Page 77 of The Girl Who Should Be Dead

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Immediately, Ambra releases Gurlien, flashing a shield up around him, as an automatic trap snaps around them, tearing into Ambra’s exposed skin and drawing lines of fire across her face.

Bianchi, with her yellow hair curling wildly around her round face, staggers backwards, kicking up the kitchen table towards Ambra, who bats it away with a flick of her hand.

If the trap didn’t kill her, a single piece of wooden furniture certainly isn’t going to.

Between one moment and the next, Ambra snaps out her power, drawing it close to herself, tearing the strip right out of Bianchi’s hands, leaving them bloody.

And just like that, Bianchi freezes, going stock still, pale.

“Remember me?” Ambra asks, and the skin on her cheek stings, so she sends a bit of the power to seal it up, heal the wound in real time.

Behind her, still in the protective shield, she feels more than hears Gurlien backup, getting out of the way of any battle.

Good. She likes him being smart about this.

“What do you want?” Bianchi whispers, her voice the same soft accent that Ambra remembers. “I didn’t do anything, I never touched you, I never hurt you.”

She raises her hands, dripping viciously red blood, an obvious surrender.

At least she knows she’s overpowered in this situation.

“Is this about Toronto?” Bianchi continues, her eyes flickering past Ambra, towards the hallway to the other room. “I didn’t do any protections in Toronto, I didn’t keep you there.”

It’s an odd tactic, one that Ambra didn’t quite anticipate. She had expected more of a fight, expected more chaos than this.

“We want information,” Gurlien says from behind her, faster in the uptake than Ambra. “Nobody has to be hurt if you give it to us.”

“Anything,” Bianchi breathes, immediate. “Anything you want.”

Ambra narrows her eyes at her, and she blanches. It’s a far cry from the scientist willing to berate people cutting into the skull of an active demon.

“Nalissa’s event,” Ambra says finally, before she pokes a wound on her hand to close. “I know you have your contacts in Paris, you know about it.”

Bianchi’s eyes widen further, and Ambra bares her teeth at her, no hint of a smile.

“What do you need to know?” Bianchi asks, slow, and her shoulders are tight, like she thinks she can grab some magic from Ambra, tear it away from her if she only catches her off guard. “Nalissa hates me, she doesn’t share her information with me.”

It’s a lie, a small tightening around her eyes, like she hopes Ambra doesn’t notice.

“You still have all your maps,” Ambra says, and Bianchi winces. “I saw you sketching them, saw you keeping track of everything. Or did you think I wasn’t aware?”

Gurlien draws in a breath at that.

“I didn’t think you were conscious,” Bianchi replies, voice hushed, and her eyes flicker down the hallway again. “You were…aware?”

“Every bit,” Ambra replies, and to her horror, the anger turns her voice into a growl.

“Was Misia?” Bianchi asks.

Misia.

Immediately, fear slams into her, fear so strong it floods her mouth with bitterness.

Terror, at the surge of protection Ambra couldn’t give her. At the helplessness of the strings of her soul tearing into pieces, at the slow and steady ripping apart of what made her—her. Of the screaming that Ambra couldn’t stop, of the pain that she couldn’t soothe.

Of the helplessness that drowned Ambra, helplessness that she couldn’t do a single thing.

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