Page 158 of The Girl Who Only Died Once

The first floor of the base is completely denuded of all traps, shreds of magic flung everywhere, concrete floor blackened from fire.

Chloe creeps forward, as Killian lifts his shield higher above her, as if to protect from things falling as well.

If she didn’t know any better, all she’d see is a barren, blackened room. No furniture, no finishings, nothing.

Nothing but a slash of a warning spell, hastily spilled across the only seam in the foundation.

It’s even more obvious of a trap door than the one that started all of this, the one Chloe descended to first find Killian.

With a glance at each other, Killian wraps her tight in his power, almost forcing the air out of her lungs, and her fingertips glitter with the shield around them as she kneels down next to the trap door.

The warning spell wouldn’t have stopped her when she was 13, much less now, and she lifts it up in less than 10 seconds.

The man—she assumes, at this point—mostly wanted to know if an unwitting college employee was wandering in after him, not to give an iron clad security system.

The lack of care is almost worse.

It takes Killian’s sheer power to lift the concrete block over the trap door, the mechanism for raising it clearly sheared by an explosion. Which means that the man—most likely—had full confidence that there was either another way out or that he would have enough firepower to blast his way back up.

It leads to a set of clean stairs, cut narrow, and Killian glances over to Chloe.

“This will be dangerous,” he warns.

And Chloe knows this. Knows this in the ache in her ribs and the still lingering headache and the way her fingertips tingle after the barest mention of breaking a spell. Knows this in how she had been kept for too long by the college, knows this in the fear in Ambra’s eyes whenever something happens and the stress in Gurlien’s jaw. Knows this in the scorch marks on the concrete and the memory of the faded quilt on the bed she first met the spirit fox.

“Hell yeah,” Chloe responds.

And this time, he smiles at her. Gives her a full-on grin, showing his teeth. “After you.”

The ladder gives her zero issues, and there’s an already broken demon ward on the third rung, ripped to shreds with a slash of bright red blood, barely visible in the darkness.

Before Chloe can fully comprehend what that means, her boots hit the packed dirt of the floor, and her ears pop with the familiar warmth of stabilization spells.

Killian scrambles after her, deliberately not stepping on the broken demon ward, and he lands next to her with nary a change in air pressure.

With a twist of his hand, the light bulbs crackle to life, flickering on one by one, illuminating the hallway in front of them.

Fire runes, written in the same bright red blood, line the crease between the ceiling and the wall, glistening in the yellow light. Fresh.

Someone opened up their veins and wrote them, and wrote them recently.

They’re the same fire runes they found in the single room hiding spot with the skeleton.

“Sloppy,” Killian murmurs, his chin lifting to read them.

Sloppy they may be, they’d still absolutely wreck Chloe if they went off, and she’s absolutely not tall enough to break them. With enough time she could magic up a step stool, painstakingly dismantle them, but instead she just exhales.

“Shield me?” Chloe asks, and he nods, resting a hand on the back of her neck before a slippery power slides over her, coating her in black warping power.

She’s seen Ambra rest her hand on Gurlien’s neck in moments they thought private, in some motion between affectionate and possessive. She’s seen Melekai do the same with Lyra, always with a massage or easing of muscles.

And here he’s doing it, making something safe for her.

The wards shine in the light, waiting to go off, waiting to incinerate anything in their way.

So with one last glance to Killian, to the set of his shoulders, Chloe strode forward.

Immediately, fire sprung up around her, blistering heat for a split second, before the shield shifts, the temperature abruptly disappearing, though the flames licked at her boots, blackening the packed dirt.

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