Page 12 of The Girl Who Inherits the Dead

“Uh,” the woman says, and her voice is surprisingly high pitched. “Who are you?”

“I asked the question first,” Delina snaps back.

“How’d you find this place?” The man breathes, still holding the gun limply. “Nobody should be able to find this place.”

“My mother left it to me in her will, apparently,” Delina says, wishing there was something she could throw at him. She grew up in Arizona, she could hold a gun better than whoever this guy is. “So legally you’re the ones who aren’t supposed to be here.”

The man and woman glance at each other, eyes wide, and the guy slowly lowers the gun, and the only sound is the crackling of the fire.

In the middle of one of the embroidered pillows on the couch, a tabby cat sleeps, curled up.

“Oh my god,” says the woman, her brown eyes light up. “Oh my god, you’re her.” She covers her mouth with one hand, and her fingertips are stained with gold spray paint.

The guy sets the gun onto the side table—just the side table, no security whatsoever—and crosses his arms over his chest. “Aren’t you supposed to be ignorant somewhere in the south-west?”

“Excuse me?” Delina says.

“Oh my god, Gurlien, stop,” the woman says, then she stands, shaking herself visibly. “I’m Chloe, we didn’t know you’d ever find out about this place, I’m so sorry.”

“Delina Frisse,” Delina responds, narrowing her eyes at her. “Why are you here?”

The man—Gurlien, apparently—scowls, a somewhat hopeless scowl, like he’s just as lost as she is. “But seriously, we thought you were under lock and key in New Mexico or something,” he says. “Not able to stride across an active trap circle like it’s nothing.”

“Trap circle?” Delina asks skeptically. “You think a little bit of spray paint is gonna stop me?”

Chloe glances at Gurlien again, and they have a brief, wordless argument, the sort of non-verbal communication that immediately highlights how much of an outsider Delina is, before Gurlien sighs.

“When did you find out that magic is real?” he asks, disgruntled. “The official line from the College—” he throws the word out with some real disdain, “—is that you weren’t ever supposed to find out.”

“About fourteen hours ago,” Delina replies, finally allowing herself to squeeze out her drenched ponytail. Her fingers are already like ice, after just that brief walk outside. “Been a bit of a weird day.”

“Oh no,” Chloe mumbles, rubbing her face. “Oh no, and you have to find out from us.” She paces across the room, like this is somehow her problem and her crisis as well.

Gurlien pays her no attention, just squinting at Delina, a shockingly fake bored expression over his face. “And you booked a plane and drove out?”

“Pretty much,” Delina says, losing patience and stomping over to the open-air kitchen and grabbing a floral towel. “You two still haven’t explained what you’re doing in my cabin.”

“Oh that’s easy,” Chloe pipes up from her pacing. “We needed a place to hide that the College wouldn’t get us, and Gurlien didlike all of Dr. Frisse’s estate paperwork so he pulled this as a good place to run.”

“You knew my mom?” Delina asks, as fast as she can.

“Unfortunately,” Gurlien snips back. “Where’s your jailer boyfriend?”

Delina flinches.

“We know you have one, he was supposed to stop you from figuring this out, where is he?”

“God, Gurlien, don’t be a nightmare,” Chloe says. “Think, we need to think. If she’s here,” Chloe jerks a thumb at Delina, “then we really need to figure out some more defenses.”

“Why?” Delina asks, finally drying off, the floral towel much softer than she would have expected.

The two of them freeze again, staring at each other, like she’s thrown a wrench into all their plans.

Before Gurlien sighs, put upon once more. “I’m going to make some coffee,” he announces, pointing to the couches. “Might as well get comfortable, this is going to be significantly not fun.”

Turnsout her mother also had an affinity for over complicated coffee machines and it takes him forever, so Delina gets an opportunity to grab a throw blanket and kick off her shoes so she can properly curl up on the couch and approach comfort for the first time since she read the letter.

The cat blinks up at her with tranquil green eyes, but ultimately decides to not move.

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