Page 125 of The Girl Who Only Died Once

But it doesn’t extend through the entire door.

It doesn’t extend through the entire locking mechanism, stopping only a few inches around the keyhole itself.

Which is just enough to be a little complicated. The pins are out of reach, but some of the springs and turners aren’t. Enough that most—most—people would find it completely impossible to hack with spell weaving or alchemy.

It’s better protection than she usually finds.

She bites her lip, puzzling at the door, and Killian makes a small noise in the back of his throat, something between curiosity and impatience.

“So this one I’m gonna use magic,” she warns him, tilting her head up at him, and he shifts closer to him, so the fabric of his pants brushes against her shoulder. “They fell prey to the classic trap.”

He quirks an eyebrow down at her.

“They protected the keyhole but not, you know, the rest of the door,” Chloe tells him, and his face splits into a smile, immediately raising a blush to her face. “They expected someone to come here and believe they had a key.”

“What, are you going to transform it into clay again?” he asks, and it’s almost teasing. “Turn it into silly putty?”

“I mean, I could,” Chloe says, poking at the seam where the metal door meets the wall, where it sockets into the frame. There’s no protections there, no alarms, no traps, just cool steel of someone who obviously never thought outside the box.

Until her finger grazes the edge of the frame, and a small static shock snaps out.

Chloe jerks back, immediately shaking her hand out, sparks flickering over her fingertip.

They don’t disappear.

Chloe stills, then, staring down at her hand, at the small spark nestling in the callus of the pad of her finger, sparkling around like it’s a part of her.

It doesn’t hurt, not exactly, but Killian grabs her wrist, peering down at it, faster than she saw him move.

“I’m okay,” she says quickly, but he doesn’t look up at her.

“You shouldn’t be able to see that,” he mutters, disgruntled, before he carefully, ever so carefully, rests a finger on top of the spark.

It doesn’t react to him at all, just continues to flutter around Chloe’s skin.

“Tracker or side effect?” Chloe breathes, and it’s something between static electricity and when her hand would fall asleep.

He’s silent, before his hand gentles, and he rests his fingertips against her wrist, like he’s checking her heart rate.

“Wait,” Killian says, placing his own hand against the door frame.

It sparks around him, but he teases out something glimmering.

“Let me guess, same one,” Chloe says, half exasperated. “Same guy, same magical trace.”

“Not entirely convinced they’re male, but yes,” Killian grumbles. “Sealed the door behind them, left this to track down who opens it next.”

“Great, someone’s gonna track me,” Chloe says, shaking out her hand.

The sparks stay there, clinging to her skin like static.

She can almost tell that Killian narrows his eyes before she looks back up to him.

“I’ll protect you,” he says, disgruntled.

Chloe considers retorting about not needing protection, but she’s non-combat for a reason.

“I’m sure it’ll be no problem for you, too,” Chloe says, and he gives her a smirk.

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