Page 28 of The Girl Who Only Died Once

Chloe has, but not in this context.

“Or if another demon, full powered, finds Terese? They hollowed that girl out.” The Wight leans forward. “She’s a walking time bomb of discovery, a demon will find her and carve its way into her mind and then they will know of your attempts.”

“Hey,” Chloe replies. “She already rebuffed one. Maybe two?”

“Past success does not guarantee future.” The Wight sits back, regarding her like Chloe’s a bug under a microscope, and Chloe bristles underneath it, at the long silence, sitting on the rickety couch in a crevice of stone. “There’s still demon blood on you.”

“I didn't have time for a shower,” Chloe mutters.

“Do you have something on you that could be useful for his attempt to find the spirit fox?” the Wight asks, sharp. “I know he grabbed you to teleport.” The Wight taps against Chloe’s shoulder, then her hip.

Chloe swallows, her brain skipping to keep up. “Why?”

She doesn’t like the idea that the demon touched her hip. Makes sense, if he teleported her and put her in bed, but…

The Wight smiles, showing her teeth in a decidedly unfriendly expression. “We can track him.”

8

Setting up for the Wight’s tracking spell takes surprisingly little time, considering that Wights have a reputation for being fussy and precise about all their casting and spend more time planning than actually using their magic.

Chloe worries at her nail, watching as the Wight spreads out wild magic like it’s a piece of paper, glimmering in the light of the sconce, twisting it and folding it in on itself, using a polished wooden stick barely bigger than a toothpick to manipulate it.

It’s kinda neat to see it so easily.

After only a little bit of time, the Wight gestures for Chloe on the couch. “Take off the undershirt.”

Chloe clutches at the flannel, before relenting, stripping it off and then pulling off the undershirt, leaving herself in just her bra.

It’s warm in the little cave, at least, but still, she shivers.

The blood on the undershirt well and truly dried, flaking off in giant chunks, but the Wight meticulously scrapes it into a small bit of water, reconstituting it into a gloppy paste.

“Do you know why they bleed black?” Chloe asks, having asked Ambra once and gotten nothing but a rolling of the eyes.

The older Wight’s eyes flicker up, before she draws the polished wooden stick through the blood, twisting it onto the golden magic spread out. “Something to do with oxygen content, I suppose.” It’s a surprisingly science-y explanation for a creature of the land.

“Then why does it happen immediately?” Chloe asks, leaning forward watching as the paper of magic turns muddled with the blood. “As soon as the moment of possession happens, bam, black blood.”

“Then you officially know more about demons that I do,” the Wight murmurs, and it’s a weird thought, that Chloe’s knowledge would rival someone who’s way closer to them than she.

“Ambra’s fun with a few glasses of wine in her,” Chloe says, and the Wight flinches, eyes narrowing. “She’s willing to say all sorts of things.”

She sets aside the now bloody paper of magic, then reaches a hand out to Chloe. “Shoulder?”

Chloe stares at her.

“Which grip point—I assume you don’t want me to use your hip?” the Wight says.

If Chloe thinks too hard, she can still feel the ghost sensation of him gently picking up her hand, at odds with the massive amounts of power seething beneath his skin.

So she holds out her hand, impatient.

“Really?” the Wight says, finally showing a bit of personality besides being strict. “He held your hand?”

“More like grabbed it so I’d stop touching maps,” Chloe shoots back.

The Wight rolls her eyes this time, then gingerly props up Chloe’s hand, folding the strip of magic around her palm, sticky with the blood. It’s viciously gross, clammy and cold, but Chloe represses a shudder.

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