Page 152 of The Girl Who Only Died Once

It takesSeanna less than ten minutes to finish packing for a week trip, and she never loses the sad wobbly expression, and Chloe never loses the headache.

Killian watches them both from the doorway of the room, his arms crossed and the groove in his forehead prominent.

And Chloe wants to ask so many questions. Wants to know every little detail, wants to know all of the intricacies and thehows and the whys that they had an actual healer on their hands, but…

“If that man finds out,” she starts, and Killian doesn’t even have to look at her to nod. “That’d be a disaster.”

Someone so insistent on gaining power gaining access to a healer…

She shudders.

“Exactly,” Killian murmurs, quiet enough to be unheard by the pre-teen throwing things into a suitcase. “And every time she heals it throws up a beacon to every magical creature, every being who sees through something besides visual light, knows where she is.”

It’s similar to how Ambra described seeing Necromancers.

And if the man knew exactly where the spirit fox is, knew exactly where that sort of power is based, could…

Chloe squeezes her eyes against the thudding of her own veins.

“I can hear too much,” she says.

“It’ll balance out,” Killian says, and there’s still a hitch in his breathing, something still left over from the attack, from turning his own power in on himself. “Chloe…”

“I’m not telling a soul,” Chloe promises, and he watches her, his eyes flickering over her face like he wants to read her very sense of self. “Nobody will know from me.”

There’s a beat, a moment where all the little noises of the house creep up, the electricity through the walls and the rustle of the air pushing through the heater, before Killian nods.

37

Killian teleports them shockingly close to the Frisse base, only a few hundred yards away from the large tree, and Chloe’s once more shockingly homesick.

True to his word, underneath the large tree, the giant looming spruce with dead blackberry brambles and needles so dark they’re almost black against the grey sky, Gurlien stands in his giant woolen coat, Ambra shuffling next to him.

Seanna tugs herself back at the sight of them, half hiding behind Killian, but he strides forward with a confidence that’s only belied by the stress across his shoulders.

He’s also scared of leaving Seanna with them.

Ambra glowers at him, but Killian ignores that. “You can keep her safe?” he asks, the moment they’re in speaking distance.

Even his voice is wrecked, and Ambra raises her eyebrows at him.

“You’re injured,” she accuses him, and it’s nothing new to Chloe. “What the hell did you do?”

“Got Chloe and I out alive,” he replies tersely.

“Barely, it looks like,” Ambra challenges, and Chloe’s eyes drift over to Gurlien.

Who’s scowling, the expression on his face lost, too lost, the same sense of drifting as it was when Chloe first found him, still recovering from the college and the blast from the ley line.

And her heart turns over once again, cause this time the loss in her brother is from her.

Killian and Ambra shoot barbed words back to each other, but it fades in a background of posturing and negotiating. Cause this hurt and confusion, it’s from Chloe.

“Oh my god,” Chloe mumbles, her words still too loud to her ears, but Killian and Ambra don’t stop. Gurlien looks at her, his brows furrowed. “Okay, no, Gurlien…”

And despite that everything’s still too loud, everything’s still achy, Chloe all but stumbles over to Gurlien, grabbing him and pulling him into a hug.

Both demons fall silent at her actions, and Seanna cringes away more, but Gurlien freezes, before slowly bringing his arms up to hug her back.

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