Summoning the Night (Arcadia Bell #2)(67)

“He wasn’t possessed at the Silent Temple,” Lon argued.

“But I’d bet my last caduceus that he knows who is.”

While Lon retreated to the kitchen, deep in thought and a million miles away, I tracked down Jupe, moping in his room. His mountain of dirty clothes had been cut in half since yesterday. Mr. Holiday must’ve gotten fed up and hauled some away to be washed. My hedgie was now lounging on Jupe’s bed, gumming a hunk of banana.

“You just missed out on some projectile pooping,” Jupe said, moving Mr. Piggy over.

“Oh, darn.” Hedgehogs are sometimes overachievers. Mr. Piggy was trained to use a small litter box in my house, but was having trouble remembering it at Lon’s. Luckily he spent most of his time in Jupe’s room, who was totally fine with cleaning up hedgehog droppings. Score.

“So, taxicab confession time,” I joked.

“Huh?”

“You have something salacious to tell me?”

A faint smile crossed his lips. “It’s not that interesting.”

I perched on the edge of his bed, moving his book bag to the floor. “Thank the gods for small miracles. Come on, now.” I patted the mattress. “Tell me.”

He bit his lower lip and made a sour face. “Promise me you won’t tell my dad.”

“I’m not lying to him.”

“Okay, promise you won’t tell him if he doesn’t ask first.”

I groaned. “Deal.”

“Now promise you won’t get mad.”

“If you don’t just go ahead and tell me, I’m going to get more than mad.”

He shut his eyes, and for a second I nearly flipped out, thinking he was going to use his knack on me. But instead of straining with his fists, he merely grimaced and pulled the edge of his shirt up to reveal his stomach. Then he carefully tugged the loose waistband of his jeans down over his left hip, and I remembered his scratching problem.

For a second, I didn’t know what I was looking at.

Then I did.

And it shocked me. Hard. Maybe worse than finding Bishop’s bones in the cannery. I was horrified . . . and thoroughly embarrassed.

“Holy harlot.” I murmured. “Oh, Jupe, what have you done?”

A soft choking noise drew my gaze upward to his face. Jupe’s big green eyes flooded with tears that quivered at the border of his thick lashes, ready to spill. Goddammit. Seeing him broken was worse that just about anything. Like a contagious yawn, it jump-started waterworks for me that I had to wrestle to hold back. Apparently all the magick I’d done that day had also stripped away my immunity to kid-crying.

“I’m sorry,” he squeaked. One tear dropped, snaking down over his sharp cheekbone before cascading down his cheek.

“Come here,” I commanded in a soft voice. “Let me see what you’ve done—but for the love of Pete, keep your boxers on.”

He hiccuped, holding back a sob, and unbuttoned his jeans, shimmying them down to expose his entire left hip. The tattoo was so badly infected that most people probably wouldn’t have been able to make out the design. But I could.

It was my personal sigil. My identifying mark as a magician. About two inches in diameter, the occult rose-and-moon symbol with my given middle name was now branded into his café au lait skin.

“This is what you’ve been scratching at all week?”

He nodded.

“How long have you had it?”

“Since a few days before we got mugged in the parking garage. After I got my cast taken off.” Which is exactly where he’d lifted the symbol—I’d sketched it onto his cast, feeling guilty that I’d been the one who inadvertently put him in the damn thing. It was one thing to casually mark it on his cast, but on his skin . . . You just don’t screw around with magical symbols there. I should know. The white sigils tattooed on my forearm were not for show.

“Who the hell would tattoo a thirteen-year-old kid?”

“Fourteen, in two days.”

I swiveled him so I could study it, pressing my fingers against the surrounding swollen skin. He winced, and his skin burned with fever. Yet, despite the inflammation and the disgusting oozing, the ink underneath looked precise and sharp. Better than my sketching on his cast, and pretty damn accurate. “Who did it? Did they use clean needles?”

“It’s not a prison tattoo, Cady. I’m not stupid.”

I lifted my brows. “Really? You’re not? Because I’m having some doubts here.”

He brushed away another tear, steeling himself. “It was Jack’s cousin, Kenji. He works at Dragonfire Ink, in the Village. He’s apprenticing, but he’s been doing it for two years.”

“Isn’t there some law against tattooing minors?”

He mumbled something under his breath.

“I can’t hear you.”

“I said, I used my knack on him, all right? It was the first time I tried it on purpose. There were two times before, but I didn’t know what I was doing.”

“Okay, calm down.” So it was professional, not done by a bum in a back alley with dirty needles infected with hep C. Best to focus on the positives. “Did he tell you how to take care of it?”

“He told me, uh, not to get it wet?” Jupe said this like he was guessing.