Page 98 of The Girl Who Should Be Dead

“This is about as private as we can get,” Chloe says, digging into her backpack and tugging out a small smooth stone. Casually, she taps it against the table, and it transforms into some sort of speaker with a small twist of magic, and Ambra’s ears pop.

And all sound from outside the room fades away, small susurrations of pages turning and air conditioner creaking and the cars on the street outside.

It’s immediate relief, and Ambra’s shoulders fall away from her ears.

“Neat trick,” Ambra says despite herself.

“It’s nothing,” Chloe replies, far more casually than is entirely natural, before she sits forward, propping her elbows up on the table. “I need some information from you for the passports.”

“I don’t need one,” Ambra replies, but sits on the cold metal chair next to Gurlien, and her knee grazes his, grabbing all her attention.

“It’ll make things easier,” Chloe says, “and if you haveidentification after all of this, it’ll make life go more smoothly than not.”

It’s another thing Ambra never considered, and it must show on her face.

“Even if your plan is to disappear from society, it’ll be useful,” Gurlien continues for her, and that’s…not nearly as appealing of a plan as before. “And if we go to Europe and get stopped, it’ll get us out of some trouble without needing to teleport out and potentially trip alarms.”

“That’s the most compelling thing you’ve said,” Ambra points out, and he gives her a self-satisfied smile that sits well on his face. “If you had said that first, I would’ve complained less.”

He puts the same blue drink in front of her, as if a punctuation.

Chloe watches Gurlien with a raised eyebrow like he did something startling. “Do you have any preferences on names, ages, or country of origin?” At Ambra’s headshake, Chloe pulls out a blue passport, recognizable from the paperwork Nalissa would flash around at customs, before they learned to control Ambra’s teleportation. She slides one to Gurlien, who flips it open before shoving it in the front pocket of the backpack. “The goal is to avoid officials, these are good but not perfect,” Chloe recites, like it’s something she’s had to say many times. “They hold up to a glance and a cheap scanner, not a fancy one. So don’t try to fly with it if you can avoid it.”

“I can teleport,” Ambra says dryly. “I’ve flown on a plane before, it was hellish.”

“Too loud?” Gurlien murmurs, and Ambra nods instead of glancing at him.

Chloe’s eyebrows do the funny thing again, before she prods the extra passport, twisting the ink to resettle on thepage. The picture isn’t of Ambra, not exactly, but it’s of someone with similar hair and a similar enough nose to Misia that she could probably get away with it.

“Are you going to take the gun?” Chloe asks, her head still bent over the passport, and the fact that she can talk at the same time as she works is impressive.

“As far as I can,” Gurlien says grimly, and Chloe makes grabby hands for it without even looking up. “Don’t break it.”

“I’m not gonna break it, I'm gonna make it hidden from metal detectors,” she replies.

Ambra sits back, and there’s something charming about the back and forth. A different side of Gurlien from the one he shows her, not a false one, but different.

“I spoke to Axel—he’s brilliant, by the way—and he told me how to make it more effective against shields.”

“More effective against shields?” Gurlien answers, skeptical.

“Against all sorts of magical things,” Chloe says, and despite her almost insane amount of power she just put out, she’s almost bouncing in her seat. “Against shields, wights, it won’t kill a demon but it will hurt them, through some wards, it’s fantastic.”

“Won’t kill me?” Ambra says, bemused.

“Te…Axel said it is significantly annoying and delays the healing process,” Chloe says, almost fumbling the name, and Ambra smirks at her. “They knocked out a full demon for a good twenty minutes.”

It’ll be useful if any other demon decides Ambra’s easy pickings.

“I like that,” Ambra says, and they both glance at her in surprise. “I would’ve liked that in Minneapolis.”

“That one just threatened you, he didn’t actually hurtyou,” Gurlien points out, then sighs, put upon. “Of course Axel would have a magic gun.” Throwing a look out the small window on the door, he adjusts himself so he blocks it, pulling out the gun.

Chloe grabs it, fluently checking the chamber and ejecting the magazine, before tracing on it with her fingertips.

“It would’ve been nice to have a weapon,” Ambra says, before Gurlien can even give her a look. “I was useless.”

“Need I remind you that you cracked the foundation of a house yesterday?” Gurlien grumbles, but Chloe doesn’t even react to that. “Useless is an exaggeration.”

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