Page 84 of The Girl Who Inherits the Dead

“Still don’t care,” Delina replies, churlish.

A ghost of a dimple appears on Maison’s chin, before he shakes his head. “When doing this, you’ll need spray paint. I don’t, but watch.”

He reaches over to her and taps her arm, and the world blooms in gold.

Just like it did when Maison was killed.

Swallowing hard on that memory, Delina nods.

With the gold in her vision, the demon circle blazes in a brutal crimson, the air wavering with the heat of it.

“Do you always see the world like this?” Delina asks, once she gets her voice back.

He eyes her sidelong. “Mostly.”

“So why’d you step into the demon circle on the porch?” Delina asks, hugging herself against the chill of the mist, eventhough she can swear she feels the heat from the circle. “You had to have known.”

“The entire house was one large beacon of bullshit,” Maison grumbles, looking out at the demon circle. “Your mother was a lot better and more subtle than Chloe will ever be, so it was hidden among general protections.”

It makes some sort of sense.

“And I was a bit more focused on getting you out,” Maison continues, nudging some gravel with his feet as if testing it. “I thought you were kidnapped, I thought they might be hurting you. Remember the bond thing?”

Like she could forget.

“I could just tell you were upset the entire time. I thought I would be able to come in guns blazing and get you out and then deal with anything afterwards.” He sweeps his feet across the gravel, clearing a small pathway to the dirt underneath. “I miscalculated.”

Delina snorts. “That’s an understatement.”

“Thanks,” he snips back. “All I knew is that you disappeared, your dad didn’t know where you were, you were upset, and I rolled up to the house and it’s covering in intense magic.”

“My dad knew,” Delina replies, and he narrows his eyes. “Of course I went to him first. He told me everything.”

“Of course,” Maison mutters, then clears his throat. “He’s a lot better at lying than I gave him credit for, then.”

“He had kept something for my entire life for me to test when I asked him about it,” Delina says, not quite sure why she’s still needling him. “A pager, of all things. Touched it with my thumb and it shattered.”

He blinks at her, then back down to the road. “At least I wasn’t the only one who miscalculated,” he says, “the documentation on him was that he hated all things magic because of what it did to you.”

“No, he was fine,” Delina replies, then gestures broadly at the cut of dirt he’s revealed. “What are you going to do?”

He watches her for a long second, before his eyes flash red, and before she even has time to think, both of his fists are full of magic.

Delina flinches back, it’s too close to Korhonen and his attacks.

Maison’s face softens, like he can read her mind. “I’m not gonna hurt you.” His voice is gentle, and it’s suddenly like they’re back in the condo in Prescott and he’s talking her through a depression spike. “I will never intentionally hurt you.”

“I know that,” Delina says, then swallows.

“I’m going to use this to cut into the ground,” he says, his eyes still unreal, and the hair on the back of her arms raises. “Then carve in the runes. Here.”

Just like before, he dumps some of the magic into her hands, and a jolt goes up to her shoulder.

“Do this,” he says, pulling the remaining magic in his hands between them, until they stretch like a dough.

She imitates his motions, and her fingers tingle.

“Don’t aim this at someone or something you don’t want to hurt,” he warns her, and she nods, before he snaps the stretched-out magic into the dirt in front of him.

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