I get the feeling there’d be a clink of glasses, and everyone would take a drink if there had been a round present.
Tink wraps my fresh tattoo, assuring me the pixie dust she used will heal it in a matter of hours.
I glance toward the front of the shop where my reflection stares back from a vintage mirror half-covered in stickers, and barely recognize the girl looking at me. She’s someone I might want to be—edgy, unpolished, self-assured. Dare I say, chaotic.
But something’s still...off. Not unfinished, exactly, just….
“Hang on,” I mutter.
Tink glances up, but I’m already heading for the front counter. There’s a pair of hair scissors resting in a mason jar beside a comb and some latex gloves. I grab them without asking, stepping toward the mirror again.
“Uh,” Snow says, sitting up straighter. “What are you doing?”
I sweep my pink hair over one shoulder. It falls past my waist, the same way it has for as long as I can remember.
And then I cut.
The first lock falls to the floor like a ribbon severed.
“Oh, witchtits,” Ariel breathes, wheels whirring as she rolls forward to get a better view.
I cut again. And again. Until the ends lay just below my shoulders, jagged and wild.
When I’m done, I run my fingers through the shorn waves. It’s lighter. It’s freer. It’smine.
“I think I’m done being who I was.” My breath comes quick with excitement. I feel I’m on the edge of everything.
There’s a beat of stunned silence, then Snow lets out a whistle. “Hell yes.”
Tink’s smile is impish as golden motes float off her fluttering wings. “Respect.”
A moment later, Snow practically springs to her feet. “OHHHH—wehaveto do blue tips.”
“No, wedon’t,” Ariel shoots back. “Her pink is iconic. You don’t mess with iconic.”
“She needs to be more punk!”
“The pink isgorgeous as-is!”
“Oh my fae lords,” I laugh. “Are you two really going to fight about my hair?”
They both turn toward me, totally unrepentant.
“Yes,” they say in perfect sync.
Chapter 8
Don’t Come in Your Pants, Dragon
TALON
Rap doesn’t say much when I enter the Poison Apple for my orientation.
She just hands me a staff security badge, a black comm earpiece that’llprobablywork, and goes over a few cursory rules and regulations any idiot would intuit.
Thankfully, I don’t have to wear a uniform or shirt. Rap makes some joke about how no one fucks with a guy who wears leather over a bare chest.
The only reason I left Aura alone is because the shop they went to is right next door. And she is nowhere close to needing to feed. I can lengthen the leash...for now.
