Chapter 223

“Tell me about how you learned to tattoo.” “No.”

Hunched over the wooden table in Rowan’s room a night after their encounter with the creature in the lake, Jane looked up from where she held the bone-handled needle over his wrist. “If you don’t answer my questions, I might very well make a mistake, and…” She lowered the tattooing needle to his tan, muscled arm for emphasis. Rowan, to her surprise, let out a huff that might have been a laugh. She figured it was a good sign that he’d asked her to help shade in the parts of his arm he couldn’t reach himself; the tattoo around his wrist needed to be re-inked now that the wounds from her burning him had faded. “Did you learn from someone? Master and apprentice and all that?”

He gave her a rather incredulous look. “Yes, master and apprentice and all that. In the war camps, we had a commander who used to tattoo the number of enemies he’d killed on his flesh—sometimes he’d write the whole story of a battle. All the young soldiers were enamor