Well, who doesn’t love being compared to an electrical cord? Although, I have to admit, I’m curious where he’s going with this. “Let’s say I agree with that. What does a tattoo have to do with it?”

“Vikram’s tattoos can do all sorts of things. So what I think is, with the right tattoo, you can pull my magic from me, including magic I’ve never been able to access, and hold it in the tattoo—then send it back to me, freed from the prison’s magical locks.” He pauses while I absorb this idea, then leans forward, and I don’t know if it’s me he’s trying to convince of his next statement or himself. “I don’t know who my dad was, but my mom used to tell me a bedtime story that he gave me enough power to tear a hole in this prison. To level it—when I was ready.”

I think back to that minute when I first wrapped my hand around his wrist—he had power, but not very much. Was it simply hidden from me? “Is that how we get out?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know. But I know when you give me the flower, you have a tattoo on your arm. And since you don’t have a tattoo on your arm now…you must get one in the Pit. And why else but to help free my magic to break us out?”

“So this tattoo might be necessary to get us out or it might not. All you know is that I get it?” I think about this and then sigh. I want to tell him no way on the tattoo, but what if he’s right and it’s our only way out? I’d hate to blow everything because I didn’t keep an open mind. “Can it be small, at least? And somewhere that my uncle Finn won’t see it?”

He just laughs. “It can be anywhere you want, Grace. I don’t think the location I saw it in matters.”

Except that turns out not to be true, because when Remy gives his name to the receptionist, her eyes go wide. She excuses herself and hurries to the back of the shop. Seconds later, the tattoo artist comes out to greet us, and she is totally kick-ass. She’s probably about fifty or sixty, and she’s got short white-gray hair that she wears in two pigtails that are dipped in shades of blue so that they look like dripping icicles. She’s wearing a black tank that shows off both her sleeves of tattoos—one a full waterscape, one a full earthscape—and they are absolutely beautiful.

“Remy?” she asks. “Is it you?”

“Yeah?” He seems confused. “I’m sorry. Have we met?”

“Your mom brought you here when you were a little boy, too young to remember, I imagine.” She holds out a hand. “I’m Eliza.”

He takes it and shakes. “I’m…” His cheeks flush as he realizes he’s about to introduce himself again, and I note it’s the first time I’ve ever seen him discomfited. I wonder if it’s because she knew his mom or because—for the first time since I’ve been here—someone knows more about a situation than he does.

He gestures to me. “This is Grace.”

“Grace?” she says, eyes widening. “So this is the girl who took on the Nightbloom coven…and lived to tell the tale. I’ve been hearing good things about you, Grace.”

It’s my turn to be uncomfortable. “Oh, um, thanks. It was more chance than anything else.”

She laughs. “So much of life is.” She waves us to the back of the shop. “Come on, let’s get started.”

“But we haven’t picked a design yet,” I protest. She’s cool-looking and all and I love her ink, but I do not want a full sleeve covering all the skin on my arm. At least not right now.

Eliza seems confused. “But I’ve already created the design. Remy’s mom paid me to do it twelve years ago and said you would show up when you needed it. I just assumed, when you came today—”

“My mom did all that?” Remy asks, and he sounds astonished…but also touched in a way he doesn’t seem able to process.

“I think she always knew that one day you would need her to have done so,” Eliza says as she reaches over and squeezes his shoulder. “I knew your mom—did ink on her a few times through the years. And if I know anything, it’s that she loved you, kid.”

Remy swallows. Then whispers, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” She nods brusquely, like she’s used up her quota of emotion for the day and then some. “Now, who’s ready to get inked?”

“I am,” I tell her, even though my stomach feels a little hollow. “Can I at least see the design first?” Since I’m the one who will be wearing it for the rest of her life, my tone implies.

“Nah.” Eliza grins. “I think this one should be a surprise.”

135

Punch Drunk

“Are you going to stare at that all day?” Remy asks, amused. We’re winding our way back to meet the others at the taco place near the blacksmith’s forge, but we’re running late because the tattoo took almost the full six hours the blacksmith gave us.

But even though my arm is sore, I can’t stop looking at it. Eliza knows what she’s talking about—and so, apparently, did Remy’s mom—because it’s the most beautiful tattoo I’ve ever seen. Which is a good thing, I suppose, considering it’s on my body.

Eliza cutting the arm out of my jumpsuit concerned me at the time, but now I’m thrilled. I wouldn’t be able to see the tattoo if she hadn’t, and honestly, I can’t take my eyes off the thing.

It starts at the outside edge of my left wrist and wraps around my arm in a widely spaced, sloping design that goes all the way up my arm until the tattoo ends on the inside of my upper arm, where it meets my body. From a distance, it looks like a drawing of a delicate vine with flower blossoms and drops of dew, but when you get closer, there are no actual lines in the entire piece. Instead, it’s made up of millions of tiny different colored dots placed so close together that they form an incredible picture—like pixels on a TV screen. If that TV shimmered.

From a distance, it’s beautiful. Up close, it’s absolutely breathtaking—and impossible to imagine how it all came together. I was there, watching the whole thing, and I still have no idea how or when it went from a bunch of dots to this gorgeous, delicate, feminine tattoo that I love entirely too much.

Now the only thing to worry about is if it actually works. It’s a tattoo I’ll wear with pride my whole life, of course, but it would be so much better if it manages to do what we need it to do. Which seems far-fetched, I admit, but no more far-fetched than anything and everything else that happens in this place.

But when we get there, I forget all about my tattoo because Hudson is sitting at a table (though “sitting” might be a bit of a stretch as a descriptor of what he’s currently doing), looking like he got run over by an eighteen-wheeler…or three.

I take inventory as I race through the maze of picnic tables to get to him.

Both of his eyes are black, his nose is a shade crooked in a way it wasn’t before, the skin under his left eye is split open, and so is his bottom lip. His knuckles are raw, his neck has been clawed, and nearly every ounce of skin he’s got showing is black-and-blue. Then again, judging from the way he’s slumped over the table holding his side, I’m betting whatever injuries are under his jumpsuit are worse.

“Wow,” I say as I get closer and realize just how beaten up he is. I’m freaking out a little bit, but there’s no way I can show it here. Not in front of Remy and definitely not in front of all the other inmates at this prison, who are watching him like they want another shot. “I’d hate to see the other guy. Or should I say guys?”

“You’re the best,” he tells me with a loopy smile that concerns me even more than the bruises. “See, Remy. This is why you need a mate! Didn’t even consider I’d lose, did you, honey baby?”

Honey baby? Just how many times did he get hit in the head, anyway? He’s grinning at me now, his smile lopsided and swollen but so, so happy.

“Not even for a second,” I tell him, while I try to get a good look in his eyes to measure his pupil size.

“How much did you win?” Remy asks, but before Hudson can answer, Calder comes striding through the tables with Flint over her shoulder. He’s singing Billie Eilish’s “bad guy” at the top of his lungs, and he is completely wasted.

“What the hell did you do to him?” Remy asks, exasperated, as Calder slings him down on top of the table.

Flint simply lays there singing until he gets to the chorus; then he grins up at me with a smile even loopier than Hudson’s. “Hi there, pretty lady,” he tells me in the worst version of a southern accent I have ever heard.

“Hi, Flint.”

“You have pretty hair. Did I ever tell you that you have pretty hair?” He reaches out and grabs a curl.

“You haven’t, no.”

“She does have pretty hair, doesn’t she?” Hudson agrees as he picks up a curl from the other side of my head.

“Is this seriously happening?” Remy asks, glancing around like he’s waiting for someone to tell him this is one big cosmic joke. “Are two of the five of us completely out of their minds right now? At the worst possible time?”

“Sorry,” Hudson says. “But the cyclops hit hard.”

Remy shoots me a what is even happening here look. “You took on a cyclops?”

“He wanted to fight,” Hudson says. “You told me I had to fight. So I did.”