Tracking Snow (The Lost Girls #6)

Prologue

SNOW

The apple floats between us, and I clap a hand over my mouth to suppress a giggle. Rosie grins at me, brushing aside the uneven bangs I cut for her two days ago.

I adjust my own bangs without thinking, eyes still on the floating apple my best friend is levitating with her magic.

Rosie is self-conscious about her forehead being too high, so I offered to give her the cool new do. I cut mine too in solidarity.

Fifteen-year-old girls have to cut their bangs together at least once, right? People already stare at the two of us for how we look, might as well make it extra interesting.

We left the communal bedroom before the sky had even started to lighten, neither of us able to sleep. Rosie and I sit cross-legged across from one another on the threadbare stained carpet of Brightpath House. It matches our state-issued beige pajamas.

"This is the absolute coolest," I whisper, gaze glued to the slightly bruised apple defying physics. The sweet and bitter taste of longing rises within me. I want to do what Rosie can do so badly.

The apple falls, landing on the pens and pencils in her open pencil case. The unicorn on the tin lid is fading from her running her fingers over it so often. It’s one of the few things she truly owns and doesn’t have to share with the others in the home, so she’s trying to break the habit.

I don’t have anything like that. I’m forgetful and lose things all the time, but Rosie protects that pencil case like the treasure it is.

Rosie's pale cheeks flush bright red as she shrugs and strokes the skin of the apple instead of the unicorn I know she’d rather be petting. "Nah, it's not cool. It's weird. I'm a freak."

I’d happily stand out in a crowd with Rosie, but she doesn’t always share my confidence in our solidarity. As long as we’re together, who cares.

"Shut up," I say a little too loudly.

Her eyes widen as she covers my mouth with her hand. "Shh."

Not that everyone in the communal home is awful—it's just hard to have privacy with so many other orphan kids running around. This is a rare moment of quiet just for the two of us.

"I'm serious," I say, dropping my voice this time. "You’re not a freak. I wish I could do what you can. It’s crazy cool." I lean back onto my palms.

My heart is threatening to break through my ribcage with excitement, as if it could break through my bones and make me...more.

There is a fire that is always smoldering in my lower belly, it strains for more. More than this place, more than what I’ve been told I can have—not much—and more magic.

But not everyone would understand my longing. Boston is a sanctioned human-only city, and the purity of that gets pushed on us in the home. Magic is a sin. A perversion of what’s human.

Which is why Rosie and I decided to keep her newly developed ability a super special sister secret.

The only reason I haven't blown this joint is because of my friend sitting across from me.

Rosie is my sister from another mister, though we don't know either of the misters in question. Our parents are dead.

Though no one would mistake us for blood sisters. Not with my deep, dark brown skin, electric blue eyes, and white hair next to Rosie's fair complexion and achondroplasia dwarfism.

While most kids here long for parents, I knew the second I found Rosie she was all the family I'd ever need. Maybe I’d miss having parents more if I could remember them, but I was barely a toddler when they died.

I unconsciously pluck at the jagged hairs that now lay a little too high above my brow.

The new crooked bangs don't really hide the fact that Rosie’s forehead is extra high, and they can’t hide the shorter, stouter proportions of her body either. But if it makes her feel better, I'll get better at cutting hair.

Rosie looks at me shyly from under her lashes, and the apple rises into the air again.

I straighten. "Make it spin," I whisper, the smoldering fire of awe and envy burning in my gut again.

Her smile stretches as the apple slowly begins to rotate in midair.

A second apple rises, floating next to the first. I gasp, and Rosie covers her mouth.

With her free hand, she reaches over and grabs mine. I squeeze back.

We sit for what feels like forever, holding hands, watching the two apples orbit and spin like little planets.

I'll never be as good as Rosie is, but she chose to be my friend, and I'll never let her go.