Page 53 of The Girl Who Should Be Dead

She squints at him. “It’s not that interesting.”

“Yes, it is,” he replies immediately.

“All you’ll be able to see is me walking around in circles,” she informs him, and gets a twitch of a smile in return. “I have to concentrate to do them so I can’t narrate them, and this,” she gestures to the body, “is full of distractions on every turn.”

“Hmm,” he says, and she scowls at the vague answer. “So what I’m understanding is demons don’t have as many nerve endings to deal with on a daily basis.”

“Yes,” she says cautiously.

Sitting on the bed, he rummages through the bags from the shopping trip, until he pulls out one of the smaller packages from the phone store.

“Put this in your ear, they’ll block up to 22 decimals of sound,” he instructs, and she turns the package over in her hand. “It won’t be everything, but it’ll help.”

She peels the pack open, then sits on the bed next to him, fiddling with them.

“Like how the glasses mute some of the light, these mute some of the sound,” he continues, taking them out of her hand. “You put them on like this.” He demonstrates on his own ear, then at her blank expression holds back the hair on the side of Ambra’s head, pressing it against her ear.

Ambra freezes, like the touch itself is a compelling order, even though none has been given.

But his hands are gentle, businesslike and efficient, before he offers her the other one.

Still rather feeling like a deer caught in the lights, she gingerly takes it from his palm, fixing it to her other ear.

All the small sounds of the apartment fall away. The crackle of electricity through the lights, the hum of the pipes, the creak of the wind on the building, all small annoyances she hadn’t even recognized were weighing on her, all gone.

“This way you can still function, some people get these attached to earrings, so they can use them when needed,” Gurlien says, and his voice is still audible, if muted. More like he’s speaking to her through a layer of foam, instead of sitting so close to her on the bed.

“Huh,” Ambra says, and her own words are tinny, echoing strangely through her mind. “Never seen a human use one of these.”

“They’re not…common common,” he says, leaning back. “Musicians use them to make sure they don’t damage their hearing but still able to stay on tune, kids who have trouble focusing use them to help, that sort of thing.”

She touches the small loop on the outside of her ear and it shifts, but doesn’t break the seal.

It’s a kindness from Gurlien, one akin to the tinted glasses, even after she had made him upset earlier. Not something necessary for their mission, it’s not going to enable her to kill Nalissa and Boltiex easier, it won’t get him back to his friends faster, but just…

Something to make her existence a little less cruel. A little less grating against her very self.

It’s not an exchange for something, it’s not a bargain or a deal where she’s expected to produce something in return. It’s not a manipulation, it’s not a plea for help.

It’s just nice.

“Thank you,” she says, after too long of a silence, wherehe had gone back to poking on his phone.

“Not a problem,” Gurlien replies casually, eyes still reading something flash fast on the tiny screen. “You’re the one who stole the money to buy them.”

So instead, she climbs to her feet, somewhat unsteady, and toes off her shoes so she can pace across the hardwood barefoot. So she can tie the power directly through the skin she inhabits, without another barrier between them.

“Does it matter if I stay in one place?” he asks, now typing something in return. “Or can I cross at will.”

“Cross at will,” she replies, testing the floor. It’s chilled but not horrifically so. There’s another apartment beneath her, and another one after that, so she has just a barrier of a few feet to tie it into without disrupting more of the property.

His phone lights up, which means it beeped as well, but so soft the earplugs block it out.

“I would’ve done better at the mall with these,” she says, and gets an amused nod from Gurlien. “And the alarms at the base, and the stasis chambers, and at the bar—”

“If the College ever gave a thought about basic accommodations, they would be in a much more successful place in general,” he says dryly. “It’s not like Magicians are a well-adjusted normal group of people in any stretch of the imagination.”

She shrugs, one shoulder, then twists the magic into her hand, filling up the body until crackles down into her bare feet.

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