She stared at the bowl. “But I’ll mess up my lip gloss.”

“Eat,” I demanded.

Mother arched one brow. I could read the gesture clear as day: And this is what you want?

I ran my hand over my head, my fingers tearing at my shoulder-length hair. I couldn’t deal with all of this right now. The constant battle over telling Harmony about our past was hard enough to contend with at the best of times-but today, having so recently discovered the second girl, having carried her dead body in my arms-I wanted nothing more than to turn tail and run. Instead, I wrapped my hand around the wolf totem that hung from my neck and prayed silently for strength.

Tilting her head, Harmony studied us. “You weren’t maybe…discussing…”-she shifted her blue gaze to Mother-“tattoos, were you?”

The prayer turning to a curse in my mind, I twisted around to face Mother more fully. Yet another old argument, and certainly not one I wanted to revisit today. Tattoos were more than body decoration for Amazons-a lot more. If done properly, they brought power to their owners. They were a blessing, and if the careful excision of the dead girls’ givnomai tattoos were any indication, maybe a curse.

“It’s not like you don’t have any,” Harmony continued, completely oblivious to the anger and frustration coursing through me. “Or like you’d have to worry about safety or anything. You could do it yourself.” She unzipped her backpack and pulled out a catalog of standard tats my shop offered.

“Yes, Melanippe, it’s time,” a third voice chimed in.

Great, Bubbe was up. I closed my eyes a second, carefully slowing my heart rate, bringing my emotions back to a level that could pass for usual annoyance, then shot my grandmother a warning glare. If anything, it had even less effect on her than my mother.

Realizing I needed to put space between me and my too-observant grandmother, I picked up the milk and walked to the refrigerator.