Page 117 of The Girl Who Inherits the Dead

It takes Delina a few seconds to notice, but somewhere in that mess Maison has lifted his gaze to her, and held it, somehow even more terrified than he was before.

If he hasn’t ever had a chance to even allow himself to think about getting his mother out, this must be a thorny knot of emotions and confusion.

“We’re going to figure something out,” Delina informs him, quietly, pacing to stand next to him. “Even if this isn’t it, we’ll do something.”

Gurlien briefly glances up at them, then back to helping Chloe dissect the old laptop.

Maison rubs his face. “It’s a bit hard to believe.”

“This is just information gathering,” Gurlien says, still bent over the laptop. “This isn’t a for sure thing, this isn’t even a plan. This is just us getting the info we might need to make one.”

It’s a surprisingly adept thing to say, and Maison breathes out, closing his eyes just long enough for the cat to jump on his lap and meow loudly.

“This also gives us a way to evaluate if we truly need to split and run,” Gurlien continues. “So it's not just helping you, if you’re going to be weird about that.”

“Thanks,” Maison says, probably aiming for sarcasm but missing it completely.

“Can you use parts from that to scour for drones or something?” Delina asks, and they all blink up at her. “It’ll help us know if we’re truly under surveillance or if it’s just the phone.”

Chloe sets aside a chunk of plastic that may or may not have been a graphics card at that.

“This will take a few hours,” she warns, and there’s some tension along her face, tension that’s not usually there. “I’m slow with electronics, but I’ll get there.”

“I don’t know why, but that makes sense,” Delina says, and gets a wan smile in return. “Did my mother leave behind binoculars?”

Turns out she did,deep in the basement, and Delina’s skin crawls at the sensation of the dead bug, but she strides past it, holding her head high, then enlists Maison’s help to climb in the attic.

“Even we’ve never been up there,” Gurlien calls out, still working with the laptop. “No guarantee it’s at all safe.”

By the look of the outside, it’ll be small, but a few windows still peek out to the setting sun outside. If the cabin had been normal, Delina would have pegged it as the sort of attic that someone stores Christmas decorations and luggage in.

“You mean they have a tomb breaker and they never tried to go into the attic?” Delina whispers to Maison as they drag a chair over for easier access.

“It’s not locked,” Maison points out, his face still pale. “No interest if it’s not locked, it’s not climate sealed so there’s no way Dr. Frisse would store research, there’s no obvious magical trace of anything.”

He stands on the stool, testing the seal of the hole in the ceiling door, exactly like he did the times they helped her dad decorate.

He had always been so excited to do so, and now she knows it’s because he didn’t have that in his childhood.

The door pops open easily, and a small rain of paint dust falls into Maison’s hair, and he blinks at her, at the almost comedy of the moment, before he climbs off the chair and offers her a boost up.

“No, you’re not waiting in the sitting room as they try to figure that out,” Delina says, and the corners of his lips tip upwards. “Come up here and help me try to spy on any mysterious drones.”

“You would be a horrible spy,” Maison says, boosting her up so she can push herself into the attic.

It’s a tiny room, barely tall enough for her to stand, and even more of the floral curtains hang over the small window. Sheets are thrown over a pile of things, and dust covers those.

It smells fresher than most attics, but that’s not difficult to do.

Behind her, Maison climbs up, then blinks wildly at the small room.

“This may be the most normal room in this cabin,” Delina says as he pulls himself in.

“Nothing dead under those sheets?” he asks, and she shakes her head. “Though you’d probably have complained about that already if there was.”

“Absolutely,” Delina replies, before she twitches the curtains aside.

In the attic, they’re not quite above the trees, but the vantage point is excellent. With the binoculars, she can see all the way down the winding gravel driveway, to the proper street, and even the spot where the tree had fallen, now fully dusted with snow.

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