Page 155 of Tracking Snow

Two puts the folder on the vanity.

"What is it?"

His fingers remain pressed to the cover. "I found a records room underneath Brightpath House before the investigators took everything."

The quiet weight in his voice tightens my stomach.

"And?"

He looks down at the file, his thumb rubbing across the worn edge. "This one had your name on it."

Two moves his hand.

Snow Womback is typed across the tab.

My chest squeezes. For most people, a file from childhood would hold report cards or vaccination records. Brightpath kept footage of us using magic and notes on how our bodies reacted to poison.

I pull out one of the vanity chairs before my knees decide for me and sit.

Two crouches in front of me, resting one hand on the arm of my chair. His knee presses against mine as his purple eyes search my face.

"Did you read it?"

His jaw shifts. "Yes."

My fingers curl around the edge of the chair. "How bad is it?"

"You should see it." His voice roughens. "There are painful things, but there’s also some things that belong to you."

He places the file in my hands, keeping one hand beneath it until my grip steadies.

The first page holds a photograph of a burned house. Half the roof has collapsed into the second floor. Black smoke pours from the empty windows while firefighters move through the yard.

Womback residence is written beneath it.

The file trembles in my grip. I flip the page and find two names. Caroline and Matthew Womback.

"My parents."

Two settles into the chair beside mine, his knee still warm against my leg.

"The Humans Against Magic group were on a hot streak around the time you were born. They received information that one of your parents had magic, though it’s not reported what kind or if it was even true. The HAMs set fire to the house while your family was sleeping."

I said it didn’t matter. You can’t miss what you never had, but I suddenly have a deep, empty well where my heart should be. Where my family should have been. Maybe they would have been shit parents. Or maybe we would have made pancakes on Saturdays, sang in the car, and I could have mimicked their magic in an adorably childish way.

I flip to the next page.

A smaller photograph has been paper-clipped to an intake report. A woman sits on a porch with a white-haired toddler in her lap. A man crouches beside them with one arm around her shoulders. The little girl wears an eggshell blue dress and holds a dandelion in one fist.

Me.

My mother has my eyes. My father’s grin takes over his whole face.

My thumb moves over the edge of the picture. "How did I survive?"

"A neighbor found you near the back fence. Queenie’s organization collected survivors after HAM attacks before child services could place them elsewhere. To keep watch, study and, well, you know the rest."

I close the file. Tears drip onto the worn cover.