Page 151 of The Girl Who Inherits the Dead

“Don’t move,” Maison orders, and all she can see is the faintest outline of his jaw. “Just don’t move.”

Delina forces herself to remain still, to not move, though her heart pounds so loud it must be audible, echoing through her ears.

And nothing happens.

Nothing happens, but for the faintest whoosh of air, tickling over her skin, ruffling her clothes, clattering their badges.

Maison hisses out a breath, his fingers tightening imperceptibly, like he’s typing something out against her skin by touch, before the world abruptly brightens, all runes glowing, and he flinches.

“Okay, let's move,” he says, dropping Delina’s elbow and immediately striding again.

Delina almost has to jog to keep up.

“What was that?” Gurlien demands, though his eyes are wide as well. “What type, what—”

“I don’t know, Gurlien,” Chloe says, clutching the straps on her backpack tightly. “I don’t know, and I don’t know if we hid ourselves, or—”

“We hid,” Maison replies. “We hid but they know something’s up.”

“Shit,” Delina breathes, and Maison rips up another trap in front of them, barely pausing in his stride. “What do we—”

They turn another corner…to an abrupt dead end, drawing them up.

And Chloe stares at it, her eyes dark, before she lifts her chin.

“You all ready to go into the locking pits?”

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Before Delina can think, Maison’s shifted himself in front of her, and Chloe’s hands glow.

Literally glow, not with strips of magic, but like the very air itself is brought to light.

“Delina,” Chloe says, her voice remote, “there’s going to be dead in here.”

There’s been dead revealing itself to her in every step, but Delina nods and lets her mind concentrate.

There’s the echo of pain, of sudden ends, and a few disjointed bones laying deep beneath the floor.

“No actual bodies, they’ve cleaned them up,” Delina says, and Chloe nods absently, before the air wavers over her hands and the wall in front of them opens.

Splits in two, the stucco and brick peeling away like it’s burnt paper.

Revealing a deep chasm, one that can’t exist in the building. It’s too big, too deep, too spacious.

It’s too much.

There’s blood slicked along the walls, dried and blackened. A vague hint of machinery whirs, somewhere in the deep, like a maw chewing through something.

Chloe gestures them in, before she seals the wall back up, leaving it without a crease.

“Congrats,” Chloe says, and she’s not whispering now, her voice echoing down into the depths. “This is the biggest hurdle out of this place.”

Even Gurlien looks peaked.

“If we get the wight out, we don’t have to do the hard part of this,” Chloe says, and her eyes are sharp, surveying the machinery.

“How do the guards get around this?” Delina asks, and her own voice hangs in the air.

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