Page 145 of Tracking Snow

"Snow," One says in a low voice. His fingers close around my elbow.

I look back. His white eyes search mine, then flick to his mother before he gives me a small shake of his head. Like the fight isn’t worth it. He releases my arm, and I instantly miss his touch, but we aren’t here for this.

I don’t understand why I’m here. Why my friends are strapped to a wall.

"After you received the treatment like the other children, and then disappeared," Queenie continues, "we figured you ended up dead in a ditch somewhere. Never in a hundred years did I think you’d be walking around, made perfect. Normal. Human."

"And to think, you don't even remember," she continues, awe making her words slow. Though we always knew that could be a side effect of the drug. But you had the affliction. The abomination in you, and I cured you."

"You're saying I had magic?" I can't help but roll my eyes. "Lady, you are ten pounds of crazy in a tiny Ziploc bag. I think I would have remembered if I was a mage."

On the bright side, I don't think they let crazy people join the senate. She's definitely out of the running after this. As soon as I escape and take all my friends with me I'm going to⁠—

She picks up a remote and a screen on the wall flickers to life with a black and white image. It takes a minute for me to recognize what I'm looking at because it's a different angle from what I saw.

"Rosie," I croak, stumbling forward a few steps. My fingers press to my mouth as I drink in the sight of my friend again after so long.

On the screen is an image of my past so vivid it feels like only yesterday. Rosie and I sit in the living room of the home, her unicorn pencil case between us, an apple floating above it.

They watched us.

My skin crawls as I search the ceiling in my memory for the camera I never knew was there. I should be disgusted, but I’m drawn closer by the sight of her. I never had a picture of her. Nothing to prove she existed beyond a battered pencil case and memories that faded a little more every year.

I had forgotten the way she scrunched her nose when she smiled. I had forgotten how tiny she was.

Now she’s moving in front of me again. Breathing. Smiling at me.

A sob catches in my throat, painful and precious all at once.

"Your power came on so suddenly, so unexpectedly," Queenie says softly, "so you probably barely had time to process it. Maybe that's why your brain chose to block it out, but again, I'm guessing it was a side effect of the drug."

I barely hear her words. On the screen, Rosie reaches for my hand. I remember the warmth of her fingers. The way we had to bite back our giggles so we wouldn't wake anyone.

A second apple rises into the air.

"There, you see it?" Queenie hisses, studying the screen. "The second apple, that's you."

My brow wrinkles. "That's Rosie’s power."

This woman is officially out of her mind. Even as I think it, the screen repeats the scene of the floating apples, something deep inside me niggling and gnawing. My fingers close into my palms as I see it through my mind's eye the same time I watch it on the screen.

Rosie lifted the apple with her powers, and it was so cool, I wanted to be just like her.

Something unlocks in my mind, and suddenly the memory opens to me as I remember the feeling of just...doing what she does.

"You’re what’s called a mirror mage," Queenie says. "You could mirror the magic of anyone around you."

And then I remember. I would levitate things because Rosie did. Not long after, I could heat my soup at the dinner table when it was served cold. When I looked around, it seemed only Dwayne’s soup was hot too. I’d just done what he had done.

"You were a mage," One says. The words come out slow and careful, like he’s testing each one before he trusts it.

I face The Seven.

One stares at me, his lips parted. His white eyes flash pink, blue, purple, then back to white so quickly I can barely track them. Everyone shoving forward at once, trying to see me. Trying to understand.

Then his eyes settle to green.

Six.