Page 103 of The Girl Who Should Be Dead

She had found it after it had been left for a year, the family disappearing after a sickness, and hidden it away from the world. People would pass right by it and not think anything was strange, the utility companies would ignore it on their balance sheet, and other demons would see her claim on it and shift right on by.

“A few decades,” Ambra says, after it becomes clear he wanted an answer.

“Try close to seventy?” he says, tapping a foot against the bright tile. “How land-rich are you?”

It’s not something demons track.

“Because you could sell this place and not have to steal from banks for quite a few decades,” he says, pulling out his phone and glancing at it. “And everything still works?”

She lets him putter around, pulling her power into herself, checking her wards, and—

Her eyes pop open.

Someone had been here.

Specifically, Nalissa had been here.

“Don’t touch anything,” she breathes, as he runs his hand over the countertop, and he freezes.

Nalissa had been there, her tang of magic distinct and clear, within the last two years.

Exhaling as quietly as she can, Ambra tracks the motions Nalissa made, tracks the point of contact.

She hadn’t left any traps, but had instead trailed her hand over the bookcase, scanned the fridge, and touched her wards, reading them like they were a book.

And had done so before they had contacted Ambra and Misia.

“What is it?” Gurlien asks, voice sharp, as Ambra shakes herself back to the present. “Is it a trap, do we need to leave, what—”

“Nalissa came in here,” Ambra says, and her own voice is remote. “Before the merge. Before I knew her.”

A thread of anger worms its way inside her stomach.

Nalissa had found one of her spots, had entered it, had investigated it, back when her experiments were only ideas.

Gurlien lifts his hand from the counter.

“No, it’s safe, she left nothing behind,” Ambra says, shaking her head, blinking. “She investigated, she must’ve come across a demon spot and…”

It might’ve been what gave her the idea to contactAmbra. To put her aim onto her, onto Misia. To find a perfect candidate for the experiments.

It could’ve been Ambra’s own house, Ambra’s own safe place, that had doomed them, and—

Gurlien’s hand closes around her elbow, and Ambra jumps, almost teleporting away from panic.

“Do we need to go somewhere else?” he asks, voice dipping down. “Is she tracking it?”

Ambra shakes her head, and once again, there have been too many emotions in the day, too many conflicting sensations, even as the hangover has receded and the body feels less hostile.

“Just another part of me that she took uninvited,” Ambra says, and her voice is almost a growl, before she squeezes her eyes shut, trying to get a hold of the chemicals flooding through her limbs.

Before she’s even fully aware, Gurlien guides her to the plastic covered couch, sitting her down onto it, still focused on her. “Breathe,” he mutters, his voice low. “She’s awful, feel angry, but breathe.”

Ambra does, a big gulping breath, and tears prickle at the edges of her eyes, a leftover automatic function.

“I’m going to kill her,” Ambra declares, and her words wobble out of her. “She found this before she found me, it could’ve taken her to me, she planned me—”

Gurlien glances up at the house, at the perfectly preserved furniture, at the decor that’s seven decades out of date, before he lifts his hand to her back, rubbing in small circles.

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