Page 76 of The Girl Who Should Be Dead

She raises an eyebrow at him, and he had the temerity to shrug, embarrassed.

“I wasn’t the most interesting of person,” he says. “I mostly did legal work, I did diagnostic spells, I did magically binding contracts. Not a combat mage, not someone terribly important.”

It tickles her all the more that he still did something to get kicked out.

“I wasn’t the sort of magician to be invited to fancy musical spectacles,” he says, his face soft in some sort of self-deprecation. “When people saw me, they knew I was there to fix a mess that was mostly paperwork.”

“I’m glad,” Ambra declares, and he gives her such a startled glance that she almost feels bad. “If I had met you on the experimentation table, I would’ve absolutely killed you.”

“Right,” he says, unnerved. “You and murder.” He takes a deep breath, like physically moving himself on. “Nalissa. Any friends to manipulate?”

“She didn’t make a lot of friends, unless you were an artist,” Ambra says. “I don’t think any of the Five liked her terribly much.”

“Did anyone in the Five like each other at all?” Gurlien asks dryly. “They’re not a group of people I can imagine being friends.”

“I think that was the point,” Ambra says, before she falls silent, the hint of a plan unfolding in her mind. “She had her enemies.”

Gurlien gives her a brief smile, like he could read her mind. “Any particulars you want to try?”

They spendthe day sketching out ideas, playing with potentials, before having a completely uneventful night's sleep, one where Ambra doesn’t dream and wakes up with her chin tucked against Gurlien’s shoulder.

But it’s another day closer to the possibility of Nalissa with her guard down, and Ambra doesn’t want to spend time in the warm comfort.

After some arguing and some agreeing and back to arguing, they settle on a target.

Bianchi Layton. A rival in research funding and someone who once yelled at Nalissa’s research assistants when they had the body’s brain peeled open and Ambra was aware during all of it.

She didn’t stop the assistants, just disagreed with their tactics, and Ambra could hear her argue with Nalissa the entire time her skull bled over the sterile experimentation table.

They track her location down to her flat in rural Scotland, where Nalissa once took Ambra after the leash was tied to show off, and Gurlien managed to figure out a schedule of behavior, aided by Axel and one of Gurlien’s contacts titled ‘Alette, do not message.’

“She hates me,” he supplies, again somewhat embarrassed. “Axel at least sympathizes with me, but Alette can’t stand me.”

“She’s helping you,” Ambra shoots back.

“No, she’s helping you,” he replies. “She feels bad that her aunt's research ruined another life and likes that you saved her cousin. After this is all done, you could probably meet her, she would kick me out of her house.”

Ambra crosses her arms and squints at him. “She’d rather help a demon than you?”

“Absolutely,” he says, crossing his arms right back.

“She also hates the College, though,” Ambra needles out. “Why is she even not on your side?”

She half expects him to sigh, she half expects him to shut up and withdraw, but instead he scrunches his face at her in such an expression that it surprises a smile out of her.

“If I promise to tell you the story of that, can you promise to not kill Bianchi?” he asks, which is a strange sticking point for him once again.

“She’s not a good person either,” Ambra reminds him, the knife sharp memory of the skin peeled open still sitting underneath her gut.

“Nobody is,” he says. “Let's keep the murder down to the Five. The story in exchange for keeping the murder to a minimum.”

She’s not entirely sure how feasible that would be, but the want of information about Gurlien wins over the bone deep need for revenge.

“Fine,” she says, then grins at him, baring all her teeth. “Unless she tries to kill you, then she’s fair game.”

“Not this again,” he mutters, but at least doesn’t argue, so she watches him pack a bag with some quick energy food and throw the woolen coat back on, before she grabs him by the shoulder, teleporting him directly into the kitchen of Bianchi’s flat.

And into chaos.

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