Page 126 of Tracking Snow

Rap's hand curls at her side, knuckles whitening, and shock breaks across her face, sharp and unguarded, gone almost as soon as it appears. I catch it anyway, a crack in her armor I’ve never seen before, and I have no idea what Queenie just touched to make it happen.

My feet move before I decide to move them.

I duck under the service gap and step out from behind the bar, drawn closer by the sudden sharpness in Rap’s face, by the way Queenie’s smile cuts without showing teeth.

Red says my name under her breath, and I pause. This is Rap's fight, but I'm here for backup if she wants it.

Rap’s smile drops. "You don’t get to walk in here, call these people dangerous, call this place unsafe, call magic a disease, then pretend you’re not selling hate to the people who want my patrons gone."

Queenie’s expression softens into something made for campaign mailers. "I don’t hate you, Rapunzel. I don’t hate anyone. Just as I could never hate someone because they have cancer. It simply means we must work harder to find a cure."

The way she talks. It sounds so much like someone else I know, like the same polished, poisonous script The Seven have been force-fed for years. Maybe his mom and Queenie learned it in the same rooms, under the same chandeliers, nodding along to the same speeches.

Hell, maybe his mom and Queenie were sorority sisters, trading notes on how to smile sweetly while deciding who gets to belong and who doesn’t.

"And the way to do that is to get rid of everyone who isn’t like you," Rap says. "Tell me, Queenie, does that stem from a place of pure narcissism and vanity, or is this all because you are fucking terrified of anyone who’s different than you?"

A few people suck in sharp breaths.

Ryder sets the tray of empties down on the nearest table without looking away from the door.

Queenie smiles as if indulging a dumb child. "Humans are plenty different from each other. The issue is how magic can be used to coerce, corrupt, and oppress."

"Oh yeah?" Rap smirks, setting her hands on the counter. "Because that’s what your job title as a politician sounds like. A woman with the power and know-how to coerce and oppress. So. It sounds like both. You narcissistically fear some mage or fae is going to start doing exactly what you are doing."

Queenie’s smile goes flat. "I work above board to help my fellow humans, unlike magic-kind who prefer to work underground in seedy black markets. I plan to eradicate all of those spaces and any associated with them. Put this city back to rights."

Her eyes travel to the large fairy tree growing at the center of the bar.

Rap follows her gaze, and a strange, worried expression crosses her face. Again, I feel like I’m missing out on a totally second conversation taking place.

"You’ve been under the impression that Boston has been human all these years, untainted, but what if this place has always had magic-kind hiding in plain sight?" Rap asks, her voice deadly even. "What if it’s so pervasive that you would have to burn this world and all the realms to get rid of u—them?"

The last word catches.

My head turns toward her.

Call me crazy, but for a moment I thought she was about to say us.

Queenie’s gaze sharpens. "Like I said, I’m just here to pay my condolences to a small business owner and encourage you to do the right thing and protect your patrons."

Then her eyes move past Rap.

To me.

Everything in Queenie's face rearranges.

Her lips part, not in a practiced smile but in something unguarded, almost broken. Her breath catches, audible, sharp, and her hand lifts an inch from her side like she’s reaching for something she isn’t sure is real, then freezes there, fingers trembling.

Her eyes widen, searching my face with a frantic intensity, as if she’s trying to reconcile what she’s seeing with something she buried long ago. Disbelief flickers first, then something deeper, recognition crashing into it so hard it leaves her momentarily hollowed out.

The polished woman who walked in with cameras and condolences disappears behind something raw enough to make my skin prickle.

She seems to be drinking in my white hair. My blue eyes. My face.

Like she knows every piece.

Like she’s remembering them.