Page 104 of The Girl Who Only Died Once

Figures.

“Then what I need you to do is make sure I don’t fall.”

“Don’t fall,” he repeats flatly.

“I can get us up the rest of the way, just make sure I don’t fall.”

After a beat, he nods curtly, then grabs her tight around her waist, a hand pressing in the small of her back, prompting her to choke back a squeak as they’re suddenly really, really close.

“I won’t drop you,” he says smugly, and the butt of her gun must be poking him in the side, before he teleports them to the barely-there metal ledge.

Immediately, Chloe almost flails, instead pressing her hand into the metal sheet, warping it outward into hand grips she can cling to, and Killian presses her back firmly closer to the wall.

The metal creaks underneath their sudden weight.

He’s not having any balance issues, of course, standing lightly on his tiptoes on the metal beam.

“Show off,” Chloe mutters, then drops her mind into her feet, stretching the ledge longer, until she can comfortably set her heels down, no longer teetering on the edge.

“Who’s showing off now?” he taunts back, still holding her in place.

“Some of us would die if they fell,” she replies, though her heart pounds as she cranes her neck upwards.

Three meters. A little less than ten feet. A sheet of metal, steel girders, and an odd pipe leading through the shaft.

And Killian’s hand is still at the small of her back.

“How tall is that body?” Chloe murmurs, because she’s a horrible judge of that, being all of five foot two. “Will following my handholds be a detriment.”

Still on the small ledge, he rolls his shoulders back, almost distractedly evaluating. “We can see,” he says neutrally, blinking upwards. “They’re reinforcing their demon wards, they don’t want someone getting up there.”

“Or someone escaping,” Chloe murmurs, and she’s watching his face just close enough to see the fast spasm of fear cross his eyes before he controls it.

But she’s not going to bring that up.

Taking a deep breath, she reaches up, palming the metal, twisting the interior structure of it to mold to her hand, crafting a divot and hauling herself up.

Similarly, she digs the toe of her boot into the side, quickly using alchemy to make the metal shift and protrude into a stable foothold.

And then, not daring to look down, she heaves herself up. Then again, her fingertips dripping with sweat, both at the effort of holding herself up and the real time effort of creation.

The metal warps, wobbling underneath her, as Killian begins his climb after her.

In the locking pits, the wall was made of wood, with wooden scaffolding and framing, and she barely had to do any work besides support her own body through the frames. It basically created its own ladder, for anyone as naturally able to fit there.

Her grip slips, and she instinctively pulls the metal further out, scrabbling to keep herself stable.

And, sudden as a gale in the storm, Killian’s power surges around her, forcing her against the wall, as solid as his hand had just been.

Chloe swallows, her breath caught in her throat.

“I said I wasn’t going to let you fall,” Killian says, disgruntled below her, and when she glances down, he’s also using his power, warping and red, to hold himself up, pressed against themetal wall. “You create the footholds, I’ll stop you from slipping. Trust me.”

Trust him.

Chloe nods, and though her heart pounds, before she hauls herself up, her arms shaking with the effort, until she can pull herself up onto the thin ledge of the next floor.

Even from the hollow of the metal wall, the tang of the demon ward fouls her mouth, but she can’t quite reach it.

---