Page 53 of The Girl Who Only Died Once

Leaving Chloe sitting there, adrenaline from the conversation still in her hands, completely unable to see into the other room.

Right. Still doesn’t want her to see the other person.

Slowly, she breathes out, letting her palm settle on the scrolls still spread on top of the tiny table.

Muffled sounds of conversation, barely audible, reach past the shield, then the telltale sound of someone bumbling around the kitchen, of the kettle getting filled, of someone rattling in the silverware drawer, and Killian’s low voice underneath it.

And Chloe’s desperately curious.

But if they’re supposed to work together now, if she’s supposed to rely on him for safety and firepower and he’s supposed to trust her for her ability to break out of things and unroll traps and find the spirit fox, then…

Then she has to sit where she is and not intrude.

She had to sit and not intrude on Gurlien when they first moved into the same cabin, during his first few attempts to tryto do something to win his way back into favor of the College. She had to not intrude in the obvious drama filled conversations between Delina and Maison, back when Maison obviously had to apologize and didn’t yet realize it and Delina had to think for herself and not what all her instincts were saying. She had to not intrude on all the necromancy lessons between Delina and Lyra, she had to not intrude on Axel to teach her new things when he was helping Terese with some new fear, and she had to not intrude on Ambra when she was healing and spitting mad, back when she got shot by the bespelled gun.

Sitting and not intruding is the worst.

Gingerly, she sets her cell phone on the scrolls, and the grains of sand buzz around the new item.

Immediately, the screen lights up, the magic seeping into the electronics, and Chloe begins to push the innards of the phone in a certain direction, twisting the sparks of battery life into her will, making it react to more than just the signal in the air.

Suddenly, Killian appears beside the table, his brow furrowed down at her, and Chloe barely lifts her head to glance up at him before he nods, disappearing again.

Apparently, he could tell she is doing something, either from the trace of her power or the protections he has tied into the very walls of the house.

A young voice, just out of the high-pitched tone of childhood, peppers through the barrier, and Chloe raises an eyebrow at the phone, before setting up an additional subroutine.

As much as living basically under the watchful eye of Axel and Alette had chafed against Chloe’s innate sense of paranoia, Axel had great tips and tricks on manipulating technology, having set up the majority of internet connection on the base, tied it into the magic of the land, and set up all sorts of alerts to be sent directly to his phone, all before he lost his magic. Ithad been an amazing thing to learn, an amazing skill to flex, and study that Chloe vowed to find uses outside of the stuffy base.

And here, with just a bit of thought and a bit of effort, she sets up notification alerts to send out to Delina, Maison, Ambra, and Gurlien whenever her location changes drastically in the space of a few seconds, whenever the phone—or Chloe—drops suddenly, whenever the phone detects a sudden heartbeat change outside of the normal levels of exercise. She had set up similar before, on her old phone, but adds the additional layers, before thumbing over to the group text Delina had started ages ago.

CHLOE (7:03 PM): I am absolutely putting those annoying notifications back on this phone, including one when I get teleported.

Three people immediately start typing, and Chloe smiles at the screen.

MAISON (7:04 PM): If you’re traveling via demon, will you be teleporting a lot?

CHLOE (7:04 PM): I assume so, but who knows. You should get my coordinates if my phone is able to pick them up.

DELINA (7:05 PM): That should be a fun way to track you.

AMBRA (7:06 PM): I am going to judge the teleportation.

MAISON (7:06 PM): Will it be accounting for short distances?

AMBRA (7:07 PM): Depends on the sensitivity of the phone, not on the teleport.

MAISON (7:07 PM): But phones have a natural GPS drift, the spell would have to account for some of that or else we’d be spammed.

AMBRA (7:08 PM): And some teleportations are more precise than others, and some demons can only teleport to places they’ve been or seen, not theoretical coordinates.

Maison continues typing, and Chloe smiles even harder at the phone, before she thumbs through the replies.

Gurlien hasn’t responded. Hasn’t even read the original text.

For a few seconds she debates taking him off the chat but she stays her hand. If he truly wants to ignore it, he knows how to do so.

CHLOE (7:14 PM): I also included a text for dropping the phone (or if I drop) so I will clarify the moment I can if it’s just literally a dropped phone.

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