Page 48 of The Girl Who Only Died Once

So whoever it is is a she and also someone he can ban from having coffee, which goes with the bright purple smaller shoes in the hallway.

So, not an adult.

“I’ll take a tea,” Chloe replies impishly, and he twists his face at her in a surprisingly human move.

“You can cook without singing off your eyebrows?” he asks, and she doesn’t have to be fully awake to get the sarcasm. “What about too many molecules.”

“I only burned my eyebrows the once,” Chloe says, scowling down at the teakettle. “And this is ramen. It’s not rocket science.”

Even after living close to Ambra for a few weeks now, it’s startling.

Her butt half asleep from the cold tile, Chloe hops off the counter, thrifting through the cabinets, her curiosity definitely telling her to go down the hall, but her common sense stopping her.

There’s just one mug, brightly colored pink and covered in neon green cats next to a single plate and bowl. So the kid is the only human in this space.

A muted conversation filters to her, muffled through a door down the hall, and she busies herself with making obvious noises in the kitchen, slamming the cupboard doors and clinking the spoon to the counter.

It’s not a great thought, that a demon may be the sole caretaker of a human child, though…

Though the existence of Maison suggests that the child might not be wholly human.

And if she finds another Half Demon, she’s gonna have to tell Maison.

The kettle finally screeching, she fumbles with it to pull it off the stove, filling the cup of noodles and the mug.

AMBRA (3:41 PM): I think we have a relative lock on your location, do you need a rescue?

CHLOE (3:42 PM): No! Tell Gurlien it’s like the time in Bellevue.

AMBRA (3:43 PM): He said “fuck you” and walked off.

Again, fair.

CHLOE (3:45 PM): Any tips on how to get a demon to share secrets?

AMBRA (3:45 PM): Don’t!

CHLOE (3:46 PM): Thanks!

She wanders out of the kitchen, her heart still in her throat, as the noodles sit for the prerequisite few minutes.

There are a dizzying array of wards on the door, and Chloe recoils away from where her hand wants to reach out towards the knob.

More wards than she can ever hope to understand. Protection, containment, ease of existing, all written in a swirling combination that brings her to a giant question mark.

She’ll be a prisoner until she figures those out. There could just as easily be one to kill, to immobilize anyone who touches without permission, and while she can bring them down…she has to identify first.

She swallows, sudden, her heart pounding, forcing her eyes to blink at them. She can’t leave, she can’t pick the lock and disappear forever, she can’t…

She backs up, her hand shaking, and flees back into the kitchen.

After an entirely standardcup of noodles and box of pocky and an unenthusiastic cup of green tea, Chloe unrolls her research onto the spare dinner table tucked in the corner, using the bright purple saltshaker to pin down one side.

The spells and enchantments are still intact, though every single one of them has a thin veneer of demon power painted over, like he tried to brute force them into making sense for him.

It doesn’t affect the underlying spells, but it does bring a smile to her lips. Even someone so strong as a demon couldn’t undo what is hers.

Good.

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