Page 90 of The Girl Who Only Died Once

“Sure,” he says, shrugging and casually removing his hand from the back of her neck, leaving her suddenly colder. “I never proclaimed myself to be brave.”

Chloe blinks at that, because nobody without bravery would be attempting what they’re doing, but she turns back to the maps, her mind racing.

“Chances they tracked Alette to us?” she murmurs, desperately trying to focus, but her skin prickles.

“Medium,” he replies, voice matching hers. “She’s a known player but they can’t officially tie anything back to her after the spellweaver who lost his powers. Your Gurlien.”

The fact that he knows them, somehow, and she doesn’t know how, buzzes at the back of her head, but she blinks through it, staring at the onion paper in front of her.

Ambra had written some approximations of descriptions of the wards, of the impressions she got when passing through. Of feeling doused with water, unable to breathe, everything pressing against her skin.

Maison wrote less, just terse words with definitions. Focusing. Shattering. De-powering. The sort of definitions that came from their studies, not from experiences.

Behind her, Killian drapes himself across the back of her chair, leaning against her shoulders and peering at the outlines, a smug sort of confidence in the set of his jaw.

He definitely knows more than she does.

It takesher an additional hour with a looming demon at her back and more floors than she thought, but she eventually puzzles out the fastest way in and then the best way in.

“Do you want easiest, fastest, closest to target, or least risk?” she asks, and it’s been a bit since she talked and her voice croaks.

“You’ll need food first,” he replies idly.

“That’s not the point,” she says, then sighs, stretching her shoulders. “There are the closest to the diagnostic tables, there’s the way with the least amount of traps and protections, there’s the long way that’ll take us a hell of a lot longer but the least risk, and then there’s just the…” She gestures at him. “Then I take down one ward and we blast our way in.”

He grins at her, still smug, and it drives her nuts.

“I think blasting will happen one way or another,” he replies, drifting over to the bed where her research lays, digging through her backpack.

She straightens. “Hey.”

But he’s unrolling her tracking scroll, the one they had back in the house with the child, spreading it across the cameo comforter, before digging into his pocket, pulling out a simple coin.

She squints at it, and he tosses it to her.

“It’s not your compass,” he says, still way more casual than he has been throughout the entire thing. “But tie it to your research. Make it roll towards the clue if dropped.”

It’s a perfectly featureless coin, like someone had rubbed off the relief of a golden dollar, smoothed it down.

Her neck prickles again.

“It’ll only tie to what you currently know, yes?” he asks, and she nods. “Then that way, if you’re stuck somewhere, I can use that.”

“Oh, you are not leaving me behind,” Chloe protests, and he has the temerity to roll his eyes. “Absolutely not.”

“I can’t even get in there without you,” he reminds her. “And further study would be useless without you. Don’t be sensitive.”

He’s the one who’s been acting odd.

“If we get separated, that way I can still succeed on this part,” he says.

“You swore to Alette, doesn’t that mean some things to demons?” she asks, and everything in her is screaming that this is different, that this is a trap she’s walking into.

“Of course,” he says idly, “then tie it to you.”

“What?”

“Tie it to you. That way, we get separated, I have to get you first.” He gives her a smug smile, like she fell directly into his machinations. “It’ll be inconvenient, it may cost me time, but that’ll work.”

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