Page 15 of The Girl Who Inherits the Dead

“Master bedroom, there’s a bio-trap in there,” Chloe says nonchalantly, then sits up straight. “The bio-trap, do you think it’s for her?”

“What, and I mean this politely, the fuck is a bio-trap?”

“It’s a spell circle meant to do a specific thing for a specific person when they walk in it,” Gurlien recites, like it’s practiced. “Everyone else it’s useless, but for one person it’ll do…something.”

And the letter sent her here to unlock some nebulous power.

Right now, she just wants to unlock some sleep.

“Can I get in the beds without tripping the trap?” Delina asks, and they both nod, so she yanks her pink rolling suitcase down the hall and slams the door.

5

Delina wakes up in an unfamiliar bed, cold and alone, and immediately wants to tear everything down. Wants to grip the stupid floral curtains and rip them in two, to smash the antique dresser and the overly ornate mirror on top of it; wants to rend the squeaky door to the closet away from its hinges, until everything is destroyed and everything feels better.

So she blinks hard up at the wooden ceiling, spreading her arms and legs out on the bed wide, as if taking up more space would do it.

All things considered, the room is…fine. A bit dusty, but fine.

There’s a gigantic bed smushed against one wall, and a circle of spray paint in the opposite corner, staining the perfectly baby blue carpet. There’s a bathroom attached, with an overindulgent cast iron tub and a separate shower, and two twin vanities and sinks that each have their own mirror.

She splashes water on her face, but it does little to wash away the circles under her eyes, or her truly destroyed makeup that she had applied all the way before leaving for coffee.

Her stupid cheap phone with no signal tells her it’s around 10 AM, but when she creeps into the kitchen, there’s no lights on and no sound but the rain against the roof.

Which, fair. She kept them up until two AM, and who knows what sleep schedule these two oddballs keep.

She dejectedly pokes at the espresso machine until it refuses to chug to life, but even that action seems unreal.

“Wait,” she whispers to herself, then swipes her thumb over the top of it, one quick action.

Immediately it whirs, grinding coffee in a smooth motion, like it had just been waiting for her to do that.

If that’s what her mother meant by magic, she’s going to be simultaneously excited and really, really disappointed.

“You’re telling me Dr. Frisse put a bio-lock on her coffee machine?” Chloe pipes up, startling Delina. Chloe’s hair sticks up on the sides, and she’s wearing an oversized T-shirt and some basketball shorts as pajamas. “Jeez, she was insane.”

The machine pours a beautiful shot of espresso without her needing to do anything, and they both sort of numbly watch.

“Just so you know, Gurlien’s gonna watch you do that like a hundred times while we figure out what kind of magic you have,” Chloe says, after Delina’s poured the shot into a glass of milk and started the next shot of espresso. “Indulge him a bit, it’ll be easier to work with him that way.”

“So there are different types of magic,” Delina says, taking a fistful of ice and then some chocolate syrup she found for her coffee.

“Oh, you know nothing,” Chloe says, opening the cupboard and pulling out a box of PopTarts. “Jeez.”

Delina holds out her hand, and Chloe thoughtlessly hands her one of the PopTarts. She hasn’t had one of them in years, but she had a burger, might as well kick the rest of the clean eating streak away.

The cat from the night before wanders into the kitchen, stares at them, before idling back out, butting its head on Chloe’s leg once.

“There’s about as many types of magic as there are people, though the College likes to pretend there’s only three or four,” Chloe says over a mouthful of PopTarts, popping herself up so she sits on the counter. “Dr. Frisse was an experimental Spell Weaver, she specialized in finding new ways of combining and twisting magic to her purposes. She was obsessed with new magics, like necromancy and demon shit, all super dangerous and rare.” Chloe gestures at herself with the PopTart. “Me, alchemy. I make things into other things. The older the thing the easier it is.”

Delina crosses her arms. It’s still before breakfast.

“Gurlien was also a spell weaver, he mostly did diagnostic shit, but his magic got exploded in a big accident, that’s why the College kicked him out,” Chloe continues. “I left because they were dicks.”

“Exploded?” Delina asks. Too many people used that term to her in the last twenty-four hours.

“It’s gone,” Chloe replies helpfully. “Caput. Non-existent. He’s now the second person in the world it’s happened to and the College thought it could be contagious so…” she jerks her thumb over her shoulder, “he’s out.” She swings her legs off the counter, and Delina can’t quite grasp if she’s much younger than her or not. “Don’t ask him about it, he’ll pout the rest of the day.”

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