Chapter 35

35

A fter, she lets herself rest her head against his chest, hearing the strong beating of his heart, as the afternoon sun fills the barren apartment with warmth.

There comes a point, where she can practically feel Maison's mind kick in, and while he doesn't really tense, he sighs, his arms restless around her.

"What?" she murmurs, not willing to let herself get uncomfy.

"Someone just broke the confusion spell on the cabin," he says, and she blinks up to him. "I put an alarm on it, so I could tell."

"So they know we're not there?" Delina asks, stretching out against him. She should be more scared, she knows that, but right now she…can't.

"Or they will, soon. We should probably get up," he says, his hand tracing shapes on her bare back. "Figure out the next move, the next stop in this."

He's right, but she just snuggles harder against him.

"I don't know how many of the properties they know about, just Gurlien does, but we should…not stay in place."

She draws away, sitting upright, and a frown tugs on his lips at the lack of contact. "They're not awake yet," she says, finger combing through her hair with a nod to the door. "We'll need to get food."

He sits up as well, still bare chested, completely derailing Delina's train of thought for a few moments, before he obviously steels himself up.

Delina raises an eyebrow at him.

"When we have a break, when we get a chance, I want you to practice tying me with the death again," he says, and he's so handsome in the late afternoon sun through the slatted blinds. "If they catch up with us on the road, I want us to be prepared."

"That'll be your choice," Delina says, and the ghost of a smile traces over his lips, barely there. "I meant what I said about your wants."

"And I," he says, letting his hands fall to Delina's hips, the skin there still sensitive, "want to have the best chance at keeping you safe."

"Then we'll find a way to practice." She rolls out of the bed, and he gazes up at her with hunger in his eyes, as she rummages through her bag for a top and some jeans. "Think we can safely sneak out for breakfast?"

"Without waking them? Unlikely," Maison replies, pulling his shirt on, before his face twists, suddenly, and he jerks the closet door open.

Inside, glowing softly, is a safe.

Delina peers at it, halfway through wiggling into her jeans. "Is that gonna be dangerous?"

Maison sighs, rubbing his face and sitting back down on the bed. "It's another biotrap. I'm gonna assume it's for you again."

"What?" Delina asks. It's a normal looking jewelry safe, as much as safes could be normal, the strange glow notwithstanding. "But I already went through the one, why would there—"

"I have to assume she left more than one, I guess," Maison says, then sighs again. "She was insane."

"Right," Delina says, then takes a cautious step towards the safe before Maison stops her.

"Don't touch it until I can get Chloe and Gurlien's opinion," he mutters, all trace of the softness gone. "I don't want to be wrong and set off traps your mom left behind."

After a breakfast of power bars and lukewarm energy drinks, Maison corrals Gurlien and Chloe in to look at the safe. Or, rather, for Chloe to look at it and sketch out the types of the runes for Gurlien to identify, and the cat batting against Chloe's pencil at every motion.

"It's definitely a biotrap," Gurlien says, when Chloe finishes working with him on the runes, and Maison rolls his eyes. "Doesn't say for whom, so we can't confirm it's for you."

"I gathered that, what is it a trap for?" Maison asks, shifting to peer at it. "It's not like the other one."

Gurlien props his elbows up on his knees, because of course they're both sitting on the carpet next to the safe, and gives Maison one of his expertly bored expressions. "However do you mean, Maison?"

Maison crosses his arms at him.

"Details are helpful," Gurlien continues.

"It doesn't…feel like the other one," Maison says, begrudging, and Chloe cracks a smile, like this is some long running joke. "The other one, completely obvious what it's for. This one, not so much."

"If I had to guess, it's to destroy or transform anything inside," Chloe says, peering at it with something approaching eagerness. "So only certain people can get inside, a lot of people do them with safe boxes, so if other people get access to them, they're useless. I saw one guy who made a safe that transformed everything into useless teeth if anyone but him opened it."

Delina blinks down at her. "So this sort of thing is your jam, right?"

"Right," Chloe says, before her grin fades. "We probably don't have time for me to properly break it, do we?"

"Not with the biotrap," Gurlien says, still narrowing his eyes at Maison. "Think Delina would be biologically similar to Frisse to get it off?"

The question is directly to Maison, who scowls.

"That's all about how good of a spell caster they are," Chloe says clinically, peering at the box. "Most people don't have that level of control in their biological markers, but Frisse probably did, but also Frisse might've wanted her daughter to have access, so it's really a toss up." She taps the floor next to the safe, and it glows a bit stronger.

"I mean, I could try," Delina says, and Chloe at least looks like she's considering it. "It probably wouldn't harm me, right?"

"Probably isn't good enough," Maison replies.

"If I had time and some lead gloves, I'd do it," Chloe volunteers, before she smiles, impish, at Delina. "She left this place to you in the will?"

"Yes," Gurlien replies for her, because he's the one who has the entire will memorized. "So it would go to reason that it'd be safe in theory, but—"

Before Maison can stop her, Delina steps up and presses her palm against the top of the safe.

There's a pop, close to the sound of a jar being opened, and a sizzle against Delina's skin, barely there before a plume of smoke puffs from the cracks of the safe and the door swings open.

"Aww I couldn't even unlock it," Chloe says, as Maison grabs Delina's hand, peering at it.

"I'm not hurt," she says, though her skin tingles a bit, completely unmarked.

"No, she just put a tracker on you," Maison grumbles. "So she'd be able to track anyone who tried to open her safe. Insane."

"It's not the most insane thing she's done," Chloe says, before gingerly creaking the door open.

Inside is a six-shot revolver, three cases of bullets, and some paperwork.

"Why'd she need guns?" Maison breathes, rubbing his face. "She was super powerful, why the hell would she ever keep guns?"

The revolver shines as if new, the pristine mother of pearl handle all but shimmering in the late afternoon light.

"I take it I'm gonna just find these at all of her properties?" Delina asks, and all three nod, even as Gurlien and Chloe piece through the paperwork. "I didn't even keep a gun in Arizona."

Gurlien sets half of the paperwork aside, then hands some to Chloe. "Can you transform an already fake passport?"

"Psh, easy," Chloe says, before flipping through it and showing it to Delina.

"Good, cause there's about a dozen in here," Gurlien says, and Delina cranes her neck to look at all of them.

Most are for her mother, some with brown hair and some with hair gone dramatically gray, all with the same severe expression on her face, all with different names.

There's one for a pretty dark-haired woman with brown skin and a long braid, her eyes alight with intelligence, and one for an impish young man with skin as smooth as glass and creepily symmetric features.

"Axel and Alette," Gurlien supplies. "He doesn't look like that anymore, when he lost his magic, he reverted to his actual appearance."

"Huh," Delina says, then pulls out the beautiful leather holster for the gun, oiled and glistening.

Runes are carved into the very leather, decorative and looping, almost a cursive, and Maison swears under his breath.

At her look, he shrugs. "If she had been less insane, she would have been the mind of a generation."

"Yeah, this is intense," Chloe says, peering at it, then down at the passports. "She put a ton of protection on these, I'll have to break them piece by piece to use them."

"Two days?" Gurlien guesses, and she nods. "Do it while we drive. Maison, you drive with Chloe while she does that, I'll tutor the rune breaking to Delina today."

Maison crosses his arms over his chest and stares down at Gurlien.

"I'm a better teacher than you on that and you know it," Gurlien shoots back, dusting himself off and standing up. "And Chloe'll be giving off crazy flares while doing those, you can actually mask those."