“What?” asked Rowan.
“There are just…reasons it might not’ve been so smart to involve him.”
“I thought you were too enlightened for the feud?”
Zaide shook her head. “It’s not about that.”
“What then? Something about Gavin? You were literally pounding your fist in support of me jumping his bones like a minute ago.”
Zaide crossed her arms over her chest and sighed. “Screwing someone and screwing them out of millions are two different things. One kind of complicates the desire to do the other.”
“Those are his dad’s potential millions.”
“And who inherits it all when the old man goes?”
Rowan opened her mouth to reply, but the question stopped her in her tracks.
“Look,” said Zaide, “he’s a good egg, but he doesn’t have as much riding on this as the rest of us. Not by a long shot.”
“Maybe not,” admitted Rowan. “He’s on our side, though.Trust me on that, please? Plus, we need him.Someonein this group needs to understand things like ‘What does ROI stand for?’ ”
“I do not want to have to care about that,” said Zaide. She relented with a sigh. “Okay, okay…Just try to remember: He wins however this ends.”
A humming had started in Rowan’s center, moving slowly outward. The pot was hitting. Her head was lightening, and her words drifted out, sad and sincere. “I will…”
Zaide leaned against her. “For the record, my position on ‘fuck already’ has not changed.”
“So supportive,” said Rowan, leaning back.
“Speaking of supportive…I’ve got something to show you.” Zaide pulled out her phone, flashing an email Rowan’s way. It was an application to apprentice with a tattoo artist. Rowan gasped and clapped her hands together.
“Z, this is huge!”
“I don’t have it yet. And this shit is expensive, but…” Her smile was light, pleased. “It’s the first step. Toward something that’s all mine.” She shot back up, jittery with excitement, raking a hand through her short black hair. “I’ve got this idea…Tattoos with, like,intentionmagic. I work with my client to figure out what the fuck they want from their lives, and we commit it to their skin.”
“I just got tingles.”
Zaide grinned goofily. “So you think it’s a good idea?”
“I think it’s abrilliantidea.” Rowan leaned back in her seat. “Wow. You’re gonna change lives, Zaide.”
“I’m sure as shit gonna try.” Zaide settled back into place beside her, and they lay that way for a minute, enjoying the slow spread of the oncoming high.
Finally, Rowan broke the silence. “So Gavin and I…We came up with a pitch. It’s good, but we’re going to need everyone to make it real before New Year’s Eve…”
By the time she had finished explaining, Zaide had alreadypulled out a notebook and was sketching. She flipped it when Rowan was done, revealing a quick view of the festival grounds, transformed from a quaint winter town to a ghoulish village of the dead.
“How did I know you’d dive right into Samhain?” asked Rowan with a clap of delight.
“Winter holidays’ve never really been my thing, but this right here? This is my shit. Goddess, how are we just now thinking of this?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Rowan, the shimmying sensation of her oncoming high spilling out into laughter. “I neededelvesto give me the idea. They basically had to throw candy in my face.”
“We’re fucking hopeless,” said Zaide, giggling through her fingers.
“No, we’re not,” said Rowan, eyes going wide as she watched the stars expand and dance overhead. “Not anymore.”
At that, the magical humming intensified. The world seemed to reverberate—a chorus of wind rustling leaves, pebbles clattering across shores, rhythmic breath, gurgling streams, the slow churn of magma in the Earth’s core, stars pulsing in distant galaxies. The world song. She was a part of it. A part of everything.
