it.
A shocked expression crossed Afton’s face. “Is that a tattoo gun?” She’d know the tools. The year before, she had been obsessed about getting a butterfly on her foot, but her parents wouldn’t let her.
“It is.” Nana pulled out a power cord and handed it to Nick. “Will you plug this into the wall, dear?”
“Nana, people are watching.” I imagined someone using a cell phone to record her and post it on YouTube.
“Don’t worry. I’ve placed an illusion spell around our table. People only see us eating breakfast and talking.”
Nick gave the plug a curious eye, shrugged, and stretched it across to the wall.
“What are you doing?” I asked Nana.
“I’m setting up.” She reached into her tote and retrieved a set of rubber gloves, a handful of wrapped needles, and several bottles with colored ink. Next, she pulled out a jar with a small amount of clear liquid inside, a spray bottle, and various other items I’d never seen before.
“Wow, Nana Kearns is a tattoo artist,” Nick joked.
“Well, I find branding people archaic,” Nana said, as she worked at putting her tools together. “Plus, with the activists in the Mystik world preaching to witches to stop cruelty to humans, I switched to tattooing charms into the skin instead of branding them.”
I glanced at the other tables. No one paid attention to Nana and her makeshift tattoo parlor. A girl coming from the bathroom walked by and stumbled over the cord stretched across the floor. She looked back, shrugged, and continued to her table.
“Who are you inking a charm on?” I asked.
Nana held up the bottle containing the clear liquid. “There’s barely enough potion left for two. I got the shielding spell from an ancient spell book I found in Romania. Ruth Ann from my tea club borrowed it, thinking it was a simple spell book. Your aunt Eileen got it back for me. When she returned with the book, someone had torn out the page with the recipe and Ruth Ann had vanished. There are some dangerous spells in that book. To be safe, I placed a charm on it. It won’t leave the house again, you can be certain of that.”
“Two tattoos will be enough,” Carrig said, stopping Nana’s rambling.
“Naaana. Who are you putting tattoos on?”
“Afton and Nick, of course.”
“Oh, no you’re not,” Nick said.
Afton’s eyes fixed on the needle Nana was attaching to the gun. “My dad will bust my butt if I get one!”
“Nonsense. You have no choice if you want to live,” Nana said, as if Afton had just refused sugar for her tea.
Carrig turned in his chair to face Afton and Nick. “You wouldn’t want any beasts like the one you encountered in Paris finding you, wouldja?”
“It only stings a bit,” Nana added. “That’s what the girl said, anyway. I normally do evil-eye protections, luck charms, and things of that matter.” Nana twisted the black ink bottle into the gun. “I’m getting good at tats.”
Needles freaked me out, and this one looked extra sharp. “Uh–um– What girl?”
“I’ll tell her as you get about working on Nick,” Carrig said. “It’s nearing twelve, and Afton’s da will be here shortly. And Nick should go with her.”
“I can’t go home,” Nick said. “Those guys know where I live.”
“They only know the neighborhood you live in. Hunters be like puppets with no brains. If they can’t sense you anymore, they can’t find you.”
Nick looked doubtfully at Carrig. “I hope you’re right.”
“I am,” Carrig said. I believed the conviction in his voice.
“Okay.” Nick swallowed hard as he unbuttoned his shirt. “Stick it to me.” He puffed his chest out.
Nana flipped the switch on the tattoo gun and it buzzed angrily to life. She started inking a black line into Nick’s skin. Again, I looked around, but no one seemed aware of the crude tattoo parlor in the middle of the café.
“Right, then, where shall I begin,” said Carrig, rubbing the stubble on his chin. “Every eight years a new generation of Sentinels be born to certain humans with mixed blood who be unaware of their Sentinel ancestry. On the rare occasion, one comes from a wizard with less magic in their bloodline. When a Sentinel is conceived, their changelings begin to grow in the Garden of Life within the fey nation. The changeling be an exact twin of the Sentinel. All Sentinels be having one.”
“Fey nation?” The confusion on Afton’s face mirrored how I felt. “Where is that?”
“It’s in the Twilight realm. A place just beyond this world.”
I gave him