Page 140 of The Girl Who Inherits the Dead

“It’s almost five AM,” Delina points out. “Who would call you at five AM?”

“Would they rat us out?” Maison asks, still deadly low, and Gurlien’s face twists, before shaking his head.

“They hate them more than we do.”

Propping it up, Gurlien answers, flipping it to speakerphone.

“Axel?” he asks, crossing his arms, still standing at the stove. “Did you finally listen to my messages?”

There’s a pop on the other end, and Maison flinches.

“No, but we got an alarm of someone at one of Dr. Frisse’s old cabins yesterday,” a voice filters through the phone, falsely jovial. “And apparently you were there as well.”

Gurlien looks up, locks eyes with Maison. “So Terese is with you?”

“And you have a Half Demon and another Necromancer, you’re keeping more secrets,” the other voice says, clearly exasperated. “And the College tried to ask us about you, what are you doing?”

“What did you tell them?” Maison interrupts, and the other side goes silent for a long second at his voice.

“Obviously nothing,” Axel responds. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t trust it,” Maison says, loud enough that the other side of the phone has to have overheard. “How do you know…”

“Wait, if you’ve had Terese for however long and they’re still calling her missing and dangerous?” Gurlien interrupts, like that’s the important part here. “How…”

“Oh my god shut up,” this time, a female voice, lightly accented, interrupts. “Gurlien, can you answer for once?”

Gurlien rubs his forehead. “Hi, Alette, we’ve been trying to call you for weeks.” His eyes flicker over to Delina who’s frozen at the bookcases. “Dr. Frisse’s daughter is a Necromancer, she knows everything now, her boyfriend is a Half Demon and we’re on a real misguided attempt to go free his mother from Toronto, any help?”

Silence on the other end, and Maison sighs.

“I’ve literally been trying to call for weeks to get some sort of necromancer advice,” Gurlien says, and Chloe drifts back into the kitchen, her lock picks held loosely in her hands. “And apparently you two have been working with Terese? Or something? How?”

“She’s not going to attack you,” Axel replies, obviously grumpy, “drop it.”

“Wait, Aunt Frisse’s daughter?” the female voice asks, and it’s so chaotic that Delina’s head spins. “She was sealed away…”

“And now I’m not,” Delina interrupts, and everyone falls silent. “Hi, cousin.”

It turnsout that Axel is absolutely not willing to risk actually going out and helping them, but Gurlien and Alette spend too long on the phone discussing distractions, techniques, switching between English and French with a fluidity that makes Delina’s head spin.

Her cousin, an actual family member who knew her mother and was actually raised by her mother, and Delina can’t actually think of the things to say to her, so she leaves Gurlien and Maison to it, flopping over on the bed in the other room.

Her own mother probably slept in the same bed she’s now laying on.

Her own mother might’ve set some of the same traps they’re going to break.

Chance follows her into the room, jumping on the bed and curling up next to her, already purring.

Delina lets herself have a brief existential crisis, laying there on a far too comfortable bed, before a polite knock on the door drags her out of it.

“Yeah?”

Chloe steps into the room, briefly letting in the sound of arguing in French, before shutting the door back behind her.

“Don’t mind that, they don’t like Gurlien, which makes him even more defensive and dickish than he already is,” Chloe says cheerfully, then raises her hands to show a plain wooden box. “Want some defensive charms?”

Delina lets herself push up as Chloe sits cross legged next to her on the bed. “Is it going to attack me?”

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