Page 54 of Tracking Snow

Then she turns to the crowd and walks the length of the bar with both bottles extended. Every upturned open mouth she passes gets a pour. People shove toward the bar. Someone in the front row grabs their friend by the arm.

She winks at someone near the back, and the cheering doubles.

The spotlight swings to the middle stretch of the bar.

An East Asian goth woman steps into it. Dark eyes, still while everyone else is moving, platform boots spiked with metal.

"And a special treat tonight." Geanie's voice shifts into something careful. "Those of you who know your Lost Girls history know that our girl Cinder doesn't pour anymore as Queen of Midnight. She is in town for a little while, and as a special treat she has very graciously agreed to remind Boston what a level five blood mage, vampire hybrid looks like behind a bar."

Another one, Seven counts.

His attention makes my skin itch. This isn't why we came here. We came for Snow.

Cinder pulls a bottle, uncaps it, and tips a thin stream of liquor along the full length of the bar top in one slow, continuous pour. Then she produces a lighter, flicks it, and touches the flame to the near end.

The fire runs the length of the bar in a blue-white line, chasing the liquor trail, and the crowd stumbles back a full step before surging forward again with a roar.

Cinder watches it burn without moving.

The hair along my arms lifts. Even diluted through three hundred bodies, the weight of her magic reaches me at the wall. I have felt magic that dense only once before. I push the thought down before any of the others can catch it.

Cinder raises one hand and closes it into a fist. The fire goes out. The crowd goes nuts.

The spotlight swings from Cinder to the raised platform at the far end of the bar, turning cobalt blue.

There she is.

I'm not sure if I said it, or if all of us did. But we are instantly locked on Snow.

She's in a cerulean corset and a leather skirt with fishnet underneath, white hair loose under the light, dark skin catching the blue. The white tattoos on her arms look like frost. Her electric blue eyes drag across the crowd slowly, that saucy smile playing at her lips.

It's the same smile she gave me right before she jumped in the damn ocean. Which makes me very, very nervous right now.

"Snow." Geanie's voice drops to something almost reverent. "Our petite powerhouse. A gaze like a blade. A feral spirit. She might resemble a winter fairy, but her concoctions will warm you to your core."

A pause.

"And beware, my friends. She can set fire in the most unexpected of places."

He doesn't know how true that is, Four says.

From some place inside me, I'm tempted to grab her, throw her over my shoulder and leave.

Everyone is watching her, Seven says in an uncharacteristic observation. As if he doesn't like it.

Snow rolls her neck, loosening it, then plants her hands and goes into a cartwheel, transitions straight into a roundoff, and comes out of it into a back walkover that takes her the full length of the platform.

At the bottom of the walkover, upside down, both hands on the bar, she closes her mouth around the rim of a waiting shot glass. She comes back up to standing in one fluid motion, tips her head back, and swallows.

The crowd loses their minds entirely.

She sets the empty glass on the bar and flashes a triumphant smile.

She may be human, but everything about her is magic. I don't care if she doesn't have super speed, the ability to phase through walls, or can start a fire from nothing. There is something so undeniable about the attraction I have to her that the only explanation is it must be supernatural.

Geanie drops from the branch and spreads his arms wide.

"Drink up, darlings. Because what happens at Poison Apple," he grins, "stays with us."