Page 93 of The Girl Who Should Be Dead

“Yes, coffee,” he says, attempting to comb through his hair with his hands and sending it sticking upright in every which way. “Coffee is needed. Yeah.”

Two annoyingly sweetespresso milkshakes and a muffin later, Ambra doesn’t quite feel better so much as she’s a little less miserable, though Gurlien still struggles to make it through his pastry, on his third cup of black coffee.

He’s surly, barely speaking, leaving Ambra to observe the world from their little corner of the coffee shop. Now the third day in a row, and the patterns of the noise have grown a touch more familiar, a touch less jarring, a touch less frightening. The same people work it, recognizing them with a smile, and the music playing over the speakers repeats.

And despite the unpleasantness of the physical body, Ambra definitely wants to sidle up to Gurlien, to lean against him, to have his hand touching her shoulder like it did at the bar.

“What parts of the night are fuzzy?” she asks, after he’s torn more of the pastry apart than eaten it.

He sighs, put upon.

“It’s not fuzzy for me, I can put it together for you,” she continues.

“I really don’t want to talk about it,” he mutters, then, “did I…do anything untoward? By whatever standards you want to use?”

And Ambra’s first instinct is to immediately tell him no, to immediately make sure he knows he did no wrong, but she tilts her head, takes the moment to observe him.

Does he even want to know?

“I kissed you,” Ambra says evenly, after a long pause, and he groans, burying his head in his arms on the table. “And you broke it off and told me to not do so while drunk, but I wouldn’t…categorize that as untoward.”

Not for the first time, Ambra desperately wishes she could understand humans a bit better, but even when she shared a mind with one, they were still a mystery.

“I sort of remember that,” he says, muffled. “Sorry.”

She squints at him, and her head hurts just enough that she’s not sure she wants to be nice at the moment. “It wasn’t bad.”

“Thanks,” comes the rather sarcastic response.

But a twist of motion catches her eye, one that’s not in the human range of action, so she jerks up to look.

Outside of the window, giving her the most puzzled of stare, is a Wight.

It’s not one she knows—not that she knows or takes care to remember very many of them—but the Wight has wiry grey hair and lines on her face that echoes someone Ambra should know.

Careful, Ambra lets a bit of her power out to flex, making sure not to stomp over any protections or lines that the main demon would have left, just enough to entwine around the Wight.

She grimaces, and Ambra releases immediately.

Gurlien’s hand goes to his wrist, to the leash around it. “Didyou do something?” he asks, voice still muffled, and Ambra remembers his story of the Wights, why they dislike him.

“Just investigating,” Ambra replies, and her stomach turns over, like accessing that part of her upsets the delicate balance of her body at the moment.

It’s odd to see Wights so far into a city, so far into a place of industrialization and pollution, but the Wight stays put, eyes locked onto Ambra.

So this one wants to talk to her.

Or Gurlien.

Which she wouldn’t let.

Finally, Gurlien lifts his head, and whatever he sees on her face sits him up bolt straight. “What is it?”

Ambra doesn’t let her attention wander, even though her head still throbs.

The Wight’s gaze flickers to Gurlien for a split second, the often familiar evaluation, before right back to Ambra.

So her.

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