Page 52 of The Girl Who Inherits the Dead

“You mean after your bio-trap took down all the protections? Yes.” Maison snips back, then sighs. “Gurlien, do you want to help pick out the runes?”

Gurlien visibly brightens, before he narrows his eyes in suspicion. “Why?”

“Because if I don’t include one of you, you’ll think I sabotaged it,” Maison replies, still standing like the door will attack him. “And you’re better at defensive runes, no offense, Chloe.”

“None taken!” she replies, giving him a thumbs up. “I can try to break them after if you want.”

Maison blinks at her, and it’s his very-close-to-being overwhelmed expression, the one Delina rarely sees, before he strides out the door.

The moment he’s out of sight, Chloe’s cheerfulness drops. “That’s not good,” she says, sitting at the table next to Delina, running her finger over the carved wood.

“So my entire life I could’ve been seeing non-human people and just never known?” Delina says, and the cat paces up to her and butts its head against her leg, so she idly dangles a hand down to scratch its head. “This just gets better and better.”

“No, him asking Gurlien for help,” Chloe replies, then she stares back down the hallway. “If I were him, I’d be trying with you instead. You don’t know enough and then it’d be time with you.”

Having heard more of the trust issues Chloe has, Delina has no patience for it, so she pushes herself up as well.

“I’m going to see if my mom has anything actually interesting to read, or if it’s just textbooks,” she says, desperately hoping Chloe doesn’t just follow her back down.

16

The next day, after using up the last of her meager travel hair conditioner and thoroughly breaking her travel comb, Delina informs everyone else that she’s absolutely going to drive to the nearest big box store and get supplies.

Of course, this gets met with scoffing on Gurlien’s part, some truly dire suggestions from Chloe on what she can use instead, and flat-out denial from Maison, but Delina does what she does best and ignores all of that and grabs her car keys instead.

“Wait,” Chloe blurts out, dashing back into her room and coming back with a notebook and a pen, of all things. “If you’re actually going—”

“Not alone,” Maison grumbles.

“—then actually make a supply run.”

Delina holds out her hand for the book, and Chloe hands it to her, and the list is full to the brim of obscure ingredients and herbs and components.

“You actually think Target is going to have one of these?”

“If you go to the Target past Birmingham, there’s the tractor supply store and the gardening store,” Gurlien replies idly, because the two of them have actually been here a while and, apparently, have all the local town stores memorized.

Chance the cat is curled up next to him on the couch, the tip of his tail flicking, eying them all.

Maison grabs the list out of Delina’s hands. “You are not sending her on a run to get ingredients for a tomb break,” he says, deeply skeptical. “Are there even any tombs here for you to break into?”

“Surprisingly, yes, lots of bunkers, that sort of thing,” Gurlien drawls, then he sits up straight. “You’re not going with her to a major city alone.”

“Ugh,” Delina says, because now this seems like it’s become a thing. “Sort yourselves out, I’m gonna get the car started.”

Outside, sun streams down muted through the tree branches, and her breath puffs up around her face, ethereal. Birds chirp in the forest, like they've been waiting this entire time for the sun to come out from behind the clouds, and an idle breeze dances through Delina’s disastrous attempts at a hair style.

Spruce needles litter the floor of the dirt driveway, fragrant and damp, and even though it’s almost winter, green underbrush still shines around the trees and twists among the deadened blackberry canes. A squirrel dashes between trees, almost too fast for her eye to track.

And the dead bird still overshadows all of it.

More bugs crawl over its bones, and the sharp chill of the air seeps deeper into it, until all that is there is the cold.

“Maybe we should burn it.” Maison steps outside the plastic door, his jacket tossed over his shoulder. “If it bothers you so much, giving it a proper sendoff might work.”

“And then we can see how far along into that process you can sense it,” Gurlien says, following after him, and Chloe’s carrying her backpack. “Good data.”

“And does that normally affect Necromancers?” Delina asks, to which all three shrug. “Ugh.”

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