Page 151 of The Girl Who Only Died Once

Killian’s in the kitchen, and she can hear his still belabored breathing.

“Hi,” Chloe says wearily.

Seanna says something, completely silent in the still room, and Chloe just shakes her head.

“Sorry, still nothing.”

Seanna nods, her little face solemn, and Chloe suddenly, viciously, wonders if she’s ever had an appropriate amount of childishness, an appropriate amount of whimsy, or if her life has just been one experimental magician to another, to an addict mom and a demon caretaker.

“We’re taking you to my friends,” Chloe says, because it seems appropriate to warn her. “One’s the demon stuck in a human body that you helped escape from your father’s house.”

Seanna’s eyes widen, but otherwise her expression doesn’t change.

“They have a cat?” Chloe offers, because who knows what will get this child to smile. “You’ll be very safe.”

Chloe sits up and her ribs give a twinge, something violent, like the small, short battle re-cracked the bone that was just beginning to feel normal again.

Seanna tilts her head at her, a somewhat funny approximation of Killian’s common expression, then she steps closer to Chloe, holding her hand out.

And Chloe’s tired and aching and still quite wigged by her ears not working, but she hauls herself up to standing, because she’s not gonna be the person who doesn’t respond when a kid clearly wants something.

“Yeah?” she asks, rubbing her face, then reaching out.

Faster than she thought possible, the kid snatches her hand, scrabbling tight, and—

Sound, sudden and vicious, crashes into Chloe, and she reels back, but Seanna digs her nails in, her brows perfectly furrowed. The microwave crackles, electricity humming across the power lines outside and down the wires in the walls, the fridge rumbles, her own pulse thuds, and—

“Stop!” Killian orders, suddenly in the room, and the crease of his boots rustle the carpet as he shifts and gently, ever so gently, lifts Seanna’s hand away from Chloe’s.

Chloe stumbles backwards, the back of her knees hitting the bed with a creak, the blankets deafeningly loud.

So fast she swears she can hear the pop of displaced air, Killian’s next to her, catching her, guiding her down to sitting as her legs shake and her fingers tremble.

“I didn’t even get to her rib!” Seanna protests, loud, so loud Chloe flinches. “There’s a facia messed up in her rib, it’s folded all weird, and—”

“It’s not safe,” Killian says, soft and gentle, but Seanna’s lower lip wobbles. “It’s dangerous, and…” His eyes turn down to Chloe, who quite feels like she’s been slammed over the head with a dumbbell.

“I can hear now,” Chloe says, and her own voice is deafeningly loud. “Jesus Christ, what…”

Killian watches her, rapturously, for a few seconds, before his eyes snap towards the window. “Ambra’ll take her?”

“The Frisse base, at the bottom of the driveway,” Chloe recites, and all the sound’s making her dizzy. “Do you know it?”

“Every demon on this continent knows it,” he says darkly, before back to Seanna, who looks like she’s about to cry. “You can’t do that. Ever again.”

“But she was hurt,” Seanna protests. “She was hurt, and I could help and…”

“Thank you,” Chloe interrupts, as Killian takes a deep breath to answer. “Don’t know how you just healed me, but…”

Chloe blinks over to Killian, and she swears she could hear her own eyelids.

Healed.

Killian kept on emphasizing that Seanna’s magic is rare, kept on insisting that people would experiment with her, that she’d be completely locked away, but…

A healer.

“Oh,” Chloe says lamely. “Uh. Yeah.”

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