Page 127 of The Girl Who Only Died Once

Underneath the blast marks and soot, there’s the faintest hint of paint markers, spells upon spells hastily scrawled on the wood and rock. Amateur wards, barely legible, high above where someone could normally write comfortably.

Definitely the same hand that wrote the flimsy demon ward on the outside.

And they’re all useless, all completely blown apart by whatever charred the walls and melted the plastic of the cage.

“The fire must’ve burned for only a few seconds,” Killian muses, completely unaffected by the blackened skeleton. “Everything burnt, nothing burned up.”

There’s no clothing on the skeleton, no hint of flesh, but the cage is still recognizable in its melts shape.

Chloe swallows. “If this is after the Minnesota base…this is less than a year old.” There’s no moss or mold on the skeleton, and Chloe’s lived enough in humid locals and seen enough random bones to know it grows fast.

“Few weeks,” Killian says, scuffing the toe of his boot against the soot on the floor. “Maybe.”

That’s…astoundingly close in terms of time, so Chloe digs up her phone and, before she can feel bad, snaps a picture of the skeleton.

“I know two Necromancers,” she informs him as he raises an eyebrow, sending the picture immediately. “Barring one of them actively being here, they might be able to tell us more.”

She’d have her money on Lyra before Delina, with a lifetime of experience with the grossness of death and more than a year of active, steady training, but Delina’s a fast learner.

“Not a bad idea,” he says, almost begrudging, before he twists his power around himself, taking a step into the room.

The same sort of spark that still buzzes around Chloe’s hand shifts at his feet, but beyond a quick glance he pays them no attention.

He tilts his head up to the remaining wards, his chin lifted, and his eyes gleam in the dim light. “The person knew she was in a trap.”

A broken pair of handcuffs sit slagged against the wall.

The ground looks safe for Chloe to step on, but she stills her feet at the entrance.

“She couldn’t get out, she was trying to protect herself,” he says, gesturing to the metal door Chloe stands at.

Scratches in the metal, deep and shiny, adorn the area where a doorknob would be.

“Knew that something in here would explode, that one—” he points up at a rune, barely legible “—is to quell fire. That one is to fireproof skin. That one is to disarm a trap.”

“The reason there is no trap is because it’s already been set off,” Chloe finishes, and if she imagines hard enough, she can see the terror in the curve of the neck, protecting the skull. “Can I step in?”

He waves her in, nonchalant, and she swallows before all but stumbling to the small plastic carrier.

“Some trap, some big sudden propulsion of energy in a small space, with someone in it with enough time to attempt to prepare,” Killian says, before turning towards her, his eyes reflecting the light back at her. “This was a murder.”

“Oh, I hate fire spells,” Chloe murmurs, the terror still echoing inside her.

“Gonna burn off your eyebrows?” Killian asks, and she shoots him a glance and he gives her a cheeky grin.

It doesn’t quite break the tension, but Chloe rolls her eyes before carefully unrolling her scrolls before the cage.

So far, her scrolls have gotten readings off of things rusted, off of well sterilized metal, but never something cleansed with fire.

The ash of the floor flutters around them, as she prods at the melted plastic and imagines the warmth that has long since dissipated.

“The fox wasn’t there,” Killian says, almost gently, from behind her, and shuffles around the small room, peering up at the walls. “That explosion would’ve been felt on the Richter scale.”

“Okay,” Chloe replies unsteadily. “Thanks.”

She smoothes the scroll the best she can over the plastic, with all its lumps and jagged edges, and the sands of magic attempt to vibrate, getting caught in the creases. But the ground is dirtyin ash, magic sparkling around their feet, and the cage itself has fused to the concrete.

Without a word, Killian crouches next to her, sweeping his hand over the ash, not making contact, but shoving it all aside with a small flick of power before sitting on his haunches and watching her.

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