39. A Pissing Match with the Queen
A Pissing Match with the Queen
SNOW
"You shouldn’t be here, Red," I say, hugging my friend close.
She laughs into my hair and squeezes me back. "You want to tell your arms that? Careful. If you break my ribs, I can’t wash glasses, and I know that’s your least favorite duty here."
I hug her tighter anyway.
Two minutes ago, Red had ducked under the service gap behind the bar, grabbed the empty ice bucket from beside my station, and announced, "You look like hell, babe," like she still worked here and this was any other understaffed Saturday night.
It’s not any other understaffed Saturday night.
It’s Rap and me behind the bar with a crowd three deep, Ryder working the floor, dirty glasses stacked in every possible place, and a city full of magic-kind looking at Poison Apple like it is the last lit window in a very dark street.
Where Ariel’s red hair is bright copper, Red is red red. Fire-engine, stop-traffic, impossible-to-miss red. Thus, the nickname.
Her pale skin glows beneath the bar lights, and her smile is wide enough to make my chest hurt. Since she left Poison Apple to become a CPA, of all fucking things, she has been deliriously happy.
Tired, yes. Exhausted, definitely. She had twins somewhere in the middle of earning her CPA certification and building her own firm like a lunatic with a spreadsheet addiction.
But happy.
And now she’s here.
Behind the bar.
Where magic-kind keep vanishing.
Finally, I force myself to push away from her, but my hands cling to her shoulders.
"It’s not safe. You need to go home."
She laughs right in my face. "I’m not doing that."
"Red, I’m serious."
She leans over and kisses my cheek before breaking away from me. "And so am I."
She grabs two clean bar towels from the stack, tosses one over her shoulder, and snatches the empty garnish tray from beside my elbow. "You’re out of limes, you have a mountain of dirty glasses, and someone at table six has been waiting so long he’s started to chew on his own arm."
"Red," I try again.
"Besides," she cuts me off. "Brexley is here." Red nods toward the door as she reaches for the cutting board. "So everyone can relax before Rap gives herself an aneurysm."
"Too late," Rap’s voice cuts in from behind me, dry and sharp.
I turn just as Rap steps in close with a towel, wiping down a spill, eyes flicking over Red with a mix of irritation and relief she’s not even trying to hide. It’s been the two of us holding down the fort, and not very well at that.
Red doesn’t even pause, already slicing into a lime. "Hi to you too."
I look to the doorway where Red’s tall, muscular husband waits near the entrance with what I can only describe as his murder posture.
Brexley looks just as scary as he did the first time I met him, with silver hair, broad shoulders, and a scar cutting down his face. Except now I know the terrifying silver-haired werewolf is also a stay-at-home dad who will walk around with spit-up on his shirt, wearing it like a badge of honor.
He catches me looking and gives one sharp nod.
Rap sighs, follows my gaze, then looks back at Red.
"I'm glad you're here because we could use the help," Rap says, quieter now, but no less intense. "But it's not safe. Not for anyone here."
Red’s knife stills for half a second, then resumes its quick, efficient rhythm. "Then why don't you shut down entirely?"
A tense silence hangs between the three of us.
"How about I tell you why," Red answers her own question. "Because staying separate is worse. Because magic-kind needs a place to join together. Because there is solidarity and safety in numbers."
Rap exhales, tension still coiled tight in her shoulders, but she doesn’t argue further. She just grabs a bottle from the well and starts pouring like she’s been doing it her whole life.
Red continues cutting limes into wedges with quick, efficient strokes.
"Besides, I survived tax season and can use a change of pace. The twins are with Brexley’s dad for the week, out playing in the wilderness.
Apparently, they’re in a biting nature phase, which Brexley says is healthy, and I say it’s how we end up banned from a national park. "
A laugh almost makes it out of me.
Almost.
"Red," I say again.
Her knife stills.
The smile leaves her face piece by piece.
"This city has gone insane over this election, and our friends are..." My throat works. "I can’t lose you too."
Red blinks hard, then scrapes the limes into the garnish tray with more force than necessary. "Like I said, this place needs to stay open. Besides," Red says with a smile again, tipping her chin toward Brexley. "My werewolf husband will rip the head off anyone before they get near me."
The image of Brexley ripping off The Seven’s head hits me in full technicolor vision, so vivid it feels like it’s happening right in front of me. I have to lock my knees and grip the edge of the bar to keep steady.
Rap notices because of course she does. Her gaze cuts to me. "Snow?"
The bar noise swells around us. Ice hits metal. Someone laughs too loudly. The ticket printer spits out another order.
I haven’t told her.
I haven’t told anyone.
Not what I suspect about The Seven, because I’m not entirely sure.
Still, I can’t bring myself to say the words. I can’t force myself to tell them that the men I love might be destroying everything else that I love.
And I can’t force myself to confess that I’ve already let it slip to him that Red has powers too.
But I have to. I have to tell them now. They deserve to know.
I open my mouth.
The bar goes quiet in strange, unnatural pieces.
First, the table nearest the entrance. Then the stools along the wall.
Then the cluster by the tree. Conversations drop, one after another, until even the music sounds obscene.
Geanie looks up from where he’s spinning the tunes but scratches it all to a halt.
Queenie Fairchild walks into Poison Apple like the whole building has been waiting to receive her.
The senatorial candidate is wrapped in a winter-white wool dress despite the blazing summer heat. Glossy blonde hair is pinned smooth, makeup soft enough to look effortless and expensive.
A single guard follows her, broad and expressionless in a dark suit. He stops a few feet behind her, one hand folded over the other in front of him.
Rap straightens beside me, one hand still wrapped around the tequila bottle, the other settling flat on the bar top.
Ryder, halfway between the booths and the bar with a tray of empties in one hand, stops moving. His eyes flick to Rap.
Red reaches for my wrist beneath the counter. Brexley starts slinking through the crowd, making his way toward his wife.
Queenie’s eyes sweep the room, pausing on the fairy tree growing through the center of the bar. Her mouth tightens a fraction.
The young woman at Queenie’s side—dressed in the same prim lines, dark hair twisted into a severe French knot, the look of an eager intern or well-trained lackey on her face—keeps her phone lifted, slowly panning across the bar, though the hate she can’t quite smother flickers in her dark eyes.
On the screen, comments scroll in a fast vertical blur beside Queenie’s calm profile.
A livestream.
Of fucking course.
Queenie doesn’t need more guards. Not with everyone in the room being recorded for the good citizens of Boston to judge.
Rap steps out from behind the bar. "What a surprise," she says, voice carrying across the room. "If I’d known you were coming, I would have pulled out all my anti-magic posters and brushed up on my hate slurs."
Ryder begins to move toward her, but Rap gives an almost imperceptible shake of the head. He stops.
Brexley angles himself closer to the guard, putting himself between the behemoth in a suit and where Red and I are behind the bar.
Rap and Queenie meet in the middle of the room beneath the outstretched branches of the fairy tree.
For a second, my brain spits out the wrong picture. Queenie standing at the front of Brightpath House with her kind smile and Christmas gifts, telling a room full of unwanted kids how loved we all were.
Rap stands across from her in black leather, chin lifted, every inch the woman who gave me a job, a stage, a family I chose.
My old almost-mother and my new big sister, facing each other down under the lights of Poison Apple.
Queenie’s gaze lands on Rap with polished warmth. "Rapunzel." She says her name in a way that could either be a compliment or an insult. "There’s no need for us to be hostile."
"Could have fooled me." Rap falls into an open, relaxed stance, hands on her hips and expression bored.
"I came as soon as my schedule allowed," Queenie says, turning slightly so the phone catches her face. "A young woman was left dead on your doorstep. No decent public servant could ignore that. I’m here because this city deserves to know how that happens outside a place calling itself a sanctuary."
Rap’s gaze flicks to the aide holding up the phone. "You brought a livestream to a condolence call?"
Queenie’s smile barely moves. "Transparency matters."
"Oh, so you’re here to confess to riling up the Humans Against Magic movement so they would attack my bar?" Rap asks. "I certainly appreciate the transparency."
A few people near the tree mutter. The aide turns the phone toward them.
The muttering stops.
Queenie lets the silence settle until she somehow controls it again.
I’m in awe of that ability. I can't help but open my mouth and pour into the silence with insults or accusations in moments like this.
But both Queenie and Rap are battling on a totally different level.
Every word counts. Every pause is a chance for the other to stumble, and I keep bracing for it.