“I wasn’t going to say that. The rest of that quote doesn’t get as much love, but I like the whole thing. ‘Oh, when she’s angry, she is keen and shrewd! She was a vixen when she went to school.’ Such Shakespearean sass.” I grinned down at my sushi. “I always thought it might make a cool tattoo.”
“On you, it would.”
I canted my head, surveying the milky canvas of her shoulders and arms, my mind straying helplessly to the remembered salt-and-confectioners’-sugar flavor of her skin. “Speaking of ink, do you have any? Seems like it would be your thing.”
A complicated expression slid over her face like a passing cloud as she glanced down at her plate. “I’ve meant to do it, a time or two,” she said, quicksilver eyes flicking back up at me, both wary and vulnerable. “But it hasn’t quite panned out yet, for . . . various reasons.”
“You realize being cryptic about it is only going to make me want to dig deeper.”
“In that case . . .” Her gaze swept over the collection of tattoos on the insides of my forearms, darkening with interest. “I’ll make you a deal.”
Reaching slowly across the table, she grazed a fingertip over the line of designs that ran vertically above the veins of my wrist. I felt her touch, the warm pad of her finger and the sharp edge of her nail, like a blooming tingle spiraling through my body. Coursing down my arm and into my torso, dipping into my belly and coming to coil hot between my thighs, as if she’d skimmed her finger directly along the raw skein of nerves that tangled under my skin.
“If you tell me what all of yours mean,” she said, as I caught my breath, her voice low and honey glazed. “Then I’ll return the favor.”
“You’re on.” I cocked my head, feeling a little tipsy and a lot bold, her touch still lingering on my skin. “Do you . . . maybe want to come over? For a nightcap, and tales of tattoos good and ill?”
She considered me for a moment, anticipation leaping into those pale wolf’s eyes. “You know what, Harlow? I think that sounds exactly like what I want to do.”
18
Things Told in Confidence
My mother’s garden felt different with Talia beside me; more intimate, wilder in its magic. A wedge of waxing moon surveilled us as we walked along the pavers, a secretive face set in three-quarters profile against a curtain of damask dark. The primroses went oddly quiet when we walked by them, then broke into racing whispers like a rumor passed behind hands. And a wind had spun up, smelling not just of cold and fall but of proper Halloween, the way it only ever smelled in Thistle Grove—like restive spirits, and the darker, deeper magic of things teetering on the brink of death. It felt, for the first time, like Samhain was nearly upon us.
That smoky smell made me want to spend the whole night outside, standing under that watchful moon with my mouth wide open, breathing it all in. I suddenly felt like I couldn’t ever inhale enough of it, even if the night somehow stretched on for centuries.
“Cute,” Talia remarked, startling me out of my reverie as she skimmed her hand over a primrose that had angled itself to follow her like some cheeky little spy. The flower froze under her touch, then recoiled vehemently away, quivering with indignation. “Who’s the animator?”
“My mother. They’re usually a lot more whimsically charming than this,” I added, feeling weirdly like I had to apologize for the flowers’ chilly reception. “And less . . . salty.”
“No big deal. Animated plants never really vibe with me.” She shrugged, unfazed. “I don’t take it personally; it’s that Avramovs feel anathema to them. It freaks them out to feel the veil thinning so close to them when one of us is around, life being antithetical to death and all that. Or at least, that’s what Linden thinks, and she’d be the expert.”
“A bummer, but I guess that does make sense.”
I unlocked the door and let us both in, bracing myself for the wallop of love that Jasper delivered whenever we were reunited; whether I’d been gone for five hours or five minutes had no bearing on his level of enthusiasm. True to form, he came galumphing over, nearly tripping over himself as his claws scrabbled on the wooden floor, before colliding with my legs in a rapturous frenzy.
“Easy, bud, easy,” I managed through helpless laughter as he leapt up to lick my face. “Talia, meet Jasper, my mustachioed prince. And don’t worry if he’s standoffish at first, he can be a little . . .”
I trailed off as Jasper thumped back onto the floor, snuffled at Talia’s hand, and then proceeded to throw himself at her feet, rolling onto his back as she knelt to rub his exposed belly. He received the scratches with such over-the-top ecstasy it made me a little miffed; my prince was supposed to be a one-woman dog at heart. And she hadn’t even given him treats.