Page 90 of The Girl Who Inherits the Dead

“Don’t act like I’m going to leave you and get you in trouble if you say no to something,” Delina challenges him right back, and he blinks. “You’re not being compelled to do things anymore.”

“I’m not…” he trails off, then sighs. “Okay, do I want to do this? No. Do I still think it’s a good idea? Yes. Happy?”

“Not terribly,” Delina answers.

“There’s even a big chance you won’t be able to compel me to do anything, human willpower is a massively different thing than demon willpower,” he continues, crossing his arms.“There’s an equal chance to it doing absolutely jack shit to me in terms of compelling.”

It still sits poorly with her, so she narrows her eyes at the knot of magic in her hand.

“Then let's figure out some guardrails,” she starts. “If I can compel you, if this practice works, then we should decide ahead of time what I can and cannot do to you.”

He sits back, like it hadn’t occurred to him.

“Like, say, you didn’t want to do jumping jacks,” Delina continues. “So I know so I don’t make you do jumping jacks. You know, establish some rules so I don’t make you do something you don’t want to do.”

His lips part, but he says nothing, staring at her.

“I don’t want to just…make you do things, even if this is practice, you need to have some say in things,” Delina says, softer, muscling through a strange shyness at the conversation. “Otherwise, you’re just terrified and I just feel like shit.”

He’s silent, his eyes on her, and there’s something dawning over his face, something close to wonder. Like his entire view of the world shifted in that brief, little conversation, and now he’s looking at her through a completely different lens.

She shifts, and the magic warms in her hand.

“Nobody has ever asked me that,” Maison says, after a long moment of silence. “That has never mattered to anyone.”

“Well, that’s shitty,” Delina says, and Chloe tromps through the hallway and down into the basement for something, and she waits for her to be out of earshot. “So what are the guardrails? Give me something to work off of.”

“Don’t make me hurt anyone,” he says, quickly, too quickly, and of course she’s not going to do that. “Don’t make me blow anything up or rip up magic without repairing it.”

“Okaaaay, got it,” Delina says. “That seems like the bare minimum.”

She gets a hint of a dimple before it disappears. “I don’t know, don’t embarrass me? I don’t care about the jumping jacks.”

“Okay, then tell me way before if I’m going to trip on something,” she says, and he nods, his shoulders relaxing, and it feels…somehow normal. Like this is a conversation they should be having, far beyond the stakes and the surrealism.

That this is a conversation they should be having regardless. That it would be just as in place as on their comfy couch in Prescott as it is here in the cabin.

“I mean it with the weird demon bond thing, too,” Delina continues, softer still. “I don’t know how that works, but I don’t want…I don’t want you to be forced to do something you don’t want to do because of it.”

He ducks his head at that, as if she couldn’t see the emotions flashing across his face all the same.

“If I had known about the bond before, I would have said that before,” she says. “I don’t like…I don’t like the idea that you did things you didn’t want to.”

She’s had just enough time to think about what that might mean for him to really, really need to say that.

He exhales, thumping his head on the back of the couch. “You never made me do anything I didn’t want to do,” he says, which is a relief, even if she had a sneaking suspicion that he would say that. “I will say this until the end of time, being with you was never difficult.”

“Glad of that, but I would definitely tread carefully,” she says, letting her eyes drift down to the magic in her hands. “The whole…you had to be with me…it’s not a great feeling.”

Beyond all the lies, beyond all the faking, it’s still awful to comprehend the fact that he couldn’t just leave. That he was trapped, no matter how bad he might’ve wanted to leave.

His hand settles on her elbow, startling her out of the thought, and a spark crackles to his palm, though he pays it no attention. “Delina.”

“Yeah?” she asks, still cradling the magic.

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice dipping low, and she blinks at him. “I’m sorry for lying, I’m sorry for not immediately telling you the truth. I’m sorry for keeping it from you, I’m sorry about all the little lies I ever told you.”

She stares up at him, and he shifts closer with just a spare glance down at the magic in her hand.

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