A wonderful world meets her when she comes out of the apartment; the magic of winter has finally arrived with the first snow of the season. Everywhere Queenie looks, she finds the white blanket covering pavement and roof alike and giving the great, wild city a tranquility that is almost never experienced.
The rush of people is slower as they walk amidst the snow, putting a smile on Queenie's lips with their thoughts of family and home. While in New York City people always have business in mind, the snowy morning leaves them with nothing but the desire of going home and spending the day with their loved ones. It's almost as if, with the snow, Christmas has come early.
Something about the weather makes people want to feel warmer on the inside, as well as the outside. While the latter can be solved with a charm and a thick robe, the first needs to be tended to by loved ones. Queenie, for the thousandth time that morning, smiles when she thinks of Jacob.
He is a treasure to her, with his enthusiasm for the strange new world he discovers in the middle of the most mundane city of the world, and his love for baking treats with his grandmother's recipes. She admires how brave he is when he walks out of the canning factory and goes into the bank to ask for a loan.
There! His bakery is, as usual, full.
She claps, happy that he is having so much success after enduring for so long the life he ends up escaping to get into a world he doesn't understand completely, all because he stumbled upon a man with a particularly troublesome suitcase.
Queenie sways her hips when she enters the store, the regulars greeting the stunning girlfriend of their talented, favorite baker.
When she takes off her pastel pink coat, snow dust falls from it onto her red shoes. She can't be bothered by that because as soon as Jacob notices her, he's in front of her and without even touching both can feel warmer.
"You are a vision from Winterland," he whispers, not caring in the slightest about the display they're offering to the bakery's clientele. A random client thinks she's hot, but his more lewd thoughts are nothing to her, not after experiencing the love this man offers her. "Are fairies real?"
His questions never catch her off guard, but Queenie still giggles when he asks them; they are innocent, more akin to the questions of a child when he discovers something new.
Then again, Jacob is only discovering her world and she is discovering what love really means.
"They are real, though not as pretty as they are in No-Maj children stories," she shares and they walk to the counter, where he keeps on handing brown paper bags full of biscuits. "Why?"
His thoughts are clear, more because of his open expressions than because she can read minds, but hearing him say all kind of beautiful things to her can never compare to what Legilimancy can offer.
"I thought you a snow fairy," he confesses, and his mustache wiggles when he goes from wonder to joy; his smile is perfect. "In Russia, they call them Snegurochka!"
She laughs at his words, amazing again at how well he is adapting. "Am I made of snow? I'm not as pretty."
He snorts, but it's not something sarcastic; it sounds more as if he's saying how can you think that?
The clients are all smiling as they hear Jacob and Queenie, and she thinks that maybe that is Jacob's magic. He has the talent of stealing the hearts of everyone he meets, and she is not an exception.
"Queenie," he says after giving a woman her change and her biscuits. His hand is on her waist and his eyes on hers; the snow from her hair and her shoes is gone now, his lingering touch providing the warmth she relishes since their first meeting. "There is nothing in the world that can be compared with you. Not in mine, not in yours. But snow is pretty and pure, and so are you."
When he smiles at her, Queenie kisses him.