

The clock ticks behind me.

My eyes drift to her shoulder again. The sling. The bruises.

"Why was her body dumped like that?" I ask in a smaller, noncombative voice.

Her gaze flicks down, then back up.

"Some of my people made a rash decision to send a message to the owner of Poison Apple. Seeing as her place has become a hub, verily an invitation for fae and mages to gravitate toward Boston, to reveal themselves and act with their powers out in the open is a problem. A problem I’ve been trying to deal with via more diplomatic means. I did not sanction what happened and I find the display distasteful," she says. Her gaze drifts past me, distant for a moment, the soft office light catching the powder settled too thick beneath one eye. She looks fragile for half a second. Bruised. Human. Then her chin lifts, pearls gleaming at her throat, and the softness leaves her face. "But perhaps effective."

My hands curl.

"That little stunt, however, is beside the point. If we stop trying to help the infected, the disease wins." Queenie's gaze sharpens, "Most people would say we are on the verge of a war, but you know better than anyone this war has been raging for years. Humanity itself is at stake, and that," she sticks a finger into her desk with an audible thud, "is what we are trying to save here."

Her eyes hold mine, daring me to defy her. After a long moment, my gaze buckles first, dropping to the desk between us.

My lungs burn.

She watches me carefully now, measuring me the way she does her political opponents when no one is watching.

"You’re upset," she says, an observation.

"She didn’t have to die," I say quietly.

"I said we tried to save her." Her voice raises abruptly, and I can’t fight off the flinch this time. "And we will keep trying until we have unearthed the cure. And it's never been more important that we push for this. If we succeed, we change everything. We give people their lives back. We remove the danger, secure my position in the senate, and one day the presidency."

Her expression softens ever so slightly. "Don’t you want that?" she asks quietly.

I don’t answer.

"Don’t you want me to continue my work? Don't you want me to find a way to lead us to a cure for the world? So you can be cured?"

The question burrows into me, hooks into something that’s been carved into me since childhood. Ever since I've known that I'm wrong, that I need to be fixed and a cure is the only thing that will make me worthy, lovable, safe.

My throat closes.

"You could be a person again," she says, coming around the desk to stand in front of me. "You could be free of it. Free of your disease."

For once, we aren't just split seven ways, we are split in two. Between what Queenie is saying and the voice of Snow telling us we are perfect as is.

She’s wrong, Three says, quieter now but steadier. We are a real person. We are real people. Snow sees that.

My hands clench into fists so tight my bones ache. His reaction shakes me to the core. I’ve also secretly been beginning to think that, but I never dared let it surface.