Chapter 40

40

T hey sleep through the day, and by the time the night falls, Delina awakes to an empty bed.

It's dizzyingly close to how she would wake up when Maison started work early, and for a split second, she has to exhale through the odd torrent of emotions it piles on top of her.

They're in Toronto, she's sleeping in her mother's old bed.

With just a brief touch of her mind, she can tell that the cat is pacing in front of the one window, an odd buzzing sensation of excitement rumbling through him, and that it's only Maison outside the bedroom door.

Not Gurlien, not Chloe, just Maison.

Not even bothering to put on her pajama pants, Delina pushes herself up, wandering into the main room.

Maison's at the counter, furiously mixing together something in a baking bowl, a scowl across his face.

"Good morning," Delina drawls, and he almost startles from her presence. "What, I even scanned you, how can I surprise you?"

Carefully, he sets the bowl down, then rubs his eyes. "I think I only slept three hours."

Delina crosses to the stools sitting on the other side of the counter, hopping onto one of them. "Did you find…butter in the fridge? Was it any good?"

"No, Chloe went on a supply run," Maison says, then gives her a crooked smile, almost self-deprecating. "They wouldn't let me out, I'm too recognizable in this city." His eyes trail down her, where all she's wearing is one of his T-shirts. "They're both reaching out to contacts tonight, getting us some more information."

It's good knowledge to have, so she nods.

"Chloe's focused in on the traps, Gurlien's trying to find staffing levels and how to get as many people out before we go in," Maison recites, and there are circles under his eyes as he idly picks up the spatula again.

Delina's not the most adept at baking, but it looks like his oatmeal muffin recipe.

"Good morning," Delina repeats, a bit gentler, hopping off the stool and striding around the counter, sliding her arms around him. "I don't need immediate status reports, it's okay."

"Right, yeah," Maison says, his arm curling around her waist in return, before he tugs her in, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "Sorry, I…"

Delina nods, and tucked this close to him she can hear his heart.

"Nothing's gonna happen tonight," Maison says, almost as if he's reassuring himself. "It's just fact finding and planning."

"And baking, apparently," Delina says, poking at the bowl, and he catches her hand, peering at the ring she slept with.

Of course he had inspected all bits of jewelry the night before, but still, it catches his eye.

"That distracting?"

"The lack of sleep is that distracting," Maison grumbles, but keeps one arm around her, just standing on the kitchen linoleum, the purple pinks of the sunset fading into the dark blue of a city night outside the one window. "The coffee machine here isn't nearly as good as the one in the cabin."

Delina lets herself lean fully against him, and it's…amazing. Reassuring. "Any way I can convince you to get some more rest?" she asks.

"Not likely," Maison mutters, awkwardly dumping in chocolate chips into the bowl with one hand, mixing as he goes, seemingly just as unwilling to let Delina go. "My mom's in the same city as me and I can't do anything about it."

"Yet," Delina corrects him, and he gives her another crooked smile. "You can't do anything about it yet."

"Yeah," he replies, still wistful, like the lack of motion is driving him crazy. "So I'm baking." He presses another kiss to the crown of her head, like that could give him strength, then unwinds himself to support the bowl.

The oven is preheating behind them, and there are even a set of well used muffin tins already out, dinged and everything.

"Do you think my bio-mom actually baked?" Delina asks, as if that could get his mind off of the impending crisis.

"Oh, absolutely," he says, grabbing on to the distraction and running with it. "There are too many actually used gadgets here. There's a kitchen aid, an actual kitchen aid, and it's been used so much the motor wobbles." He nods at one of the cabinets. "I thought about it, thought better of it."

They fall into one of their easy rhythms, where she helps him just enough with getting things around the kitchen, the easy patter of him baking and her chatting, and it's so close to normal that a part of her yearns for just…more of this. More of the casual contact of the two of them as if nothing ever happened.

But a phone in the other room chimes, just as they pull the muffins out of the oven, and Maison stiffens, his eyes flashing red for a split second, before he consciously relaxes.

"Chloe got us all burner phones," he says, dusting off his hands and meandering over to the couch. "So we can coordinate at least a little without being in the same room, and Axel talked her through making them impervious to dead zone runes."

"Well, at least they're willing to do that," Delina says, and he hands her a brand-new phone, the plastic cling still on the front. "I take it I can't text my dad?"

"No, but you can text your cousin if you really feel like it," he says, poking at a phone of his own. "Gurlien says the smallest shift will be there on Sunday night."

Delina has to check her phone to even see what day it actually is, between the travel and the driving. "Three days."

Maison sits down, hard, on the couch, and the couch has a dip in it, as if someone slept there many times. "Three days." He rubs his face, before looking up at her, almost beseechingly. "I have to wait for three days of this."

"Beats three days of driving," Delina says, then stands in front of him, resting her arms on his shoulders, and he tilts his eyes up to her. "We'll get through this."

"Three days of planning and three days of trying really hard to not get spotted in a city that almost certainly would recognize me on sight," Maison says, but he lets the phone fall to his side, an arm grazing down along her back, to her still bare legs. "Are you trying to distract me?"

"Absolutely," Delina replies, and he cracks a smile, just barely, and she yearns for more of the smile, more of anything to keep him looking at her like that. "Right now, right this moment, is there anything you can do about this?"

He shakes his head, and she winds her hand through his soft brown hair, and his eyes slip shut at her touch.

"Right now, is there anything you personally need to be planning for?"

Again, he shakes his head, slow, like he's spellbound by her. "I could be better preparing you," he whispers, as if someone could overhear them. "You still know so little."

She twists her hands in his hair, a little tighter, and he follows the motion.

"I'm not insulting you, I want…" he sighs, letting his hands grip the back of her thighs, completely at odds with his words. "You're beautiful, you're powerful, and you're entirely unskilled right now and it terrifies me."

"Are any threats going to walk through that door?" Delina asks, before a thought occurs to her. "Our entire relationship, I just thought you had anxiety, but it was this sort of thing, wasn't it?"

He nods again. "It's not anxiety."

"True," Delina says, gentling her grip and trailing her hand on his neck, across his jaw, tilting his face up to her. "Just me putting things together."

His lips open, but he doesn't say anything.

"What I'm saying is, we can try to relax in these little moments," Delina says, and his stubble along his jaw is almost a full beard, more than he's had any time she's known him, a pleasant scratch against her palm. "You won't be the most useful if you worry yourself sick."

He briefly shuts his eyes, then tugs on the back of her thighs until she falls forward, straddling him.

"You're making it awfully difficult to focus on it, Delly girl," he says, voice low, and she grins at him, impulsive.

"That's the idea," she replies, and his dimple briefly appears, before he grips her chin back and kisses her.

Kisses her like there's nothing else in the world, like there's no one else outside the walls of the condo. Like there's no bad news, nothing to worry about, no insane magic powers and dire things to break into, nothing.

She opens her mouth to him, and he sighs, deep in his chest, pulling her closer, gripping her thighs tight.

It's precarious, his touch on her skin, with everything still wrong in the world. Where she's not sure if they'll live through the next few days, where he's frightened about not being able to rescue his mother.

But there's the fire again, the spark between them, the same thrill of danger on his lips and openness in his hands.

"What do you want me to do," he mumbles against her lips, before tilting her head away and kissing down her neck, across her collarbone. "Tell me what to do and I will do it."

It's a little like a vow.

So she pulls the pajama shirt over her head, and he immediately presses a kiss between her breast, like he could kiss his way into her heart.

After getting dressed and snagging one of the muffins, Delina curls her legs underneath her on the couch, tucking herself next to Maison.

His breathing is more settled, thankfully, but he throws his arm around her shoulders, as if he could keep her safe just by sheer force of will.

"This'll be difficult for you, won't it?" Delina asks, after a long soothing silence, where the only noise is Chance chattering at the snowflakes falling outside the window.

He doesn't bother to ask for clarification, just nods, playing with the tip of her ponytail.

"I'd lock you up until it was done, but I can't figure out a way past the fire trap without the necromancy," he says wistfully, and she tilts her head up to look at him. "It's proofed against alchemy, it's proofed against demon powers, I just…don't think they've been able to proof against necromancy."

Gurlien had suggested so much, in the long drives.

"I can guide, I can protect you with my entire self, but I can't…I can't get us over that trap without you."

"You totally would lock me up, wouldn't you?" Delina asks, and he nods, fervent.

"If the choice is between pissing you off and saving your life, I'm gonna save your life every time," he vows, and she believes him. "I'll deal with you being angry later, when you're still alive."

"Hmm," Delina says, and he pokes her in the side at that reaction. "What, I'm still coming to grasp with the fact that I've had a bodyguard for years, it's weird to think about."

"It was a lot easier when you weren't a walking flare," he grumbles, but it's good natured, and he presses a quick kiss against the top of her head. "Inside the Toronto Base, with all the demon traps, might be the one safe place for you to raise more than one thing."

The thought strikes her, like a cloud disappearing in the wake of the sun, and she blinks through it. "Well, I hope I don't have to do too much of that," she says, but the idea is still way too alluring. "Besides, I'll be bringing those dead bugs to jack you up, not to raise them."

"They still bothering you?" he asks, almost lazily, despite the seriousness of the conversation.

"Bother isn't the right word, but they're easier to ignore." Chance the cat suddenly races across the couch, sprinting down the hall, then back, skidding in front of the window once more with a loud meow. "After…after this, think we can hide your mom with my cousin?"

"It could be a safe place to start," he says, and she can hear the same creeping hope in his voice, like he's almost too afraid to even think it. "I texted with Alette over there, she's terrifying."

Delina cracks a smile at that.

"She's apparently so enmeshed with the Wight community there that they view her as one of them," he says, like it's the gossip he would have of his work friends back in Arizona, and she loves it. "The Necromancer is dating—actually dating—an actual demon that she actually raised from the dead and I do not understand it."

This time, Delina pokes him in the side. "Think about that," she says at his faux outraged noise. "Think about that for one more second."

"Hey."

"So that's how she's safe," Delina says, moving along, and he nods. "So wait, I can get tips from her." She sits up, reaching for the cheap burner phone on the coffee table. "She knows how to use all of this, she can help—"

"I asked, she's never killed someone with it besides demons," he interrupts, then twists his face. "God, she's killed two. I can't even imagine that, apparently they all avoid her now because she's just so good at killing them."

Delina raises an eyebrow. "I definitely need to get tips." She pulls the phone to her, and even flipping to the phone number entitled Alette gives her heart a pang.

DELINA (5:21 PM): Can I have the other Necromancer's number?

There's no immediate answer, but she props up her phone, her mind racing.

"So I can defend myself, so you won't have to be as scared," she says, and he rolls his eyes. "I can actually know some things, they all knew my bio-mother, and we can be safe. That's a win win."

"You're not going to be in danger of demons in the next few days," he replies, which she knows, but he takes the moment to stretch out his legs, before standing up. "Come on, let's do some actual practice, Gurlien and Chloe won't be back for another few hours. I want to drill you on the wards again."

Delina rolls her eyes, but stands anyways.

Delina senses Gurlien at the door a split second before he opens it, his wrist pain almost a signature.

"They're shoring up their demon protections, it's gonna be difficult," he says, before he even sheds his jacket, then pauses, looking at the relative disarray that Delina and Maison have caused by practicing grasping the magic that runs naturally through the condo. "Alright, didn't anticipate that."

"Which protections?" Maison asks, dusting off his hands. Chance the cat pokes his head out of the other room at their voices and gives a little meow, before wandering in and butting his head against Gurlien's leg. "Internal concrete or pathway?"

"Pathway," Gurlien says, then slings off his backpack, pulling out an honest-to-god scroll of paper. "I got a friend to mark where."

Maison straightens, squaring his shoulders. "Do you trust this friend?"

"Not really, but they'd rather die than ever seem like they don't know something, so the info is correct," Gurlien replies idly. "They're expecting something, but no prisoner transfers in the last week and a half."

"And now they know we're in town," Maison says, exasperated.

"No, he knows that one person is asking about protections and he doesn't know why so he's not going to say anything until he knows." Gurlien rolls out the scroll on the table, using the saltshaker to hold it down. "I told him I'd say more in a few days, he'll wait until after that has passed to say something. I ‘suggested,'" Gurlien uses air quotes, "that it's for something interesting next month, I'm not an idiot."

Delina coughs out a laugh, and both of them glance to her. "No, don't look at me like that, it's hilarious."

"They're expecting us to be unaware of notation alarms here, here, and an underground demon trap here," Gurlien says, jabbing at a well-drawn map of a few blocks in what appears to be a suburb of Toronto. "Anyone unknowingly cross them that's even the slightest bit magic, camera in this building and this building snaps a picture."

Maison nods, already absorbed in the map.

"So the main thoroughfares, on the sidewalks and street," Delina says, then hesitates. "I hate to ask the stupid question, but does it extend through the buildings there?"

Maison gives her a sideways glance, the hint of a dimple appearing on his cheek.

"Through this one," Gurlien points, "but not this one. Congrats, you have easily identified one of the problems with small notation alarms. They're small and if you know where they are, you can avoid them."

"I'm more concerned about the demon trap," Maison says, tracing a fingertip where the now familiar circle is sketched on with pencil. "If we can't access the paint, we can't change it."

"Two options," Gurlien says, and Chloe slips in the door, clutching her backpack to her chest. "We send in someone ahead to take it down, or we find a different way in."

"That's past the lobby, that's past the first key lock, once we get that deep they're gonna lock down and they won't let anyone in," Chloe says, peering over Gurlien's shoulder. "Unless we plan on walking Delina in and offering her as a way to get access—"

"No," Maison interrupts.

"—then that won't work," Chloe finishes, rolling her eyes. "Obviously, we're not going to do that. That'd be the worst option."

"If we can do this entire thing without anyone knowing it's Dr. Frisse's daughter, that'd be ideal," Maison says, and it's only the conversation they had earlier that prevents Delina from reacting. "I'd much rather they think it's just me coming in to see my mom, rather than anything…else."

"Hate to break it to you, but when a carbon copy of Frisse walks through the door, even the receptionists are gonna pay attention," Gurlien says.

"Then we should go in another way," Maison says, spinning the map around, pointing to an otherwise unremarkable alleyway. "Windows, here, here, and here."

"Or the exhaust vent," Chloe says, twisting the map back her way. "I checked, they haven't blocked it yet, they don't know it's one of the ways out."

Delina watches her as she swallows. "Would all of us fit through there?"

"No, but one of us can," Chloe replies, grim. "And I can cause some trouble."