Page 51 of The Girl Who Only Died Once

He seems to weigh her statement. “And you shot me. I think we’re even.”

“You stole—” she cuts herself off, rubbing her face. “That wasn’t my home.”

“It is in your mind,” he says. “At least, no other place was pulling your desire like that.”

“I hadn’t been there in a few months,” she repeats.

“And yet, you certainly don’t feel like your current residence is a home, no matter how you protest,” he says, still idly, like this conversation is downright simple for him. “Guess you haven’t figured that out yet.”

She hasn’t, but she just glares at him, before returning to the maps.

“Scan?” Chloe says, instead of continuing on the frankly interesting conversation around demon protectiveness and their technological disadvantages of it in the modern age. “If we wantto head out tomorrow, then we should at least attempt to find a trace.”

13

The scan points towards Minnesota, neatly crossing with a minor base, one that specializes in the study of magical anomalies.

Chloe ties her compass back to it, and he watches her, unabashedly interested, and it’s a bit more scrutiny than she’s used to.

Gurlien usually understood what she was doing and generally left her to her own devices. There had been the brief period with Delina, where Delina had been attempting to learn a bunch of different aspects of magic, but even then, Maison had done the lion share of her training. Delina had definitely not been the sort of learner who was solely educated by example, so Chloe had done little practical magic that was observed so closely.

And before that…she had usually been alone.

“Yes?” she asks brightly, when his gaze lingers on the needle of the compass, like he can read from it.

All at once, his face spasms as he glances at the map, panic overtaking his expression, and he gulps in a breath of air.

She swivels in her chair, raising an eyebrow at him.

All he does is blink, staring blankly at the paper, watching the grains of sand settle into place, all gathering in the same small divot of the scroll. “You know the place?” Chloe asks, and the skin on his knuckles is white where he grips his arm, as if hugging himself will help.

He hesitates, his jaw working, before he visibly shakes himself. “It’s another human base,” he says, his voice so carefully neutral it practically vibrates on the high wire of tension. “Another place they put into the ground to do their grasps at power, before leaving it behind once it served its use.”

“Poetic, but probably,” Chloe says, and everything in her body tells her to back the fuck off, that going down this line of questioning won’t end well.

He takes another big breath, like it could give him peace, before settling his eyes on the compass itself.

“It’s not a brand of alchemy I’m familiar with,” he says. “Usually, the experimental magicians tend to be spellweavers. More flexibility.”

“Experimental that you know of,” she says, tapping the side of the compass, watching as the needle spins again, focusing back towards Minnesota. “I know a guy who changed his entire appearance through Alchemy many times over.”

He shakes his head, and somehow the demon double face is almost more skeptical than his human face.

“The kid, can she see you easily?” Chloe asks, and he narrows his eyes at her. “I can modify glasses to see demons.”

“She can see me just fine,” he replies, voice once more neutral, like he had to drop back into the tone to protect her. “Always has.”

“Oh, that is rare,” Chloe says brightly, before tapping the compass again, watching it spin back, unerringly accurate. “This is the simplest bit of alchemy, it’s just taking the needle and rewriting the magnetic pole to be the direction you want it.”

He settles back, sitting on the single brown floral couch that adorns the room.

It’s an odd piece of furniture, and it’s even odder with a demon lounging on it. All the furniture looks better suited for a few decades ago, and the demon addition is…

Instead, he just tips his head back, as if the ceiling vexes him, resting his neck against the back of the couch and stretching his legs out long.

Even with Ambra, Chloe rarely sees such a pose of relaxation. Ambra’s usually wound too tight, preferring to curl up and make herself small. She’s never seen Melekai in a position of relaxation, the elusive demon usually ramrod straight in the body, except for small moments of tenderness he shows his girlfriend.

That, more than anything, gives Chloe the feeling that she’s intruding on the space.

---