Page 95 of The Girl Who Only Died Once

It also means they would be used to false alarms. Of the alarms going off because of small natural occurrences. The guards would be tired of it, be annoyed to go check it.

Chloe flicks her eyes to Killian, then to the trees, jerking her chin. “Make the trees rustle,” she whispers, barely audible. “Make them think it’s the wind.”

He smiles at her, slow, before his power floods around her, shaking the limbs of the trees, creaking the branches, flicking her hair into her eyes.

The footsteps in the tunnel turn back, echoing away.

“Told you,” the second voice says, smug.

“Don’t be an ass,” the first rebuts. “It was a weird wind.”

And as the footsteps fade, Chloe shuts her eyes, stretching her awareness of the stone further away, racing through impurities and rebar hammered into place and chunks of sandstone left behind from years of sediment, to the other side of the alarm ward.

Somewhere, remote, she hears Killian inhale.

Then, far away, where the ward ties back on the opposite side of the base, Chloe fixes her mind to the stones. To the cellular structure of the quartzite, of the granite around it.

And…shifts it.

Just slightly, switching from quartzite to pure quartz, but it’s enough. The alarm ward breaks, shattering apart from that spot so far away, and sirens peal through the air.

Killian jumps, gripping Chloe’s arm, and she opens her eyes to stare up at him before returning the stone back to quartzite.

The alarms still blare.

“Jesus Christ!” the first voice yells from inside. “It’s a goddamn rock alarm from the goddamn other side of this goddamn mountain.”

“Shut it off!” the second calls, and just like that, the rune ward evaporates, the sirens cutting off.

The footsteps disappear deeper down the hallway, both of them muttering.

Chloe removes her palm from the wall and wobbles.

“Did you just change the stone of the mountain itself?” Killian murmurs, catching her by the elbow and stabilizing her as she blinks through it.

“Yeah, a bit,” Chloe mumbles, and Killian’s already pulling her backpack off of her, unzipping it.

And there, in the middle of the forest, with him all but gaping at her, she cracks a smile at him.

His brows flash up.

“Yeah, I’m impressive sometimes,” she says, and his face creases into a smile, like he can’t believe her.

And suddenly, as fast as if it hit her, she wants to see that smile again.

She’s already a bit delirious, already a bit lightheaded, but this, with the breeze and the crunchy dirty snow and the stones against her hands, suddenly she’s alive.

She wants to see him smile. She wants to see him look at her, with a wild joy and amazement in his eyes, all the time.

It’s a rush, brilliant, and it takes her breath away.

And she’s only realizing it now, when they stand at the door of an enemy base, faced with more danger and enemies than she cares to admit.

Hell of a time to get a crush. Hell of a time to suddenly decide to latch herself onto a mystical being who could eliminate her with barely a thought. Hell of a time to look at this person next to her, this demon so enraptured with fear that he’s breaking in someplace violent to gain more power, and decide that yes, this is what she wants.

And he turns the smile on her again, his eyes alight, like her small action has given him hope.

She wants to be that person who brings him hope.

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