Page 158 of Nash
The words land. I hear them. I process them. They don't make sense.
"Amaranth is yours," she says. "The lease, the equipment, the client list, the flash wall. Everything."
My hand grips the armrest. "Frankie."
"I'm leaving Willowridge." Each word placed with the precision of a woman who has been composing this sentence for weeks. "Leo needs more than a basement. Arden is getting restless. I need to find my sister." She picks up the machine. "My time here is done. For now."
I glance at Nash. He's beside me in the chair, his jaw tight. He knew. The way he's sitting, the way he's watching Frankie, he already knew.
"For now." My voice catches on the second word.
"For now." She meets my eyes. "You're ready, Ruby. You've been ready. The art is yours. So is the intention. The shop is just the building where it happens."
"The shop is not just the building, Frankie." My eyes fill. My hands grip both armrests. "The shop is where I found Leo eating a ham sandwich in your basement and kept the secret without being asked. Where I became witch-adjacent, which is still not a real category. Where you told me my hands carry power, then I filed a classification complaint and you laughed. This is where the prank war was born, where we found out Darla was pregnant, where Nash fell in love with me. The shop is where I fell in love with tattooing, with you, and with the particular smell of sage and green soap mixed together at seven in the morning."
"Ruby."
"I'm not done. The shop is where you taught me. Every day. Not by telling me what to do, but by doing it next to me and letting me watch. You created the conditions. That's what you said. You created the conditions, and I grew into them. Now you're handing me the conditions and leaving. So I am trying very hard not to cry because crying will make my arm move. If my arm moves during this tattoo, I will have a wobbly compass rose on my body forever and I will blame you."
"Then hold still." She picks up the machine. "And let me work."
The machine starts. Then stops.
"By the way," Frankie says, "Nash was in love with you the first time you stole a fry from him."
I look at Nash. He looks at me. His jaw works. His eyes are warm.
The machine starts again. Its hum fills the shop the way it always fills the shop, steady, familiar, the sound that has been the background of every day I've spent in this building becomingthe person I didn't know I was. Frankie bends over my arm, and the needle traces the first line of the compass rose, the outer circle, the frame that holds the points.
I watch her hands on my arm. Tears run down my face. I don't wipe them. I hold still.
"When do you leave?"
"Next week. Me, Leo, and Arden." Her needle traces the east point. The heart. "It's time."
"Where will you go?"
"Wherever she is."
Her hands are on my arm. The same hands that light candles without matches, that trace symbols on bar tops, that held mine the first day I picked up a tattoo machine and told her my lines were garbage, then she said your lines are honest, which is harder. Those hands, putting my art into my skin.
"You're going to find her," I say. "Maeve. You're going to find her."
"I always find what I'm looking for." Her needle moves to the south point. The star. "It just takes longer than I'd like."
"When you find her, bring her back. I need peer review on the soup."
Frankie's mouth curves. "I'll bring her back."
"And Leo. Tell Leo I expect regular ham sandwich updates. I want photos. Reviews. A full culinary log of every ham sandwich consumed by a vampire in the continental United States."
"I'll tell him."
"And Arden." My voice catches. "Tell Arden I said the tree line is going to miss him."
Frankie's needle pauses for one beat. She blinks once. The needle resumes.
She works for an hour. The compass rose takes shape on my arm, each point precise. Each line carries the intention she described months ago in this same shop with sage smokebetween us. The heart in the east. The star in the south. The open west.
