Page 152 of Tracking Snow

"Faefucks, Snow."

"Sorry."

I set the glasses beneath the counter as Rap goes back to touching up the scorch marks left behind by the fire. Most of the broken windows have been replaced, the damaged furniture has been hauled out, and the last of the blood scrubbed from the floor.

Four stands beneath the fairy tree, using little bursts of flame to burn away the blackened ends of its branches without touching the healthy growth. I can feel each spark of his power from here.

I can feel all of the magic in the building.

I’ve used Goldie’s ability to teleport in and out with supplies. Cinder’s magic to pull the blood from the stained wood floors so I could wipe it up and make them as good as new again. Or at least back to the scuffed-up, worn floors we know and love.

"Is it kind of annoying she knows how to use our powers better than we do?" Goldie asks Cinder from where she’s paused sweeping the floor.

Cinder reclines across one of the tufted couches with a rag draped over her stomach and one boot propped on the armrest. She lifts the rag and wipes the same three inches of wood beside her before dropping it again.

"I might be more bothered if it weren’t taking so much of the workload off the rest of us."

Over at the entrance, Ryder lifts the new front door into its frame, the replacement for the one HAM turned to splinters. He balances the slab of oak with one arm and seats the hinge pins with the other, and his biceps strain the sleeves of his black tee to their structural limit.

Rap's brush has stopped mid-stroke.

I follow her stare across the room, straight to the doorway. The pin drops home. Ryder rolls his shoulder, clocks her looking, and gives the door a lazy test swing. "Boss?"

"It squeaks," Rap says, and attacks the scorch marks with sudden devotion.

It does not squeak. I say nothing, because I enjoy being alive.

I fight my smile.

The world is full of currents I spent my entire life reaching for. Now they reach for me. Four's fire pulses from the tree in warm little heartbeats. Goldie hums bright gold at the edge of my senses. Cinder runs underneath it all, slow and deep and red. My own magic rises to meet each one, mirror-bright, ready to be any of them.

And threaded between them, the human currents. Rap finding urgent new work directly facing away from the door. Ryder at the doorway, admiring his own hinge work. Geanie already retelling the story of his black eye to an audience of one mop. These walls held blood and fire. Today they hold this.

I always knew myself best.

Even when I forgot the magic, my body remembered it. The hunger led me to magic-kind, to Poison Apple, to every snack cake that let me borrow an ability for a few minutes. It led me to The Seven.

And it led me directly into a wall yesterday when I teleported before deciding where I wanted to land, but personal growth has setbacks.

"Catch," Geanie calls out. He sports a black eye and has been nursing a concussion since that night the HAMs came, but he has no problems using it as bragging rights.

A roll of paper towels flies over the bar. I reach for Rosie’s power and stop it in midair.

The roll floats in front of me.

A laugh bursts out of my chest before I can contain it.

I’ve levitated at least fifty things since Seven gave me back my powers. The excitement keeps hitting me fresh every time.

Rosie’s magic stays the easiest. Her power was the first one I mirrored, stamped into mine before Queenie tore everything else away. Every time something rises at my command, I feel Rosie’s hand wrapped around mine and hear two girls trying to swallow their laughter in the dark.

I float the paper towels into my hand.

Ariel watches me from where she is painting over a slightly burnt beam.

"What?" I ask.

"You have the exact same face you made after eating your first Magic Morsel."