Chapter 9

9

A fter the briefest of stints where Ambra teleports them into a bank vault and then back out before Gurlien can yell about surveillance cameras and police, they sit outside in a temperate area, deep in a woods that Ambra doesn’t know the name of.

Gurlien shakily counts the money, and Ambra perches herself on a gnarled tree stump, pulling her knees into her chest.

It’s not a safe spot, per se, but it is comfortably warm. The ground is dry, the dirt halfway between sand and clay, and wiry trees with spikes instead of leaves twist their way up to the brilliantly blue sky.

Once, Ambra had gotten obsessed with learning all the different types of plants in the world, but besides ‘low water, drought resistant,’ she couldn’t remember exactly what these types were.

Gurlien finishes counting, then types into his phone, sitting back. “How many times have you stolen from a bank? ”

“Not many,” Ambra replies truthfully. “The body didn’t like it.”

Those words were unintentional, and she scowls at the dirt the moment they leave her mouth.

“Right,” Gurlien drawls. “The body.”

Ambra flinches, before she stands herself up as Gurlien carefully folds a few of the dollars into his pocket, then stores the rest in the backpack.

“At least this will help if we get separated,” Gurlien mutters. “I’ll just rent a car and go somewhere else.”

“Do you have coordinates for the shops?”

He’s already nodding, holding out his phone, where incredibly precise coordinates are pre-typed into a note.

“My phone tells me we’re in the mountains above Hemet in Southern California,” Gurlien says, glancing around them, as if for the first time. “You commonly come here?”

“No,” Ambra replies, still staring at the coordinates, trying to settle them in her mind. It’s less easy while within a body, much less one that aches and shivers with each wrong movement. “Three times before, as just an in between spot to think and read.”

His lips twitch with interest, but he doesn’t ask, and only a small part of her is disappointed.

“Late summer it’s beautiful,” she continues, as if she could tease out more of his interest. “There’s a lake with a pier, I sat there for a day and a half and read, and the sun hits the water enough to light up the trees around it.”

If possible, she’ll go back. Again. After all of this, take a book from her library and sit and read on the pier for a day or two. Take a soft sweater and some snacks, and lay there.

He hmms, something thoughtful and impatient, before showing her the coordinates again. “These are close and will have most of what we need. ”

Before he hesitates, obvious, his eyes slating over to her. “Have you been shopping before? While in the…body?”

She flinches, then nods. “We did for all the food, before the merge.”

He hmms again, then holds out his hand.

It’s the arm with the bandages, still pristine, but she grabs his warm skin anyways and teleports to the coordinates.

And it dumps them in a parking lot behind a behemoth of a building.

The pavement is dry, blisteringly so, and wind pushes fine dust across it in small waves. It’s not much warmer, but the breeze dries up any moisture in Ambra’s skin, rendering her eyes crunchy.

The very air smells almost foul. Like smoke and burning plastic and something else Ambra can’t place.

“Bleh,” Gurlien mutters, as if the scent is just as distasteful to him, before he adjusts the backpack on his shoulder.

It’s out of place on him, rendering him more youthful than he probably appreciated.

“How old are you?” she asks, and he squeezes his eyes shut.

“Just thirty-four,” he mutters. “Don’t go around asking people that, people get offended.”

He starts walking towards the entrance, and Ambra has to scramble to keep up with him, the body’s legs far shorter than his, before he abruptly turns back to her.

“There’s going to be loud noises and bright lights,” he warns, almost brusque, “and everyone else is going to be ignoring them.”

Wordless, she nods, then idly rubs the prickling of hair on her scalp. “People always stared when they took me out in public.”

“That’ll probably happen again,” he warns, his lips pursing, as he gives her an obvious once-over. “The best response to that is to ignore it. It’s not a threat, it’s just normal people reacting to something outside of what usually happens.”

“Usually, the handlers have my leash too tight for me to react,” Ambra says, and he grimaces.

“Do you want to risk sitting outside?”

Before he can even finish, she’s shaking her head no. Too far away, too unknown, and to be so alone so shortly after Johnsin died…no. It would be too empty.

He sighs again, then gestures for her to follow, and they stride into the building.

Tall automatic sliding doors open for them, sending a puff of artificially cooled air into Ambra’s face, and she wrinkles her nose at the sensation.

Instead of one store, like the grocery that the body took her to that one time, it’s a collection of small stores, their doors all wide open into a grand hallway.

“This is a mall, isn’t it?” Ambra asks, remembering to dip her voice low.

“Yes,” Gurlien replies with a curt nod. “I felt it better than a Walmart, those are hell.”

A gaggle of teenagers pass by them, too close, and Ambra shies closer to Gurlien. One of them stares at her, his eyebrows furrowing at her appearance, but they don’t stop.

It’s chaos inside.

Everywhere she looks people are walking, sometimes alone but often in groups, chatting. Bright lights flicker from some of the stores and giant signs in the middle, and even underneath the dim roar of conversation, twinkling music plays.

There’s no spot of quiet, no break in the continuous noise, and it takes Ambra a few minutes of breathing out hard through her nose to not react.

Gurlien tugs her by her sleeve to lean against one wall, away from any store openings, and it’s a lot better than being moved by the leash.

“Did you get this way before the…merge?” he asks, and her back prickles at the question.

“No,” she replies sharply. “A live human body is way more…sensitive.”

“And did the…body…” she still flinches, even at his careful tone, “…ever react like this?”

“No, she didn’t even notice,” Ambra says, past the lump in her throat. “I could be trying to clap our hands over my ears and she’d be fine.”

He nods, as if she’s saying logical things.

“Do these sounds ever stop in here?” Her voice is way smaller than she wants it to be. She’s a demon, she has untold power, and she’s acting like a hurt child.

She could destroy this entire building, flatten it to the ground. She could smother everyone around her, end the lives of countless people.

And she’s scared by a little noise.

Her legs still ache and her shoulders are still tight, but it’s not a good enough excuse.

“Not often,” Gurlien replies, and she appreciates the honesty. “I take it they never gave you ear-pro?”

At her blank look, he pulls out the list again, clicking a pen and scribbling on it again.

He let go of her sleeve to do so, and it’s a startling shock.

Gurlien strides, like he knows where to go, into a smaller shop full of neatly pressed men’s clothing, all arranged in perfectly sharp lines and neutral-colored stacks.

The cloth muffles some of the outside noise, as if the open door provided a barrier, leaving only a small chiming music and a few gossipy store clerks.

It’s far better.

Ambra immediately heads to the obvious bench, sitting down before her legs start to shake, and a clerk swoops over to Gurlien, thankfully speaking to him instead of her, giving her mind a chance to wander once more.

He sets the backpack down at her feet with a significant glance, and she tucks it closer to her legs. Humans value money, this is important to keep safe for him.

Even if she could easily replace it with just another thought.

There are mirrors everywhere, and the body’s face is sunken, her eyes ringed with dark circles. The one side of her hair is frizzy, unkempt, and looking in the mirror she can tell that the oversized soft red sweater clashes badly with the olive-green pants she picked out this morning.

Quite frankly, in terms of human behavior and human appearances, she looks like shit.

Vanity is not necessarily a demon’s vice, what with the constantly switching out of bodies, but still, Ambra’s…uncomfortable with the appearance. It’s one thing when the vast majority of beings couldn’t perceive her, it’s an entire other when everyone can.

Idly, she lets her hand drape on a close rack of clothing, and the fabric is stiff to her touch, surprisingly thick. There’s a thin strand of magic flowing through the store, barely more than a thread, and she watches it for a few seconds, watching the ebbs and flows.

“Do you want to try something on?” Another clerk is almost immediately next to her and she startles. “Oh, it’s okay, anyone can.” The clerk’s hair is dark, but a garish streak of yellow frames the front of his face, stylish and purposeful. He’s wearing one of the suits, crisp and clean, with small connecting details in the pocket and of the tie.

Long story short, he’s put together.

“Uh,” Ambra starts, and this might be the first person outside of any magical order or the College to actually speak to her, so she swallows. “I’m okay.”

It’s a wholly inadequate statement.

“Okay, no problem!” he answers cheerfully, and there’s even a gold chain connecting his tie to the pristine white shirt. “Let me know if there’s anything that catches your fancy, we have no problems with girls in suits.”

The fabric is way too rough for her to want to put it next to her skin, but the thought is nice.

“Or if there’s any colors we should put on your boyfriend,” the man continues, nodding over to where Gurlien’s strongly conversing with the other clerk. “He strikes me as an aggressively neutral color palette.”

The back of her neck prickles at the word boyfriend, as she knows that’s weighty for humans, but it’s easier than correcting him. “Try light blue,” Ambra says, when the clerk waits expectantly for an answer. “For his shirt, he looks good in light blue.”

She has no idea if it’s true, but the clerk bundles himself away, thankfully leaving her alone.

She practices letting her shoulders unwind, letting the leg muscles relax. The body did a thing called meditation, where the entire physical body felt loose and soft, but Ambra never got the hang of it.

Sure enough, the clerk takes a sky-blue shirt over to Gurlien, and he furrows his eyebrows at her like she’s the mystery, but takes it anyway.

Ambra waits as he tries on some of the clothes, then as he pays for them with the stolen cash, and his face loses some of the tightness. Like wearing the same clothes and the pajama pants had caused him some strange stress as well.

It’s an odd thought.

“Are you ready?” Gurlien asks, after another group of people filter in the store and all her work at relaxing her muscles immediately goes to waste. He’s carrying two bags, each full, but the clean lines of the paper don’t buckle out.

Unbidden, the thought that this must be a nice store pops into her mind.

“Sure,” she says, and her legs shake a bit to stand, so he offers her an arm to help with a suspicious glance to the clerk.

Her ears pop the moment they leave the store, all the noise flooding in again.

“Just how much pain are you in?” Gurlien murmurs to her, watching her blink through the startle.

“Yes,” she mumbles back, and his face draws up. “I’ll be ok, I’ve done worse.”

“Great,” he sighs, before striding off to another store. “I miscalculated.”

It’s far louder, but he grabs a pack of undergarments in a plastic bag and some other small things, and pays, all without either of them needing to say anything, then another store for a few more casual items and a bigger jacket, and Ambra’s head spins.

Gurlien gives her a sidelong glance from behind his glasses, and it’s his planning look, so Ambra squints at him right back .

“What?” she asks, too prickly to be polite, and with him she shouldn’t have to be so careful all the time anyways.

“I’m evaluating,” he replies, just as prickly.

She bares her teeth at him, and he seems not at all fazed by that, as they continue to stroll through the mall, each carrying bags, as if they’re completely normal.

“Your hands are still shaking,” he states, and she clenches her hands into fists to stop them. “And it’s been about fourteen hours since you ate.”

Ambra just narrows her eyes more at him.

“And I’ve been in hiding for the last year and been unable to go to a mall food court,” he continues, and she relaxes a bit at that. “Do you want to make the choice for your food or do you want me to make it for you?”

And he watches her, like it’s some sort of test.

They stroll past a store with a dizzying selection of scents, almost enough to pull her attention away, but she makes herself stare back at him, makes her footsteps even.

“How many choices are there?” she asks, finally.

It’s not like food sources for demons are terribly common, and it’s not like they are offered very much variety.

“A lot,” he emphasized.

“Go ahead and make it for me,” she mutters. “That sounds like too much work.”

“It’s too much work for some humans,” he replies, which is a bit gratifying. “I take it you have no idea of food allergies?”

She shakes her head. “The body ate a lot of vegetables and soups.”

He raises an eyebrow, turning around the corner and tilting them towards an even more brightly lit area full of tables and loud chatter. “Well, you had Spam and jerky in your cupboard, I assume that the body approved of everything you bought.” He waited for her to nod. “So she wasn’t a vegetarian, so I don’t need to worry about that.”

“Why would you worry?” Ambra asks. “She’s gone.”

It still hurts to say, and she ducks her head to avoid looking at him.

“Okay,” he murmurs, then tugs her by the sleeve again into the line of one booth. “Vegetables, I can aim towards that.”

Someone steps into the line behind them and Ambra stiffens.

“Too much of humanity stands too close to each other,” she mutters to Gurlien, at least knowing enough to not say that loudly.

“That is an objective amusing sentence,” he replies, also low. “But yes.”

Another person behind them, and the first person steps a bit nearer, and Ambra steps closer to Gurlien.

It’s not something she should be frightened of, they’re regular people, but it’s something stored in the body. Like the body wants to pull away from humans, not her.

It’s a confusing mess, and she sits with it, breathing hard out of her nose, trying to parse instincts from wants.

Gurlien pretends not to notice, but he’s obviously bad at it.

If it keeps him from turning her in, it’s worth it.

Another group of humans stride by, their gaze flickering up to Ambra, and one of them hides a laugh at something they see in her.

She bares her teeth in a grin, and the person startles, in term scooting away, an almost frightened expression on their face.

Good .

“Yeah, don’t do that,” Gurlien mutters to her. “It’s not a threat.”

“You just go around with people laughing at you?” Ambra asks, and they’re next in line, thankfully.

Walking is easier than standing still on her legs, and this static line makes her knees quake.

“I’ve had people laugh at me in public since I was a child,” Gurlien replies. “It’s far, far better if you ignore it.”

“Why would they laugh at you?” Ambra raises an eyebrow at him, making sure to do the up and down glance that makes humans uncomfortable. “Aren’t you the most statistically normal type of human?”

He glares down at her over his glasses, then back to the line. “People will be cruel.”

With Johnsin now dead, Ambra knows it the best, so she stands there, almost idle, as Gurlien rattles off an order and gets awarded with a tray full of food.

He nods at her to follow, and thankfully, he leads her past the hordes of teenaged humans, into a table that’s almost tucked away in a corner, out of the oppressive bubble of noise.

She gratefully lowers herself into the hard plastic chair, gritting her teeth.

“They just expected you to move on from all this pain, didn’t they?” he asks, placing an overly large salad bowl in front of her. “Did the stasis chamber take it away?” Precise, he gives her a fork, as if this is some routine of his.

She takes it; it does her no harm to protest that sort of movement. “Nope,” she says, and he scowls at her like it’s her fault. “You heard Johnsin, I’m not a person.”

It comes out surprisingly bitter, so she stares down at the salad instead .

The human body always puts inflection on things she’s not meaning to, and it’s awful.

The salad itself is so covered with other things that the lettuce the body loved so much is barely visible. There are grains, fruit, some sort of meat, a bright vivid raspberry red dressing, and even something she only vaguely recognizes as cheese.

“You’re going to make me eat all of this?” Ambra asks, pointing with her fork.

“Do I need to show you more texts from Axel?” he answers instead, and the interest must’ve shown in her eyes so he shakes his head. “Forget I said that, no.”

She grins at him and he leans back, startled.

“Yeah, still unnerving,” he mutters. “Here, put these on,” he says, pulling out something from one of the bags and sliding it across the table.

It’s a pair of glasses, the round lenses tinted green. Not as fully opaque as the sunglasses she’s seen before, but still colored.

Wrinkling her brow, she slides them on her face, and immediately, the headache building behind her eyes lessen.

She blinks up at him, and with just that small amount of dimming, the lights in the crowded food court are way more tolerable.

He’s studying her, intent.

“Good, they mask the eyes,” he says clinically. “Green cancels out the red.”

She takes them off, and the headache immediately returns, so she crams them back on her face. “These would’ve been great in the stasis chambers.”

This seems to startle him again.

“The lights always hurt,” she supplies. “They never varied and they were always just the same bright white. ”

This seems to stump him again, his jaw tight, before he rubs between his brows and grabs one of the shopping bags instead of sitting. “I’ll be in there, actually putting on something that fits me.”

That’s why he sat them where he did, right next to the bathroom.

It’s only a few feet away, less than the distance of the other room he was in the night before, but he’s already striding away when she’s nodding.

Leaving her immediately with the odd emptiness, the lack that still hadn’t left her from Johnsin’s death.

Which is patently bullshit, it’s good that Johnsin is dead.

But if the lack gets worse each time one of them dies, then…

It’s an odd, shifting fear inside of her, before she squashes it down and pokes at the salad.

Her freedom is far worth whatever loneliness she might feel from the end of the control. Any bonds could be recreated. Theoretically.

Maybe.

Who knows if she even can, if one of the central parts to being a demon had been taken away from her.

They say that’s the only true way to happiness as a demon. That you can find contentment, find peace, but only happiness through a true bond.

The idea that they might’ve warped that in her, might’ve taken that away too, burns in her stomach.

With probably more viciousness than needed, she stabs the fork into the salad and shoves some into her mouth.

It’s…fine. Not anything that inspires her, not anything that disgusts her, but after the line and everything, it’s a letdown .

And the body had liked these to the point of seeking them out whenever possible.

A few people stride by, drifting to a nearby table, and Ambra watches them from behind the glasses, but they pay her no attention.

“Is the food at least good?” Gurlien says, interrupting her thoughts, and she swings her attention back up to him.

He’s changed into the outfit he got at the suit store, with a crisp sky-blue button up and perfectly creased black slacks, and he’s obviously re-combed his hair. He sits down across from her with something close to relief in his eyes. He looks good, at ease, like this is finally him fitting back into himself.

“You consider that more comfortable?” Ambra asks, remembering the stiffness of the fabric, but still, some part of her unwinds at having him in her view once more.

“I don’t like being sloppy,” he informs her, almost clinically. “I don’t care about other people’s clothing, but I can’t stand it.”

She doesn’t know why he divulges that, but she shrugs all the same as he opens his takeout container.

“So I’ve been in clothes that don’t fit and clothes that I bled and battled in the last three days, and I hated it.”

Ambra nods, because that seems appropriate. “I can get more money if you want more,” she offers.

“That’s…that’s not the point,” he sighs, before starting to dig into the food in front of him, which appears way more fried than her salad, and she can see the cogs in his mind work, drawing conclusions, working towards something. “Like how the bright lights bother you, looking sloppy bothers me.”

“Makes sense,” she murmurs .

As he eats, he pulls the notebook out of the backpack, flipping it open, and that derails all of her attention.

“So,” he starts, as if they aren’t in the middle of a mall. As if they are somewhere secure. “Nalissa and Boltiex.”

Once more, the panic rises in her, but she breathes out hard through her nose.

“Unless one tries to grab me,” she starts, and her voice wavers, and he examines her as she has to get it under control. “Nalissa will be far easier to…”

“Yes,” Gurlien agrees, and the light blue of the shirt and the cleanness of the lines elevates the expression, making him almost unattainably scholarly. “I want to put out feelers, see how the College is approaching Johnsin’s…demise. See if there’s any theories, anything we can mislead them with.”

The fact that they’re talking about this over food, in a public place, makes her skin crawl.

But data is data and information is power, so she nods. “Can you do that safely? Without leading back to me?”

“I’ve been officially on the run with a known fugitive for roughly a year and they didn’t catch me,” Gurlien replies, which is a far more intriguing conversation than the one about Ambra’s list. “And I’ve been keeping up on the gossip and the general moving for the entire time.”

So she picked well when she impulse kidnapped him.

Ignoring the salad, she props her chin in her hands, staring hard at him from behind the tinted glasses.

He sits back at the direct attention, brows raised from behind his own glasses.

“So you’re good at gathering information,” she starts, then grins at him in the way that unnerves most humans. “Whyever would they kick you out? ”

Wrong thing to say, as his mouth thins and he falls silent, picking back over his own food.

“I don’t consider it a bad thing,” she ventures, eating another bite of salad, as if that would appease him. “The entire structure could collapse and I’d be happy for it.”

“We’re agreed with that,” he mutters, and the crispness of his clothing directly counteracts with the casualness of his meal, fried foods in styrofoam containers, which he picks at with about as much appetite as she has. “Axel says…” he trails off, frowning at the food, before eating one of the fries.

She waits, raising an eyebrow at him when he doesn’t continue. “He’s going to help?”

There’s still bitterness in her voice.

“Axel says we’re going to have some culture differences,” he says, almost bracing himself, as if it's anything but an indisputably correct sentence. “Until this is done, you’re going to have to trust me.”

“Obviously,” Ambra says, getting a bite of a veggie, and has to pause in the sharpness of the taste, at the almost burn in the tip of her tongue, before her brain has a chance to interpret the sensation as something akin to pleasure. “Oh,” she mumbles, picking through the salad to find a similar item. “I like this one.”

Gurlien cranes his neck to glance at it. “You mean the raw jalape?os?” His voice is skeptical, before he shrugs, pulling out his phone, and it's her turn to look over to him.

GURLIEN (1:41 PM): Does your connection like spicy food?

Three dots appear, then disappear, then appear again.

AXEL D (1:42 PM): T does sometimes, M likes the flavor but dislikes the burn.

“So I can get more of this type of food?” Ambra asks, and she gets the barest hint of Gurlien’s lips curving into a smile. “Ask him where.”

“I know how to buy spicy food, don’t worry,” he says, and his eyes crease nicely behind his glasses when he smiles like that. “Chloe’ll want to introduce you to Thai food.”

GURLIEN (1:44 PM): Well, she just ate a raw jalape?o and liked it enough to search for more.

AXEL D (1:45 PM): lol.

“That means he’s laughing,” Gurlien translates, almost unconsciously, before placing the phone on the table, face side up. “But yes. You need to trust me.”

It’s so close to a rehash of an old conversation that she briefly wonders what’s different, but she takes another bite of the salad again, now actually enjoying it.

“That’s what this all is, right?” she asks, after a few moments of silence. “This shopping, this food, it’s for me to trust you.” He hesitates in his reaction, so she sighs. “You had a chance to turn me over to Johnsin and probably go free. You had the opportunity to turn me over to Axel and his group of ‘experts.’ It’s officially in your best interest at this moment to go along with my plan. I trust that.”

“Alright,” Gurlien replies, almost unsteadily. “So I need the trust for the small things, too.”

She still doesn’t know where he’s going with it. “What do you need?” She gestures towards the food court in its expanse, at the mall at large. “I can get more money, get whatever you need. Whatever you want. If it keeps you on my side, you got it.” They stare at each other, before she distracts herself with another bite. “If it’s trust, then sure. I can try.”

“Demons don’t interact with each other a lot, do they?” he asks, voice almost a bit wobbly.

“I try not to,” Ambra replies. “I know some tie themselves into society, get involved with humans and magicians, in wars and governments.” It’s strange enough to talk this much. “I’ve just always kept a few friends, found libraries, and let others do what they want.”

There’s a flash of interest in his eyes. “When you’re less in fight or flight, I want to have a long discussion about culture.”

“Sure,” she replies, as again, it’s the easiest thing he could ask for. If he wants to talk, she could do that.

“Okay,” he says, bracing himself. “We’re going to buy a few more things, then I’m going to get information for you.”

She takes another bite, unable to find another jalape?o, but the rest of the salad is enriched by the fact they existed at all.

“After we do distance practicing,” she warns, his words catching up with her. “You’re not going away until after that.”

His face pinched, he nods.

The rest of the meal is a somber affair, and Ambra’s about to jump out of her skin by the time he drags her into a small electronics store.

This time, however, he brings her up to the counter with him.

It’s darker in there, somehow more grimy, and the human leaning against the counter is only wearing a beat up polo shirt and jeans, and looks like he hasn’t shaved in a few days.

His eyes glance off Gurlien, focusing on Ambra instead. “And how can I help you? ”

He doesn’t sound like he wants to help her, and Ambra bristles.

“We want to buy a pay as you go phone with three months unlimited data, two SIM cards, and we’re paying cash,” Gurlien says, quick, and the man’s brows flash up at the request. “And a case, something drop proof.”

The man swings his gaze over to Gurlien, still wearing the perfectly crisp button up and pressed pants and a backpack, then back to Ambra, who’s still not sure if her hair is brushed and is wearing the tinted glasses indoors.

So she grins at him, baring her teeth.

“Cash price is extra,” the man says, and Gurlien scoffs. “Keeping the number unlisted is even more.”

“Yes, unlisted,” Gurlien says, disgruntled. “And noise canceling headphones.”

The man mouths ‘what the fuck’ before disappearing into the back, and Ambra leans against the counter to hide her legs shaking.

“I could just go back there and get it,” she offers, knowing well enough to keep her voice hushed.

“And then it wouldn’t work, so don’t,” Gurlien whispers back, straightening the cuffs on the light blue shirt. “Trust me on the little things.”

The glance he gives her is significant, though her eyes are drawn to the idle motions of his hands on the sleeves, and she lets her eyes rest there until the grimy man comes back from the back, carrying a variety of small boxes.

The man says nothing as he opens the boxes, plugging a sleek phone into his computer, and Gurlien scowls at him as he does so, until he slides it across the counter to Gurlien. “Two thousand dollars.”

“Excuse me?” Gurlien asks, and Ambra bares her teeth at the man, who has the grace to step back at her expression .

“That’s the cost for an unlisted number and the phone.”

“This is a few years old,” Gurlien protests, as if that matters. “For that cost…” He falls silent, crossing his arms and drawing Ambra’s attention to that motion. “Do you have musician’s ear-pro? Throw some of that in.”

The man disappears into the back again, then comes back with a small plastic container and drops it on the pile of boxes.

“Anything else?” the man asks.

Gurlien counts out the cash from the backpack, and gets an almost disgruntled scoff from the man.

“You could afford it,” the man says.

“It’s the principle of the matter,” Gurlien replies primly, and his clothing is the nicest thing in the entire store, but he adds the boxes to the bag and nods, almost formal, at Ambra. “You want to go home?”

Home is complicated, but she nods, following him back out through the mall, past the loud people and the jangling music that sets her teeth on edge. It’s not fair, how easily he moves through the crowd, how everyone’s eyes slip away from him and onto Ambra. How the attention slides onto her, until her skin crawls, and almost nobody pays attention to the man she’s trailing behind.

“You’ve got to tell me how you do that,” Ambra bursts out, the moment they’re outside into the dry warmth that reeks of pavement.

“Do what?” he asks, nodding her to follow back behind the building, towards the uncrowded spot she teleported them into.

She rolls her eyes instead of answering him, and as soon as they’re out of any sight lines she grabs his wrist, teleporting back to the motorhome.

Or, rather, where it should be.