Page 139 of The Girl Who Inherits the Dead

It surprises a laugh out of him, and she grins.

“I love you,” he says, risking another glance, the serious expression filtering over his face again. “I don’t…I don’t want to lose you.”

She could respond to it, but all the words are gone from her, so she just lets her eyes drift back to the rows upon rows of dead corn reaching as far as the horizon stretches.

“I’m scared, too,” Delina says, after the silence is as long as the lines of sunlight. “I just don’t think I know how much I should fear.”

39

After a brief stop for Chloe to give them all fabricated passports and an even briefer stop at the border, they make their way through the labyrinthine skyscrapers of Toronto, to an unassuming condo in the near suburbs.

There’s nothing to mark it as unusual, and it’s so unprotected that Maison’s extra uneasy.

“And, here we are,” Gurlien says, after the third check over by both Maison and Chloe, searching for traps or guards or something, anything, and finding nothing. “She probably kept it unmarked so it wouldn’t trigger any random scans.”

It’s…fine, in terms of condos in big cities. There’s a bright blue tile backsplash behind the stove, and the ceilings arch up higher than practical. There’s the same anti-dust rune, there’s a collection of completely normal paperbacks from the last ten years in a bookcase and on the nightstand of one of the bedrooms, and a smattering of jackets in the hall closet.

There’s less creeping exhaustion after this drive, more of a slight electricity among the four of them, as they convene back inthe modest kitchen. The cat sniffs along the baseboards, tail held high, before meowing pitifully until Maison picks him up.

“Oh neat, there’s actually pantry stuff,” Chloe says, pulling out a jar of spaghetti sauce and some curly looking pasta, the sort found at too-fancy of restaurants. “I think she actually stayed here some.”

“The safe is in the linen closet this time,” Maison mentions, and Chloe immediately perks up. “No magical signature, nothing. Just a normal safe.”

“On it,” Chloe says, leaving the food out on the counter and the pantry wide open, dusting her hands on her overalls. “What type of safe?”

Maison shrugs at her as she passes by, already down the hall.

“She actually put paperwork in a file cabinet,” Gurlien says idly, digging around under the counter and pulling out a copper pan. “Stuff she normally keeps in her safe, so maybe she thought this place was more secure than it is.”

“See, that just makes me feel worse,” Maison says, before leaning on the counter still holding the cat, casual in a way that makes Delina immediately doubt it. “There has to be some trap, something.”

There’s a muffled thump from the linen cabinet, before Chloe swears joyfully.

Gurlien rolls his eyes, testing the sink. It chugs for a few seconds, before it blasts out clear water, the faucet obviously unused for quite a bit. “Surprised the pipes didn’t freeze,” he says, filling up the pot. “We had to do some maintenance on the cabin before the water worked, and even then it would’ve been impossible without Chloe.”

“This condo block probably goes for a million five each, they’re not gonna let pipes freeze,” Maison points out, as Delina pokes at the bookcase.

All the books are…completely normal. Bestsellers, mostly thrillers, some with pages folded over where her mother never finished it.

“How often did my mother visit Toronto?” Delina asks, letting her fingertips trail over the spines of the books.

“At least three times a year, sometimes more,” Gurlien answers immediately. “Before Terese, even if she wasn’t…accepted…she was still an expert.”

“So some of the traps in the base might’ve been set by her?” Delina asks, squinting hard at the wood grains of the bookcase, like she can learn truths if she just stares long enough. “Or wards?”

Maison’s jaw twitches. “Probably.” Chance meows in his face, at the expression, and Maison lets the cat jump out of his arms and onto the sofa.

“They’d replace them after she died, almost certainly,” Gurlien says, which eliminates that idea from Delina’s mind. “Small chance there might be a few, only if they couldn’t figure out how to write over them.”

He sets the copper pot on the stove, and then his phone rings.

Delina and Maison stare blankly at him, as his brain obviously skips a beat at the sound.

“You kept your phone?” Maison asks, dipping his voice dangerously low.

“It’s been off this entire time,” he says, his brows furrowing together, digging it out of his pocket. “Only people around that would be if someone already held it and put a back door and…” He trails off, staring at it, then sighs. “It’s Axel. Of course Alette probably put a back door.”

Delina perks up, and Gurlien gingerly sets the phone on the counter, as it continues to ring.

---