Page 142 of The Girl Who Inherits the Dead

It’s dizzyingly close to how she would wake up when Maison started work early, and for a split second, she has to exhale through the odd torrent of emotions it piles on top of her.

They’re in Toronto, she’s sleeping in her mother’s old bed.

With just a brief touch of her mind, she can tell that the cat is pacing in front of the one window, an odd buzzing sensation of excitement rumbling through him, and that it’s only Maison outside the bedroom door.

Not Gurlien, not Chloe, just Maison.

Not even bothering to put on her pajama pants, Delina pushes herself up, wandering into the main room.

Maison’s at the counter, furiously mixing together something in a baking bowl, a scowl across his face.

“Good morning,” Delina drawls, and he almost startles from her presence. “What, I even scanned you, how can I surprise you?”

Carefully, he sets the bowl down, then rubs his eyes. “I think I only slept three hours.”

Delina crosses to the stools sitting on the other side of the counter, hopping onto one of them. “Did you find…butter in the fridge? Was it any good?”

“No, Chloe went on a supply run,” Maison says, then gives her a crooked smile, almost self-deprecating. “They wouldn’t let me out, I’m too recognizable in this city.” His eyes trail down her, where all she’s wearing is one of his T-shirts. “They’re both reaching out to contacts tonight, getting us some more information.”

It’s good knowledge to have, so she nods.

“Chloe’s focused in on the traps, Gurlien’s trying to find staffing levels and how to get as many people out before we go in,” Maison recites, and there are circles under his eyes as he idly picks up the spatula again.

Delina’s not the most adept at baking, but it looks like his oatmeal muffin recipe.

“Good morning,” Delina repeats, a bit gentler, hopping off the stool and striding around the counter, sliding her arms around him. “I don’t need immediate status reports, it’s okay.”

“Right, yeah,” Maison says, his arm curling around her waist in return, before he tugs her in, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “Sorry, I…”

Delina nods, and tucked this close to him she can hear his heart.

“Nothing’s gonna happen tonight,” Maison says, almost as if he’s reassuring himself. “It’s just fact finding and planning.”

“And baking, apparently,” Delina says, poking at the bowl, and he catches her hand, peering at the ring she slept with.

Of course he had inspected all bits of jewelry the night before, but still, it catches his eye.

“That distracting?”

“The lack of sleep is that distracting,” Maison grumbles, but keeps one arm around her, just standing on the kitchen linoleum, the purple pinks of the sunset fading into the dark blue of a city night outside the one window. “The coffee machine here isn’t nearly as good as the one in the cabin.”

Delina lets herself lean fully against him, and it’s…amazing. Reassuring. “Any way I can convince you to get some more rest?” she asks.

“Not likely,” Maison mutters, awkwardly dumping in chocolate chips into the bowl with one hand, mixing as he goes, seemingly just as unwilling to let Delina go. “My mom’s in the same city as me and I can’t do anything about it.”

“Yet,” Delina corrects him, and he gives her another crooked smile. “You can’t do anything about it yet.”

“Yeah,” he replies, still wistful, like the lack of motion is driving him crazy. “So I’m baking.” He presses another kiss to the crown of her head, like that could give him strength, then unwinds himself to support the bowl.

The oven is preheating behind them, and there are even a set of well used muffin tins already out, dinged and everything.

“Do you think my bio-mom actually baked?” Delina asks, as if that could get his mind off of the impending crisis.

“Oh, absolutely,” he says, grabbing on to the distraction and running with it. “There are too many actually used gadgets here. There’s a kitchen aid, an actual kitchen aid, and it’s been used so much the motor wobbles.” He nods at one of the cabinets. “I thought about it, thought better of it.”

They fall into one of their easy rhythms, where she helps him just enough with getting things around the kitchen, the easy patter of him baking and her chatting, and it’s so close to normal that a part of her yearns for just…more of this. More of the casual contact of the two of them as if nothing ever happened.

But a phone in the other room chimes, just as they pull the muffins out of the oven, and Maison stiffens, his eyes flashing red for a split second, before he consciously relaxes.

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