“Fine,” she said. “Now what do you have for me?”
Fernand opened the door, and a once-familiar face wandered in. The last time she’d seen Alessia, she’d been marking Nicolette with the same match tattoo. Deep wrinkles carved her face, and she had a hitch in her step, but her smile was as bright as ever.
“Alessia.” Elara swept her into a hug.
“You taking care of the last mark I gave you?” She pried at Elara’s collar.
“Yes. I swear. It’s still like new.” She unbuttoned the top and revealed the match.
“Some of my earliest and finest work. Though what you’re asking of me today…” She let out a low whistle and patted the hulking case she’d dragged in. “I’ve only done it a few times.”
“What do you plan to do?” Blai asked.
“According to the boss here—”
“Boss?” Elara raised a brow.
Fernand shrugged.
“Still fighting like cats.” Alessia removed several items from her kit: bundles of small needles, a jar of black ink, rags, and alcohol. “Fernand says you need something to block people from your past memories. Best way to do that is to block them from yourself.”
“You mean I won’t be able to remember them either?”
Alessia mixed the ink and adjusted the needles in the instrument. “Anything relating to whatever it is you don’t want the Counseil to know.”
“They can’t know my mom was a rebel.”
“Then we hide that.”
“How?”
“It won’t be easy.” Alessia gave the instrument a few taps against the rag, then dipped it into the ink. “You’ll need to think about Corinne the whole time. Pour every memory into the pain, where it’ll be safe.”
“Every memory?” Elara asked shakily.
“All the ones that could lead the Counseil to the truth.”
The weeks of planning. The night of the murder. The days her mother hid away, sobbing in her bed after the explosion went awry. Even the memories of baking at Gaetan’s contained a shadow of her mother inching toward destruction.
They would be hidden.
Gone.
It was what Elara had wanted for so long. She could pack away the troubling parts of her mother and keep only the joy of baking. If all she had were mornings in the kitchen and late nights planning Café Divin by candlelight, she would be happy.
“Tattoos are permanent,” Blai said. “Are you sure about this?”
No, she wasn’t sure. Her mother would die all over again, except Elara would be holding the knife this time. Her mother had done awful things out of desperation, she’d made her mistakes, and she’d paid for them. Did that mean she deserved to be forgotten?
Amid the horrors, there’d been goodness. Watching the sunrise from a bakery window, late-night giggles beneath blankets and sheets to stay warm in the winter, and rare snacks shared with their feet dangling over bridges.
She had no choice. This was for herself and Chantal, for Blai… for Nik.
“Do it.”
Alessia guided her back onto the cot and propped her hand onto the case, where she could lean over it.
“We’ll place it around your finger, small enough that a ring should conceal it. And it will hurt,” she warned. “We’ll take breaks as you need, okay?”
