Page 49 of Velveteen vs. The Consequences of Her Actions

“There has to be a way out of this,” said Action Dude.

The Princess fixed him with a level gaze. “Honey, I don’t suggest you start trying to tell me you had no idea, because you and I both know it would be a lie, and this ain’t the best time for lying to me. You knew I was having problems. You had problems of your own. That’s fine. When the part of me that doesn’t want to start breaking out the spindles and the shears backs off, I even understand. But that part of me is dwindling, and right now, it’s best that you don’t attempt to deflect blame.”

“That’s not what I meant,” protested Action Dude. “Couldn’t you…I don’t know, couldn’t you let go of your story? I mean, of your powers? We’d still have to go somewhere else, but at least you wouldn’t have to worry that you’d end up hurting someone.”

The Princess went very still. Then, in a strangled voice, she said, “Get out.”

“What?” Action Dude looked at her blankly. “Why do you want me to⁠—”

“Get out!” Her voice was a howl of agony, at war with itself.

Velveteen grabbed his arm, ready to drag him out of there, only to freeze as someone grabbed her shoulder. She twisted around to find the white-haired stranger holding onto her. She had what looked like a snow globe in her free hand.

“Sorry,” she said, and hurled the snow globe at the ground. It shattered. Snow rose up around them, swirling and skirling, and the council room went away, taking the Princess, Yelena, and Victory Anna with it.

* * *

When the snow settled, Velveteen, Action Dude, and the stranger were standing on one of the castle battlements. The sky was dark, and filled with fireworks. The sky was always dark and filled with fireworks from this particular battlement. They somehow cast enough light for everyone to see clearly. The Princess’s domain might be changing, but its essential laws were, for the moment, still the same.

The white-haired woman let go of Velveteen’s shoulder like it was hot, dancing back, out of easy hitting range. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to touch you without your permission, but after he said that⁠—”

“After I said what?” asked Action Dude blankly.

Velveteen sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose with one hand. “The Princess owes too much to her story. She can’t just give her powers up. It doesn’t work that way for her. Maybe you could walk away if you thought it was the right thing to do, but she can’t. She doesn’t have that option.”

Action Dude opened his mouth. Then he paused, and closed it again. After a long, silent moment, he said, “Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t think.”

“I know. And I know you didn’t mean anything by it, and hopefully she does too, because if she’s about to make the switch from Princess to Evil Queen, I’d rather not be her first target.” Velveteen lowered her hand and turned to the white-haired woman. “Next order of business: who the hell are you?”

“You know who I am,” said the white-haired woman. She sounded almost apologetic. Somehow that was worse than the way she wore her face, which looked so wrong cast in pink, when it should have been glittering blue. “I know she took you through the Hall of Mirrors. You saw me there.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Action Dude looked between the two, visibly confused. “Vel, you’re the one who introduced me to Jack. When we were filming our first holiday special, remember? She took us home to meet her parents.”

“That happened,” said the white-haired woman. “But it also didn’t happen.”

“Damn right it didn’t happen,” said Velveteen. “Who are you, and what have you done with Jackie?”

The white-haired woman visibly flinched, closing her eyes for a moment as she composed herself. Finally, she opened them and said, “My name is Jacqueline Claus, and I didn’t do anything with Jackie. Jackie did it to herself. Jackie acted against her nature.”

It was Velveteen’s turn to stop dead. She became a statue, so still that she might as well have been one of the gargoyles that littered the battlements around them. Action Dude took a step backward, suddenly aware of just how sharp the claws on those gargoyles were. Sure, he had superstrength, flight, and virtual invulnerability, but that didn’t mean he wanted to get his ass kicked by a piece of statuary. It was embarrassing.

“What do you mean, exactly?” asked Velveteen. Her voice was low and tight: a danger sign if there’d ever been one.

“You know what I mean,” said Jacqueline. Her voice was as low as Velveteen’s, but it was far from tight: it was filled, top to bottom, with the deepest sorrow.

“No. I don’t.” Velveteen glared at her, stubborn suspicion written in every line of her too-thin face. “Jackie is my friend. If you’re trying to take her place, you’re in for a shock, lady.”

“You guys are giving me a headache,” said Action Dude. “What are you talking about? We’ve known Jack since we were kids. I mean, hell, when Marketing was trying to convince the world that you were the worst, the fact that you spent half your time with Santa’s daughter was one of the things your allies used to argue. Santa’s daughter wouldn’t have been one of your best friends if you were bad.”

“I’m Santa’s daughter, but I’m not his child,” said Jacqueline. Action Dude frowned, and she continued, “He adopted me when I was just a few days old. When my skin was blue and my hands were freezing. My biological parents—if it’s really biology when they craft you like a living snowman, Frosty taken to a new extreme—are Jack Frost and the Snow Queen.”

“Stop lying,” said Velveteen.

“My mother made me because she wanted an heir, and then she looked at me, my father’s magic turning snow to skin, blizzard to breath, and she realized that she didn’t love me. She was never going to love me. I was less of the living Winter than she was, than her husband was; they both rose from the seasonal subconscious, while I was a choice. I was a handicraft, like a stocking stitched and stuffed with care.” Jacqueline’s voice turned bitter. “She made me because she wanted me, and then she realized I wasn’t perfect by her standards, and she didn’t want me anymore. And in some realities she kept me anyway, because even if I wasn’t perfect, I was hers, and the Snow Queen doesn’t share. In those worlds, the cold never left my hands. I grew up slinging ice and snow and racing through the world, trying to stop the freeze from spreading all the way to my heart.”