Page 85 of The Girl Who Only Died Once

Killian doesn’t say anything regarding that, just a one shouldered shrug, and if Chloe couldn’t feel the tension bleeding off of him, she’d call him casual.

And Alette studies him right back, her face a mask, and Chloe knows from the last month or so that she won’t be the one to break.

“So…did you bring the schema?” Chloe asks, after a long moment of them not breaking eye contact.

“Yes,” Alette says precisely.

“Can you give them to me?” Chloe asks, leading her on. “Or did you just come here to stare?”

This gets Alette to smile, as Chloe knew it would be, but it’s a little vicious, aimed at Killian. “Depends,” she replies, “on how your demon friend reacts.”

Killian sighs. “What does the Wight want me to do?”

“Agree to not go after the Necromancer, for one,” Alette replies, prompt, and gets barely a flicker of a reaction from Killian. “Immediately report any disruptions of magic on that coast, no matter how small. Agree to not harm our friends…”

“…the abominations?” Killian says, dry.

Alette visibly pauses, and Chloe gives her a tiny nod.

“Yes, them, any of them,” Alette says, strict, like she never had any questions about it. “And don’t draw the college’s attention to any of our Wights, spirits, or protected magicians.”

Killian shrugs again, one shouldered. “Sure.”

Chloe expected that much, but the expression of surprise across Alette’s face still amuses her.

“I have no desire to get ripped apart by a Necromancer, I’ve seen the aftermath of what just one of yours will do,” Killian says, ticking off his fingers and casually displaying the fact thathe knows there’s now more than one. “Your coast is far more stable than it was after the demon Terese, Zoel should be less up his own ass about it, everyone knows the sheer amount of work you two put into it, nobody in their right mind would try again. We would suffer, too.”

For some reason, it’s a bit viscerally satisfying to see the slow realization cross Alette’s face, that Killian isn’t someone they need to necessarily worry about. That Chloe isn’t a poor judge of character, despite what they may think of her friendship with Gurlien.

“And the abominations would attract too much that I don’t want,” he continues, still idle. “They venture from destructive to insane to pathetic to sad. I don’t want any of that.”

Chloe can see Alette count, come to the same conclusion as she did.

“Yeah, near as I can tell, he knows about at least one more than we do,” Chloe says, and he gives her the barest hint of a smile in return. “He’s encountered at least one personally—”

“—three,” Killian interrupts. “I’ve encountered three.”

“And didn’t get the names of any of them, so I don’t know who they are,” Chloe finishes, then gives him a hard look, and he smirks, face smug. “It’s really inconvenient that demons don’t exchange names.”

“And you won’t give me identifying details,” he challenges right back.

“Zoel says to make you swear,” Alette interrupts, as Killian crosses his arms like he won an argument. “Oh, and to bring Chloe back unharmed once she’s found her friend.”

Killian’s face drops the smile, like it was never there. “I don’t have any interest in harming her,” he says, voice low and dangerous, and all of the hair on the back of Chloe’s neck raises.

“That’s not what I said,” Alette replies sweetly, the same tone of voice she gave Chloe when she originally refused to go afterAmbra and Gurlien, back when they didn’t know it would end so nicely. “We don’t want her hurt, no matter the result of her quest.”

Chloe hated that tone of voice then, too.

“I swear I won’t go after your Necromancers, I won’t cause damage to your coast, and I won’t harm or draw attention to your abominations,” Killian says, and there, there’s the tremor of fear in his voice, the one that had been absent for almost the entire conversation. “And I swear that Chloe won’t come to harm from any of my actions or inactions.”

He sits back, staring hard at Alette.

Alette smiles back, small and competent, like she didn’t just bargain with a creature vastly more powerful than either of them.

“Here,” she says, unfolding a packet of thin papers from her inside pocket. “Frederick and Ambra had both been through there in the last year, and Frederick corroborated with a friend who’s still inside.”

Chloe doesn’t miss that she called Maison by the name the college used for him. Anything to obfuscate.

---