Page 96 of Tracking Snow

It's an abomination.

"These creatures don't belong here," I say, even as I approach the cage.

"Well, don't squeal on me to our landlord and it will be cool," Snow says, spreading the meat out evenly on the tray.

Still, I approach the injured wild animal, trying to see it for what it is. A curse. A plague. A threat to humanity.

As I near, it shrieks and wriggles a bit before dropping exhausted.

Again, a sharp pain twists in my heart. I have to clench my hands into fists to keep from reaching in.

"I mean, they are magic, Snow. They aren't natural. And they certainly don't belong in Boston. The Humans Against Magic aren't totally wrong."

Snow finishes washing her hands off then turns from the counter, baking tray balanced in her hands, knuckles white on the metal. "They killed Carolee. They were going to kill these things too."

"You don't know HAM killed Carolee."

She crosses the room. The tray clatters down onto the coffee table. A flutterbun drops from the lampshade onto the rim and shoves its snout into raw beef before her hands are off the edges.

Snow rounds on me, color high in her cheeks, eyes too bright. "Why do you keep saying that?"

My jaw works.

There's dried blood crusted along her palm where the wire cut her in the alley, a streak of dirt up the side of her jaw, her chest rising and falling too fast under her shirt.

"HAMs are idiots in matching jackets with bumper sticker slogans," I get out. "They hate magic. They aren't the disease, Snow." Heat climbs the back of my throat. "Magic is the disease."

Snow goes still. "Carolee wasn't a disease."

She was infected, Seven says.

As are we, Six says. Should we be killed too?

It's a real question, and not the first time we've asked it of ourselves.

So far, we've been too useful to put down like a dog, Three says with an unusual amount of disgruntlement.

She was a person, and she had a name, Four cuts in, raw. We knew it. We brought her there.

My gut goes hollow. Cold sweeps under my ribs.

The flutterbun in the cage shrieks again. I snap, unable to take the little flutterbun's pain any longer.

My knee hits the floor beside the cage. My hand goes in, fingers finding the trapped joint.

Snow is there in two strides. Her hand clamps around my wrist, hot, shaking.

"Don't hurt it," she protests.

"I'm helping it."

"Then act like it."

Her grip eases. Mine does too. The wing is folded backward at the second joint, wire cutting through fluff into skin. I lift. Slide. Ease the joint clear of the bend. The wing settles along the body. The flutterbun shivers into my palm, heart hammering against my thumb. It's too exhausted to fly off or try to escape.

Snow's hand rests on my wrist. I feel every fine tremor in her fingers.

"You don't get to call something a disease while saving it."