Page 163 of The Girl Who Inherits the Dead

The air above Chloe’s hands shimmer again, the world beyond it warping, and sweat trickles down her face.

“Dud, remember?” Gurlien replies, and a thoughtful look steals over Ambra’s face, one that Delina likes not one bit. “No way of me telling that it’s there, can’t see it, can’t sense it, whatever.”

“You can, right?” Ambra asks Maison, who nods. “And you?”

“Yeah,” Delina replies, and Ambra makes a humming noise in the back of her throat, like she’s evaluating them, like she’s considering saying something, before the demon trap unravels with a snap.

Chloe staggers back, her fingertips stinging, and there are droplets of blood dotting them, before she throws Delina a nod. “You get next one.”

The hallway stretches onwards, impossibly longer than it was beforehand.

“Illusion spell?” Delina asks, and Maison nods, grim. “Sweet.”

“You can’t see through illusion spells?” Ambra asks, walking backwards, and despite the direness, despite the stress and the injuries and the situation, Delina gets the sudden insight that the demon is having fun, that the demon is actually enjoying having someone to talk to. “Wait, can you?”

“Sometimes,” Maison grumbles, and he’s sweating again, even with the help of the brace. “Depends on who set it.”

“Fascinating,” Ambra says, and Delina wishes she could roll her eyes. “There’s a door five paces away, it leads to a branching hallway. I’ve only been down the left.”

Gurlien rounds back on her. “Was it a prison there?”

“This whole place is a prison.” The demon shoots back. “It’s all a prison and you’re insane for going further down.”

“Great, thanks, but I need to know specifics,” Gurlien replies, before he stops Chloe long enough to yank the map out of her backpack. “Does it lead to here?”

“Guys, we should keep moving,” Maison murmurs, and the hair on the back of Delina’s neck raises. “Something’s coming.”

The other demon ignores him. “This is a woefully incomplete map.”

Delina glances up at Maison, and his mouth is grim.

“Someone’s coming, I don’t know who, and—”

The wall shatters at the end of the hall, and almost without thinking, Ambra flicks her hand and collapses the roof in front of it, closing off the way.

“You’re trying to get here?” Ambra asks, jabbing her finger at Maison’s mom’s prison cell, as if she hadn’t just possibly hurt the structural integrity of the compound. “They’re going to protect it, they put the dangerous people there, what did she do?”

“Have me,” Maison says, leaning a hand against the wall to brace himself.

“You can’t be that special,” Ambra replies, disgruntled, before she puts a hand on the wall a few paces away, peeling the illusion up and opening the door. “There’s a fire trap and a pressure plate, but this way’s easier and there’s no demon traps until before the cell.”

All at once, Gurlien and Chloe look to Delina, like she’s the one to make the decision, so she glances up at Maison.

Who nods, inhaling deep.

“Let’s do this.”

The hallway is dead silent,unlit, and Gurlien pockets the knife so he can pull out his cell phone for the flashlight.

Maison holds back the fire trap, the strips of magic glowing his hands, holding literal flames at bay as they pass through, and Delina gets the overall sensation that it’s easier than walking for him at the moment. Chloe whispers Delina through disabling the pressure plate before they walk through it, soft.

Even Ambra is silent, as if worn out by the chattering, her eyes jerky down the darkness of the hall.

“We have eighteen more minutes,” Gurlien murmurs, his voice dead in the quiet.

“We’re almost to the branch,” Ambra whispers back, and her eyes keep on flickering between Maison and Delina, considering.

Maison inhales at the reminder of his mother, but he nods, grim, and he’s back to leaning against Delina, so his hand tightens around her waist, still avoiding the coil of magic thrumming angrily.

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