Page 18 of The Girl Who Only Died Once

There.

The first concrete hint, the first concrete clue. Her friend had been alive, had been here, sometime in the two years since Chloe was imprisoned and then without her research.

It doesn’t come undone with her initial push of alchemy, obviously guarded against known magics.

Quick, she tugs out her lockpicks, clicking them open with barely any resistance. Whatever spells on it, they weren’t anticipating normal lockpicks.

Another hiss of breath, and the demon hasn’t dropped his shield, hasn’t moved from his place of relative shelter.

Pulling the cuff off of the chain, she sets it gingerly against the steel of the table. It doesn’t react to it, thankfully, so moving slowly she slings off her backpack, setting it on the table next to the cuff.

Her fingertips trace over the cuff—someone else, not just her and the demon, had touched it.

Recently, too.

“Who are you?” the demon demands, as she begins to tease the spells, tease the trace of her friend away from the metal. “Who are you and why the fuck haven’t I heard of you?”

“I keep underground,” Chloe replies, then resists the urge to crack a smile at her own joke.

With a flicker of a glance to him—he’s stock still in the corner—she tugs out a scroll, a precious, coded scroll, unrolling it next to the cuff.

It warms to her touch, as the paper always does, the words glowing briefly on the page, reacting to the trace of magic. Already tracking it, already revealing where her friend went next. Etching the answers in shifting sands, each piece falling into place, narrowing it down.

Another deep breath behind her.

“My name is Chloe,” she says, as brightly as she can, as if she can disarm him with her normal chatter. As if anyone can disarm a demon. “Why are you looking for the spirit fox?”

He remains silent, which isn’t helpful for Chloe’s general stress level, as she stares at the research, teasing out answers. It’s too slow, too lethargic, like it’s been too long.

“The other demon who grabbed me is a friend, you don’t need to worry,” she continues, pulling out a mechanical pencil and her notebook, as the spells continue to unravel, revealing glistening hints of power to her like grains of precious gold at the beach. “She just gave me a teleport over here.”

Nothing. If not for the breathing, she would be alone in the room.

Which is weird, if he’s in a dead body.

And…there. The trace. Pointing to the south and slightly to the east, glistening of something warm and something dry.

Quick, she jots it down, jots down the coordination, picking up her compass, tying the location into it. Tying the next trace as true north.

It spins, the needle wobbling until it points southeast, and she shoves it back into her pocket.

“In general, I don’t react as strongly to most status spells like getting knocked out,” she babbles, as if she could answer his questions one by one. “And don’t be offended by the trap, traps are my specialty, I broke out of the Toronto base—”

A whisper of air, and he’s next to her, teleporting between one moment and the next. She jumps, clenching her fingers around the cuff.

“The Toronto base,” he repeats, suddenly too close, so close she can see the stubble on the body he’s wearing. “You broke out of the Toronto base?”

It is the least believable thing about her, to be fair.

“Yes,” she manages out, clutching the cuff with its precious trace to her chest. “Technically twice, though the second time I was breaking in—”

He slams his hand onto the research, clattering the table and scattering the sand grains of magic, and she flinches.

“Who the fuck are you?”

“Chloe?” she whispers, her heart pounding. “My name is Chloe, I’m nobody—”

Slowly, he glances down at where his hand rests against the scroll, where the words flex in the creases of the paper, where the trails of spells from the cuffs still drip down, little visible grains of magic, twisting and swirling against the letters.

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