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The tiny frown. The concentration. The quiet frustration when something doesn’t come easily.

She probably thinks nobody notices.

But I do.

And I want to remember all of it.

Not because I want to figure her out or fix anything.

I just like knowing her.

“What do the jellyfish mean?”

Her question pulls me out of my thoughts.

I blink. “The jellyfish?”

She nods toward my arm.

Shit. Yeah.

My tattoos.

Most people ask about the dragon.

Or the phoenix.

Or the Korean calligraphy running across my skin.

Nobody asks about the jellyfish.

Never those. If only they knew those mean the most to me.

My gaze drops to the black ink winding around my forearm, dark tentacles curling through the design and disappearing beneath my other tattoos. Hidden among them is a tiny snowflake.

Most people never notice it.

But Artemis does.

“Strength,” I tell her.

She studies the ink, following every line like she’s piecing together a puzzle.

“The jellyfish mean strength?”

I grunt. “Yeah.”

It’s not the whole truth, but it’s the part I’m willing to share.

They mean something else, too.

Hope.

A dangerous thing for a man like me.

It’s what my mother held on to, even when life gave her very little reason to. The tiny snowflake is for her, a reminder that even fragile things can survive the cold.

I don’t tell Artemis any of that.