Page 5 of The Girl Who Only Died Once

She flails against nothing, her hands and feet swinging uselessly, arching her back against a vast emptiness, writhing, until—

Something slams into her, brilliant and sharp, crashing her back against broken concrete for a split second, before she jerks, her whole body spasming.

She gasps, this time pulling actual air in, and lights spark behind her eyelids, viciously, painfully bright.

“Oh hey, we got you,” someone says somewhere above her, and her head swims. She’s on the ground, the concrete fire hot underneath her shoulder blades, her nerves firing off. She’s cold, shivers winding down her spine, then she’s hot, sweat pooling along the neckline of her puffy jacket.

Her ears ring, high pitched, and Chloe smacks her hands up to muffle them.

“She’s disoriented. Predictable,” another voice says, and this isn’t someone familiar. She doesn’t know this voice, it’s not someone who was here, it’s not —

She snaps her eyes open.

Delina sits next to her, her blonde hair partially hiding Chloe from view as she leans over, her hand on her shoulder.

She’s shrouded in gold.

Chloe blinks, and behind her stands Alette, wringing her hands, and…

A totally unfamiliar man, with black hair and blue eyes. Someone who hadn’t been there before, how long had it been, how…

Chloe jerks upright, and Delina falls back, startled.

Lyra’s behind her, a thoughtful expression on her face, and outside the circle stand the rest, all staring at her.

“Who are you?” Chloe blurts out, and the man exchanges a glance with Alette. “You weren’t here before, who…”

“Well, that answers that,” Alette murmurs in sotto voice. “Congrats, you can at least see Wights now.”

Chloe blinks numbly at this new person. Of course, she had heard in the last few weeks that Alette had a Wight boyfriend, but to think he had been there all along…

She shakes her head, and it’s as if there’s extra space in her skull, her brain sloshing around too much.

“I’m okay,” she says, as both the Necromancers behind her take in simultaneous breaths to say something. “I’m okay, just…”

Just…

She squeezes her eyes shut, pressing her hand against her forehead, and even her limbs are off, both too heavy and too light, like lifting them should be less effort but also less quick.

“Okay, Chloe,” the other Necromancer, Lyra, says, and Chloe really can’t stand how every word that comes from her seems to be coated in comfort. “Talk to us. How do you feel?”

“Come on, shouldn’t we get her inside?” That’s Maison from outside the circle, and there’s a frown on his face as well, a strange flickering of power. Something that immediately sends the hair on her arms raising at something in his appearance.

Beyond her control, Chloe scoots back, something instinctual.

Next to him is Ambra, and she’s even worse. There’s a double outline around her, wavering and glitching, like there’s too much of one person in the body. Her smile too large, her eyes too sharp, her chin too vicious.

And still, even as she watches, a glimpse of the expression made by her friend filters over the double face, something between understanding and regret in the lines of her eyes.

“It’s okay,” Alette murmurs to her, crouching next to where Chloe still sits on the ground, where the concrete is still hot to the touch. “That’s just how they look to us now.”

“What?” Chloe breathes, and Gurlien is standing next to Ambra, scowling, as if lost.

By the timethey get her up and down the hill back towards the compound, Chloe’s mind is whirling back and her fingertips itch for a notebook to jot this all down.

“Why was the temperature weird?” She peppers Delina with questions, of which Delina is firmly lost, staring helplessly back at the other Necromancer for answers, who just shrugs. “The concrete was brutally hot, why was that?”

“Same thing happened to me,” Alette says, her accented voice somewhat clipped. “I was on a table. I thought it was freezing.”

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