Page 88 of The Girl Who Inherits the Dead

He blinks at her, then down at the gold in her hand, then back up at her, uncomprehending.

His toes are already cold, obviously.

Delina sighs, then, cradling the gold, she walks back towards the cabin.

He doesn’t move, his face bewildered. “What did you do?”

“I don’t know,” Delina says, then shoos him back into the cabin with her free hand. “Did I send up a demon flare?”

Slowly, he shakes his head, and she follows him in, and the cabin is a cocoon of warmth after the sharp chill of outside.

The gold in her hand pulses.

At the stove, Chloe drops the spatula. “What is that?”

Gurlien idly looks up at them, at Maison’s confused face and Chloe’s shocked, before narrowing his eyes at Delina. “Did you do something?”

“Yes, yes, she did,” Chloe responds, her eyebrows raised, leaving whatever it is on the stove and crossing over to peer at Delina’s hand cradling the magic. “I don’t want to touch that.”

“It’s from the bird outside,” Delina says, and Maison flinches, his face pale. “I didn’t bring it back, I think I…took away the potential from it.”

Chloe backs away from her, but Gurlien springs up from the couch.

“You took the life energy from a dead creature and are now able to hold it?” Gurlien asks, sharp. “Just by instinct, without coaching.”

Delina nods, and the magic shifts ever so slightly in her hands.

“Shit,” Maison mumbles, and he clearly is without coffee. “What the shit.”

She throws him a look, and he’s just staring at her hand. “Should I not have done this?” She asks.

This gets Maison’s attention back up at her. “I…”

Delina sighs, crosses to the kitchen and swipes her free thumb on the coffee machine, then flops on the couch. Chance takes one glance at her before springing away and skittering under the bed in the other room. “Get some coffee,” she says, as the espresso machine kicks to life. “I don’t think this will go away.”

Her instincts say it won’t.

After everyoneelse has eaten breakfast and she’s still on the couch, Maison sits back next to her, still staring at her hand, but his eyes are aware this time.

“Yeah?” Delina asks, raising an eyebrow at him.

“This is new to me, too,” he says, and underneath his voice is a trace of panic, one that has her sitting upright. “Gurlien, any idea why this feels like a threat to me?”

“It’s not a threat to me, it’s just really weird,” Chloe says, and she’s still at the kitchen table, also watching her like a hawk. “Like looking at magic through a funhouse mirror?”

“I’m not threatening you,” Delina informs him, but he shakes his head, like it’s not what he means. “I was trying to hold the strip of magic to practice and this was…way easier to hold.”

Gurlien sits on the armchair across from the couch, attentive, his face pinched, but puzzles over it. “Threat how?”

“I don’t know,” Maison replies, bewildered, and it’s been a while since she’s seen him this confused, even accounting for the drama she’s put on recently. “I’m just…it’s like staring at a sleeping snake.”

“A snake?” Chloe says, skeptical. “I mean, I guess, it’s a normal rope…”

Maison’s already shaking his head again even before she’s finished. “No. Like the…” he gestures to his head. “Like the hind brain fear of looking at a sleeping snake. You know it’s dangerous, you want to react, but you freeze.”

“I can take it back outside,” Delina offers.

“No,” Gurlien says, but he’s a bit delighted, his eyes alight, which is weird. “It is a threat to you. To the demon side of you. Don’t you get it?”

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