Page 29 of The Girl Who Only Died Once

“And something useful?”

“Will he be able to see it?” Chloe asks, just as quick.

“No, he should see just you,” the Wight shoots back, and that’s new information. “Near as I can tell, it’s more of a tunneling appearance, the demon can’t tell anything about what’s around you or who’s near you.”

“That’s a risk,” Chloe says, and her mouth is dry with the implications of a Wight tracking spell. That all of a sudden, they get a glimpse of someone tracking them down, no context, nothing.

“Well,” the Wight says, threading the magic between Chloe’s fingers, concentrating, “he already knows where you are, he dropped you just half a mile away.”

He knows her name, her research, and exactly how much power to channel into her to knock her out cold.

“Here,” Chloe says, pulling out the compass from her pocket, cradling it in her non-bloody hand. “Don’t damage this.”

The Wight just wrinkles her nose at the item, just swipes it with the bloody stick, then leaves it the fuck alone, thank god.

Against Chloe’s palm, the magic warms, then sparks, nestling in the thin skin at her wrist, and she sits back, triumph in her smile.

“I take it that means it's working?” Chloe asks, lifting her hand, and another few sparks swirl against her, and she shivers, vicious.

The older Wight just nods absentmindedly, watching the magic instead of her. From the other room, Stella pokes her head out of the room, watching just as avidly.

“Huh,” Chloe says, and the sparks are something akin to the pinpricks one gets when their leg falls asleep, or one hits their elbow a bit too hard. They burrow into her skin, briefly visible against the translucency around her veins, before disappearinginto her muscles, the tendons, the small bones of her wrist. “Is it supposed to be visible?”

Another flicker of her eyes, like Chloe said something truly unremarkable, before returning the attention back to the magic. “Not to you.”

“Well, that’s interesting,” Chloe says, and she’s not sure if it’s the raising from the dead or the close contact from the demon or what. “Ever run this on a human?”

“No,” the Wight says, a rough undertone to her voice, before, “and…there.”

For a moment, nothing happens, and Chloe’s heart sinks. “I don’t…”

Until her breath sticks in her throat, and the entire world blooms with gold, then with black, the stone room and the clean floors falling away.

Sure, she’s still sitting cross-legged on the rickety couch in just her bra and her Carhartts, but besides the pressure of gravity on her leg, it disappears.

Chloe clenches her hands into the fabric of the couch, but the world tunnels away, wind whipping through her hair, tearing bits of the black strands out of the bun she tied it in too long ago. Her cheeks sting, like the wind is something physical, before it snaps into place.

And in front of her, close enough that she could reach out and tangle her hands in his shirt, is the demon.

He’s standing, arms crossed, leaning against a wall and conversing with someone. She can’t hear his words, can’t hear his voice, but his mouth moves and his jaw works, like he’s stressed.

Her backpack leans against his legs, like he propped it there for the conversation.

Chloe’s blood runs cold, and she twists her fingers to stop herself from reaching out and grabbing the backpack, and themovement catches his eyes, jerking his gaze away from the conversation until he stares right at her.

For a split second or an eternity, their eyes meet, before he grabs the backpack, teleporting to a different location.

But still, she can still see him, somehow locked on him instead of being left behind.

“Why are you here?” he whispers, and she still can’t see the area behind him, just knows that it’s different.

“You have my things,” Chloe says numbly, and his eyes widen. “I need them back.”

“You should be unconscious,” he says, voice sharp, and all of the sudden she gets an overwhelming power, an overwhelming sense of being, under which she has no prayer of overcoming. “You should be unconscious for the next few days.”

His eyes scan her, meticulous, looking at the black blood lining her hand and where her fingers grab at the couch before his mouth twists with some frustration.

“That sort of scanning spell is dangerous work, little alchemist,” he says, voice low. “Be careful of who you’re associating with on this search.”

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