Page 159 of The Girl Who Only Died Once

She forces herself to take another step, all of the adrenaline in her body suddenly rebelling, her hind brain screaming to avoid the fire. Avoid the fire, avoid the flames and the certainty she’s going to get burned, the certainty she’s going to die.

A spark flickers up her pant leg, and she feels none of it.

The soles of her boots do not melt, her clothing does not singe, and her eyebrows remain firmly in place, no burning whatsoever.

“Next time I try to manipulate gasoline I’m bringing you with me,” she informs him, and who knows if he can hear her over the crackling flame.

The light flickers over his face, illuminating him from below, like a monster in a storybook or a devil from the Bible as he grins and shows her fangs. He has no shield on himself, but his clothing pass through the flames untouched.

“It wouldn’t stop a bullet, it won’t stop a spell, but it’ll stop flame,” he warns, but really, all she needs is the fire.

She matches his grin, and the flames trail across her face at the movement, a ghost of heat against her lips. Carefully, she pulls out the compass, and Killian slides the shield over that as well, protecting the glass and the fragile magnet.

It spins, dizzying so, before tilting down the hall and to the right, sloping deeper into the underground base.

So she sets off, the smell of burnt dirt and bricks smoking up around them.

They skirt around another broken demon trap, the ink smoking up with the flames, Chloe’s heart pounding at each disabled bit of security, despite the invincibility of the shield.

A drip of sweat trails down Killian’s temple, but not from the fire. His hand tightens, almost imperceptibly, against the back of her neck, when another rune sets off, buffeting them with a flame that never reaches her.

“When we get out,” he says from behind her, his voice low, “we are going to some place safe and then we are going to rest.”

It’s a vow, somehow, in that fire scorched hallway, and Chloe watches the needle of the compass until it draws up short, pointing perpendicular to the solid wall, the flames still crackling all around them.

With nary an exchanged glance, Killian clenches his other hand, and the wall crunches inwards, as if it’s made of paper pulled taut.

Chloe’s had to open her fair share of walls, and to have them disappear so easily will never cease to take her breath away. Usually, she has to transform them into pebbles, transform them piece by piece and brick by brick into something else.

And here he casually can tear them away.

Inside the wall is a small passway, the sort built into old buildings for servants to sidle through unnoticed, between the wooden support beams and the bricks.

Killian makes a humming noise in the back of his throat, ducking his head into the passway. “Foolish to still have this,” he mutters.

“I assume that’s why it’s bricked in,” Chloe says, then turns herself sideways to slide in.

The lack of fire is an immediate relief, both on her eyes and on her lungs, and she takes a few large gulps of cold damp air. Behind her, the flames flicker out without the presence of a person, the residue heat fading fast, the glow of some superheated brick the only trace that they had gone off for so long.

Killian has to duck to fit in after her, and whatever spell they’re using to keep the water at bay is weakened here, the concrete slick with condensation and the spare stale puddle. After a few moments of shuffling, Killian lifts his hand, setting the entire passway aglow with his power.

None of the traps here have been tripped, and Chloe’s heart jumps at the first ward she has to untangle, and she can’t help but call it relief.

“So he went the long way around,” Killian whispers, close to her.

“And they bothered to ward this place,” Chloe whispers back, then risks shooting him a brief smile. “Wonder if it was before or after I broke out of Toronto the first time.”

His hand on the small of her back gentles, a quick swipe of his thumb before he pulls it away, the shield slipping away from her like a satin sheet. “You will never cease to amaze me.”

It’s an odd compliment for the moment, and Chloe has to swallow it down, impulsively catching his hand in hers and tangling their fingers for a few moments.

“Well, that was a neat shield,” she says instead. “Neat way to walk through literal fire, that’ll haunt my every dreams.”

Killian cranes his neck to look back at the burnt-out hallway, at the faint glow still reflecting on the bricks. “You set off every fire spell in the entire hallway,” he says, almost admiring.

“And you blocked them all,” she replies, shaking out her clammy hands. “Let’s do that again never.”

They creep down the hallway, until the compass swings ever so slightly to the left, tilting towards the other side of the wall.

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