Page 45 of The Girl Who Inherits the Dead

She raises an eyebrow at him.

“The College apparently did a hell of a lot of magic on my mom to make it even possible, and apparently not knowingabout that ahead of time is annoying for demons.” This, at least, is something he can talk about, and the line in his shoulders relaxes some. “They visited once when I was a teen, trying to figure out if they could do something with me.” Maison briefly cracks a smile, his dimple perfect. “They couldn’t figure anything out, and I tracked them down a few other times with questions before I met you.”

“How?” Delina asks, and it’s a relief to just talk as well. They always talked, about the little and the big things, and the lack of it…hurts.

“Eh, I can do just enough demon junk to figure out the communication lines,” he replies, with a wave of his hand, like that explains everything. “It was the weirdest fucking thing of my life.”

Considering that his life apparently involved keeping her alive from mysterious assassination attempts, that in itself is interesting.

“So demons…possess other bodies to communicate, right? The dead bodies?” Maison says, as if that’s just common knowledge. “First time I met my father, the other person of the genetic mishmash, they were in a female body. Blew my little teenage mind.” It’s so close to how he would tell stories of his workday, back in the condo in Arizona. “Next time, male body. Incredibly confusing. Turns out most demons are like that, not really caring about that aspect of the body they’re in, and the fact that I couldn’t just switch when I got tired of this one absolutely annoyed the shit out of them.”

“So now you just have a gender-neutral parent that’s just out there somewhere?” Delina asks, and if she hadn’t spent the entire morning incredibly aware of dead bones it would be a lot weirder. “Who has no idea how to deal with you?”

“Exactly,” Maison says, and at least he’s treating it like it’s an amusing story, his dimple on his chin. “Any magical personmeets me, they always want to know how much I know about my father, like they think I just have them on speed dial.”

“Could…your other parent help with…all this?” Delina asks, gesturing at herself. “Get your mom out so we don’t worry about it, make other demons back off so I’m not in danger?”

“No,” he says, almost before she finished talking. “Because they wouldn’t help, they would kill you, and me asking them not to wouldn’t mean a thing.” The brief, fragile peace of them just chatting shatters, and his face pinches. “I don’t ever want them to find out about you.”

“Okay, scratch that,” Delina says, unnerved, “how about breaking your mom out?”

“She’s warded, demons can’t get in there,” he says. “I asked a while ago, they asked me very politely why I think someone would risk getting trapped for someone they slept with a few decades ago and didn’t bother bonding with.”

“Grim,” Delina says, because it is, and he nods. “So we figure something else out.”

“I have been trying to figure something out for my entire adult life,” Maison informs her, and this, at least, she believes him. “Unless there's some aspect of Necromancy I’m just not aware of, I don’t know.”

The lack of options is annoying, but to be fair, Delina’s only really known about the problem for a few hours.

“So we can ward against demons, for me,” Delina says, and he wavers his hand. “At least so I can learn a little?”

“I mean, that might work, but I don’t like it,” Maison replies. “Professionally speaking, there’s nothing to stop the demon from just waiting until you step out of the wards.”

He would know more about the limitations than her, and even that irks her.

“I have been…wanting to talk to you about this for ages,” he says, almost in a rush. “Find out your perspective, get your ideas, rant about all of this.”

“I’m sure keeping a secret and dating someone because it was a job was so hard on you.” Her throat sticks at saying that.

“Okay, that’s fair,” Maison says, begrudging, and it should feel like she won something, but it doesn’t. “Would you believe me—”

“—No,” Delina interrupts.

Once again, he cracks a smile like he didn’t expect that of her, before he shakes his head. “Okay,” he says, a little bit slower. “I don’t exactly know what to do or say to convince you to trust me of…well, anything…but can I try?”

It’s not what she expected him to say, so she folds her arms as the waitress soundlessly swings by to refill their waters.

He had clearly expected her to say something, so he stares at her, obviously scraping for words.

“Why?” Delina asks, after a horrifically long moment, picking at the remnants of her fries. “I know now, we just have to figure out a way to not get your mom hurt and then you don’t have to deal with me anymore. Why do you care if I believe you?”

“Because five years,” he blurts out, immediately, then he blanches. “Because I don’t…”

She raises an eyebrow at him over the remains of her sandwich, picking out the less than ideal looking lettuce.

“Look, Maison, or Frederick, or—”

“Yeah, don’t call me that,” he interrupts.

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