Page 115 of Tracking Snow

His laugh is ugly. "Fair? You looked at that cat like Seven performed a miracle."

"Because he did. It is. I don’t think anyone has known of someone to have that power. I only know of someone who can strip the powers from others, but you, Seven...it is a miracle."

"No." His body crowds closer, eyes flashing so fast I can’t tell who is looking at me anymore. "He made something that can’t die. He created a thing that was captured, cut open, tested, and tortured because magic doesn’t save anything. It corrupts everything it touches."

I stare up at him, unblinking. "That isn’t magic. That’s people."

His lips peel back. "You don’t know what you’re talking about."

"I know Carolee didn’t die because she had magic."

His face goes blank.

I keep going, because I’m furious now. Because my heart is pounding and Lucifer is alive and this beautiful, impossible man in front of me keeps talking about himself like he is a plague.

"She died because someone hurt her. And I’m starting to suspect Rosie died because someone wanted to hurt her too." I wipe angrily at the wetness on my cheeks. The way they both looked in death. It can’t be a coincidence, their grayed pallor, the way life seemed to be sucked out of them... "People are disappearing because someone is taking them. Magic isn’t the sickness here."

"You think that because you don’t have it."

The words punch straight through me. My throat burns even as I glare at him.

He sees it land. I know he does.

Still, he keeps going.

"You romanticize it. You gorge yourself on those vile snack cakes and chase anything and anyone magic because you think being close to that power will make you special. You don’t love magic. You worship it because you feel so painfully ordinary compared to everyone around you, and you can’t stand it."

My eyes sting, and my whole face goes hot. It's true. It's been true since I was a kid.

"Stop it," I yell.

"Why? Because it’s true?" he shouts back.

"No. Because I’m not the only one who’s obsessed with thinking that I need to be fixed. How do you really think it would feel? Not to have your magic? You think it’d be a relief? My friend Red has the power to strip powers from others, and she is forbidden by law to ever use that power again. Even if she could, she says she wouldn’t unless she absolutely had to. Do you know why? Because it’s a violation. Because she knows taking someone’s powers is the same as using a stick to blind someone or pierce their eardrums so completely they go deaf. If any of those parts were taken from you, I don’t think you would be happy. I think you’d mourn and wish you’d realized what you had."

Something flickers over his face. Gone fast.

"And honestly?" I push on. "You repeat the words that magic is bad like a broken record someone else recorded for you. Magic is bad, magic is wrong, magic needs to be cured." My voice shakes, but I don’t stop. "Those words, those thoughts, they are your mother’s. Her prejudices."

His green eyes flare as his jaw tenses. "Don’t talk about her."

There’s a warning in his voice, but I can’t stop.

"At least one of you knows your mother is wrong. Is it Five? Three? Maybe even you know, Six. Because they probably sense through their feelings she’s wrong, and you can detect bullshit with your logical side, enough to know there is no real excuse for her to stop loving you. That you aren’t the problem, but she is. The way she thinks is wrong."

The green sharpens, and black bleeds through the center.

"Enough," he says, voice too low. It ripples over my skin with force.

My feet move on their own.

His whole body locks even as the black drains out, leaving Six’s green gaze. Neither of us speaks as the air pulls tight around us.

Then he steps back, and the green washes to white like a door slamming shut.

"We’re done."

"No," I say. Panic rises in me as a strange feeling of him slipping through my fingers like sand overcomes me. "You don’t get to say that."