Page 68 of The Girl Who Inherits the Dead

“What does that mean?” Delina asks, raising an eyebrow. Her gut instinct is to lift her chin and demand an answer, but something inside of her tells her that wouldn’t work in this case.

“You should ask him directly,” the woman says, and Delina wants to tear her hair out at that. “See what he says…it’s more demon magic than it is human.” She watches as Delina obviously tries to keep her temper. “It’s the one fallacy of demons. They form bonds with those they deign to care about. It’s their weakness and often the only thing preventing them from full chaos and insanity.”

“Okay,” Delina responds, unnerved, then, “do you know how I can hide from demons? Besides this circle?”

This time, the woman’s smile is full of teeth. “You will always send up blinding flares whenever you draw someone back from death. Every demon close can see it. Learn to spread it out, diffuse it, and they won’t be able to find you.”

Delina nods, though her heart pounds.

“We liked the Grand Magician,” she says, and it takes Delina a few seconds to realize that she’s probably talking about her bio-mother. “We were sad to hear of her passing.”

“I think you’re the first person to say that,” Delina replies. “Thank you.”

The woman nods, and the lines around her face make her look, ever so briefly, ancient. “Stay alive, it’ll be good to have someone strong in our forest again.”

Before she, of course, vanishes.

Delina exhales, staring out at the now empty woods.

20

It takes another day and a half of nerves, a day and a half of Maison jumping at each sound, and a day and a half of Delina desperately wanting to be anywhere but the cabin her mother gave her, before Gurlien declares that it’s “probably” safe for them to let Delina out of the demon trap.

Delina’s barely seen anyone in that day and a half, with Maison steadily avoiding her. She steps into the common room, he disappears down into the basement. She wanders down the stairs, he finds a reason to go back to his room. There have been no more midnight hot chocolates, no more kind but confusing conversations.

Instead, he just acts as if he’s going to jump out of his skin whenever she gets close.

Gurlien’s mostly kept to himself in the stacks of research, occasionally conferring with Maison, but mostly ignoring everyone else. Chloe’s been running around, reinforcing runes and wards, as well as attempting to transform half of their items into things more usable.

It’s the most awkward Delina’s ever felt, and that’s saying something.

“So I take it no going back to that Target,” Delina says, bouncing on her feet as everyone shakes their head no.

Everyone’s uneasy. Everyone’s on edge.

“There’s the grocery store one town down, it should have about half of what you need,” Chloe says, and she’s honest-to-god writing down some sort of math equation in a notebook. “It’s about a twenty-five-minute drive if you take the overpass.”

“It’s next to the brewery,” Gurlien says, direct at Maison who blinks owlishly.

It’d be interesting if he wasn’t still avoiding her and every attempt she made to talk to him.

“What are the chances you would let me go alone?” Delina asks, and Maison blanches. “I need to be out of this cabin before I throttle one of you.”

Chloe glances up at her, skittish, and the back of her neck is still raw. Korhonen had left some unholy amalgamation of a burn and a bruise when gripping her, and ironically, it’s still the most painful out of all the collected injuries.

The math equations are all titled ‘defense’ on them, so Delina’s not going to pry into that.

Gurlien and Maison glance at each other, and a silent battle of wills ensues, one completely foreign to Delina. An eyebrow raised, a twitch of a scowl, a crossing of arms, before Maison stands, definitive, and grabs his jacket from the other room.

“What was that?” Delina asks Gurlien, who fakes another bored expression. “No, that was something, what was that?”

“He’s just trying to be an ass, don’t worry about it,” Chloe chimes in, already hunched back over the notebook.

“Which he?” Delina asks, as Maison strides back in the room, coat thrown over one arm. “If I’m just going to be a burden, you don’t have to come.”

Maison rubs his chin and he has the beginnings of stubble growing along his jaw, which is further than he’s ever let a beard grow before. “That’s not it, Chloe, disable the trap?”

Delina drives,this time, and she idles the crappy rental right on the other side of the burned-out line, as Chloe and Maison both inspect it, before the now familiar air shivers in front of the car tires.

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