The Girl Who Should Be Dead (The Magic of the Living and the Dead #5)

Chapter 26

26

S he teleports him to the house in France, still pristine perfect from her protections, not a speck of dust anywhere, and watches as Gurlien gets his feet underneath himself, his eyes sharp.

Her skin crawls, this close to Nalissa’s territory.

“Okay, this place is older than I anticipated,” Gurlien says, at the green counters and the rounded edges on the refrigerator. It’s dark outside, the lights twinkling from the street below.

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 contact Ambra. 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.

“Do we need to leave?” he asks again, careful. “Go somewhere she hasn’t taken away?”

It’d be impossible for her, when she’s breathing through Misia’s body .

But there’s a frisson of anger there, too, at the idea of running, and Ambra straightens. “No,” she answers, before swallowing. “No, she doesn’t get to ruin this.”

His lips curve upwards at that. “Good.”

So she watches as he explores the small house, puttering around the antique hardware of the kitchen, the sourness back in her stomach.

It would be so much better if he had a magical trace. If he could leave hints of himself behind, overshadow the ones left by Nalissa.

She would need to re-ward the place, write in more protections. Mask her presence in Paris, render her invisible.

Most of the demons around this part of France are like her. Transient, not setting up a base of power beyond the minimum needed for hiding spots, so she doesn’t have to worry about appeasing anyone. Too many people—demons, spirits, everyone—flock here to search for knowledge, to find answers, that nobody would be able to defend it for long enough.

Gurlien disappears into the other room, poking around, so she pushes herself up to standing to follow.

“We’ll have to buy you groceries,” Ambra says, following him into the little office area, with its dizzying collection of thin-papered science fiction books and its outdated maps on the wall. “There’s a little store down the street ran by a magician; he couldn’t see me, but he could sense when I or some wights were around.”

“Who is it?” Gurlien asks with a curved brow.

“Not in the College,” Ambra says, letting her fingertips trace over the spines of the books. The sensation is different now, with a live body and actual nerve endings against her skin. “Not strong enough in anything practical, so they ignored him. They’re very…snobbish around here about that.”

He nods, it’s not new information. “Have you read all of those?” he asks, gesturing to the bookcase, to the brightly colored books. “Half of those books don’t exist anymore, they’re out of print and most copies are non-existent.”

“Of course,” Ambra replies, tapping her finger against the books. “What use would books be if you don’t read them?”

He smiles at her, something soft and unguarded, and for a few seconds, Ambra’s heart kicks up a beat.

“Here,” she says, quickly pulling out one of them, a dashing tale of a fighter pilot in a world taken over by fantastical aliens. “This one is ridiculous, I adored it.”

He cradles the book, giving it so much care that it pulls at her heart again. “This is a legitimate antique, you know that, right?” he asks, running his fingertip over the spine and creaking the cover open to glance at the publication date. “You would revolutionize the collectors’ market with all of these.”

Ambra, having come across a few collectors in her time, just shrugs. “They don’t read their books.”

Another smile, paired with the gleam of knowledge in his eyes, and it helps against the traces of Nalissa.

Gurlien reads, curled up on the one bed (a much smaller one than the apartment, Ambra’s not sure if he’ll still sleep next to her with it), the entire time that Ambra sets up the wards, so when the sun starts to peek into the windows, his hair is tousled and his eyes look scratchy when he blinks at her .

“This book is awful,” he informs her, and he’s a good two-thirds of the way through. “I love it.”

“Right,” Ambra says, then makes a face at her voice, at the dry rasp across her vocal cords as she swallows. “I forgot to drink water for this.”

“Same here,” Gurlien mutters, and he did stay put the entire time she laid down wards, not shifting from his place on the bed, and his back pops when he shifts and stretches. “Food?”

Instead of answering, she sits next to him on the smaller bed, and he blinks up at her, owlish.

“Can I kiss you again?” she asks, now that her head isn’t pounding and her words don’t feel like they’re slipping out of her mouth.

Deliberate and precise, he fits a piece of paper in as a bookmark before closing the book, smoothing its cover, and it’s just as obvious of a stalling tactic as anything else.

“Do you want to?” he asks, sitting up so they’re on an even level.

She wrinkles her nose at him. “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”

“Fair enough,” he murmurs, then places his hand over hers, a gentle tangle of fingers.

“And I want to when you remember it,” she continues, though the graze of skin contact on their hands distracts, derailing her thoughts. “Seems unfair.”

A twitch of a smile on his lips, before he leans in, pressing them against hers, and she stills.

It’s wholly different. More of an affection, of comfort and contentment, instead of a mad rush of consumption.

The clerk at the small store blinks rapidly at her, but doesn’t say anything, besides being obviously puzzled by the leash. He’s gone completely grey haired, frizzy and wrinkled, but he still peers at Ambra before dismissing her with a shrug.

“When we’re done,” Gurlien starts, on the stroll back, as Ambra glances over her shoulder at every small noise, “when this place is clear, we should come back and visit a few proper French wine bars.”

His face is carefully neutral, a blond brow raised as he scans the small neighborhood. The trees are mostly sticks with a few browned leaves, and it must’ve rained at some point in the night, for the sunset bathes the cobblestones in a reflective gleam.

And he’s beautiful in it, his wool coat shrugged on, the circles under his eyes, carrying a paper bag with bread and cheeses and soda. Beautiful in the way Ambra rarely describes anything, handsome and, for a human, unreal.

“After the hangover I didn’t think you’d want to do that,” Ambra says as carefully as she can.

With the hangover and his mortification at sleeping next to her, she can’t imagine him wanting to. He had bought a pocket knife, too, with a multitool attachment, one that would open wines if they needed.

He shrugs. “I wouldn’t want to today, but give me enough time to recover and I will.” She gets a sidelong smile. “I don’t think I’ll do seven glasses at once again. I don’t like forgetting things.”

Ambra doesn’t have anything to say about that, ducking her head from the flutters in her stomach.

They both fall asleep after a quick meal, and she wakes up as the sun sets, his arm around her middle and his face buried in the crook of her shoulder.

And it’s a day closer to facing Nalissa.

Her phone is full of texts of research sent to her from the Half Demon, Mel, and Chloe. Some psychology links from Mel, which she files away. Something called Instagram posts sent by Maison from past concerts thrown by Nalissa in the catacombs, showing person after person dressed in fanciful black and stylized leather.

From Chloe, a picture of Gurlien, obviously months old, of him sitting on a couch with a scrawny cat curled up on his lap.

The same cat that Gurlien had shown her, with a glossy coat and well filled out.

Gurlien in the picture looks slightly annoyed, and there are dark circles under his eyes and his cheeks sunk in. His hair is shorter, and even how he’s sitting he’s favoring one side of his chest.

AMbrA (7:02 PM): Was he healthy for this?

CHLOE (7:03 PM): He was getting there.

It’s good to know.

AMbrA (7:04 PM): He smiles when you send him pictures of the cat.

On the other bedside table, Gurlien’s phone buzzes.

CHLOE (7:08 PM): Keep him safe tomorrow, I don’t like the thought of him going into the catacombs.

AMbrA (7:09 PM): If I safely could leave him out, I would. The control on the leash is only 45 meters right now.

CHLOE (7:10 PM): That is a brutally short distance.

CHLOE (7:11 PM): I’m surprised he hasn’t dragged you to do more scientific testing of it. It’s got to be bugging him to not have more information on how it works .

There hasn’t been time, not really, and she knows the hungry look in his eyes each time she does something unexplainable, the poking and prodding for knowledge.

Gurlien’s phone buzzes again, and he flops over with something of a sleepy grumble.

And she’s going to put him in danger.

Careful, Ambra slides out from underneath the blankets, and is immediately colder for it.

All her instincts, all the warped thoughts inside her, tell her to crawl back in. The demon part of her screams to curl up against him, never let anyone else hurt him, do anything and everything to protect him, possess him. The human part, that wants the warm comfort, wants the press of his skin against hers. Wants the casual touch, the heaviness of sleeping limbs, the sensation of being wrapped up in safety.

It’s a mess. It’s a knotted, mortifying mess, and the physical side of it just adds to the confusion.

So she flees, teleporting just to the kitchen, well within their distance restriction but outside of the line of sight.