Page 113 of The Girl Who Should Be Dead

“Stop looking at me like that,” he grumbles.

“No,” Ambra replies easily. “This is far too interesting.”

“I used to be edgy when I was a teen, it lasted for maybe six months,” he says, but he’s watching her in the mirror, like he’s waiting for some sort of reaction.

“I’m going to keep you safe,” she insists again, and hismouth quirks up.

“I believe you,” he answers, leaning back from the mirror and blinking at himself. “God, I look like I’m trying to be an edge lord or something, this is awful.”

“It’s not a bad look,” she offers.

It’s not, though distinctly out of place for him, like a costume he’s put on instead of an addition to his face.

She ducks a kiss to his collarbone, and his eyes crinkle up into a smile in the mirror.

“Wouldn’t it be easier to do that without your glasses?” Ambra asks, as he shifts them up his nose to access his eyes with the liner?

“Not at all,” he replies, but the hint of a smile still lingers on his lips. “I look considerably more uptight than you, I need to do something to blend in.”

Ambra brushes the side of her scalp, where the reddish hair sticks a bit haphazardly. It’s less than neat, but they wouldn’t be able to easily stick the EKG’s to it anymore.

“Yup, exactly that,” Gurlien says. “I’m not going to spike my hair,” he informs her, and she shrugs at that. “And don’t you dare send any pictures to Chloe.”

She wasn’t going to, but now she’s tempted.

“No,” he says, at the look on her face, and despite all the nerves and the terror and the fact she’s going to be facing one of the Five in less than a few hours, she finds herself smiling. “Stop that. Let’s get you some food before we go down there.”

28

Nerves fill her stomach more than the food does, but before she has time to get a grip on herself, before she can firm up her personality to actually be ready for the night in front of her, they find themselves in a crowded staircase in line to get into the catacombs, the silly little multi-tool pressed into her pocket

The stairs are rough-hewn from the same white stone as the stone beneath the bones, and the air is muggy from the crush of humanity all around them.

Ambra stands embarrassingly close to Gurlien, as if she isn’t the most powerful person among them and could flatten everyone within a wide mile.

He holds himself straight, sticking out in the crowd, and throws his arm casually around her shoulders like that could protect her.

Several other people in the line stand similarly close to those next to them, so it’s not the worst camouflage. Before these last three weeks, Ambra couldn’t imagine letting anyone touch the body like that willingly, so it’s probably not what the College is looking for.

If they’re looking for her at all there. If they’re expecting her to show up.

Music thumps up, even up the stairs, and Gurlien flashes the two false tickets at the guard, who barely glances at the artwork before waving them through, his eyes too focused on the scar on Ambra’s chest to check carefully.

“And that is why I bought you that shirt,” Gurlien mutters to her, as they descend down another set of sweaty stairs and the thumping music grows louder.

“So they can stare at my scars?” Ambra shoots back, and it’s so dim she might remove the sunglasses.

“He was absolutely not staring at your scar,” Gurlien informs her, before his face twists, like he’s trying to judge if something is amusing or not. “You have no idea what humans find attractive, do you?”

It’s an odd question, so she shrugs.

Again, he makes the distinct expression of trying to squash a smile, before his hand tangles in hers, pulling her forward, into the main antechamber.

Skulls line the crease between the wall and the ceiling, and rib cages adorn the sconces of the lights, grim and dirty, and Misia had stared at them the first time they were walked through. Ambra had felt a stirring of dread, all those months ago, some sort of bleeding over from Misia before she even knew what it was.

Ambra opens her mouth to tell Gurlien, before a guitar strums through the speakers, echoing on the low ceiling and in among the cracks in the bones.

Sound slams into her, so loud it takes her breath away and she recoils back, and Gurlien hands her the bright orange earplugs from his pocket.

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