"You can sing?" Jagger asks.
"I could sing. I don't know if I still can. I haven't tried since..." I trail off. Since they erased me. Since they took everything, including the parts of me that used to make joyful noise in the shower like a normal person.
"Sing something now," Jinx suggests.
"Absolutely not."
"Come on. We're drunk. We won't judge."
"You'll absolutely judge."
"Only a little."
I shake my head, but something in me wants to try. Wants to know if that piece of me survived.
I open my mouth. What comes out is rough, unpracticed, but recognizable. A few bars of something I half-remember, something my mother might have sung once.
When I stop, the room is quiet.
"You can still sing," Jagger says softly.
"I can sort of sing."
"It was beautiful."
"It was mediocre at best." But the way he says beautiful melts my heart and almost turns me into a damn puddle.
"It was you. That makes it beautiful."
Jinx makes his gagging sound again, but there's something softer in his expression. Something that looks almost like approval.
"Your turn," I tell Jagger. "Something no one knows."
He's quiet while he thinks. "I keep a photo. In my wallet. It's from when we were children, before the Foundry. Jace and Jinx and me, standing in front of a building I don't recognize. We're smiling."
"I didn't know that existed," Jace says.
"I found it in Marcus's things after he died. It's the only evidence that we were ever children. That we ever smiled like that."
The room goes quiet again, but it's a different kind of quiet. Heavier. More meaningful.
"Can I see it?" Jinx asks, his voice uncharacteristically normal.
Jagger pulls out his wallet, removes a worn photograph, passes it around. When it gets to me, I look at three small boys, grinning at the camera like they don't know what's coming. Like they still believe the world is a safe place.
"You were cute," I say.
"We were doomed."
"Both can be true."
The photo makes its way back to Jagger, and he tucks it away carefully, like it's the most precious thing he owns. Maybe it is.
"You're staring," I tell him.
"I'm observing."
"Same thing."
