Page 67 of The Girl Who Only Died Once

He makes a sound, deep in the back of his throat, and she squeezes her eyes shut.

“I mean, the base is going to be worse, right?” she asks the still air of the room. “Is it even within our capabilities—”

“Have you ever seen the damage a full demon can do?” he asks, his voice low.

The answer to that is no, surprisingly few people have. Ambra’s bemoaned the fact that she isn’t at full power several times, and Maison’s grasp on the demon side of him is tenuous at best.

“There’s a reason they ward their bases against us.”

Finally, she opens her eyes, tilting her head on the quilt to watch him.

There’s still the panic, ever lurking behind his eyes, some ingrained instinct that nothing can chase away. But beneath it there’s something hard, a determination coated with fear but not conquered by it.

“Is every demon a drama queen?” she asks, and he ruins the expression by rolling his eyes. “I’m just saying, everyone I’ve talked to has been pretty dramatic with very little provocation.”

“Says the little alchemist flopped on the bed out of despair,” he shoots back. “If the attacks were human based, then they’re warding off humans. Not me.”

Chloe’s hand closes over the phone again.

CHLOE (3:23 PM): Were the coordinated attacks human?

She texted Gurlien, but Ambra’s communication lights up instead.

AMBRA (3:23 PM): Mostly.

“Mostly’s not useful,” she mutters, showing him the text.

“That’s plenty useful,” he challenges. “That means if they had any demons, they were so tightly controlled they would be close to useless against me.”

Chloe blinks at him. Ambra had destroyed the bar pretty easily, back when they first met her, and the only reason why she hadn’t won is Delina doing an insane Necromancy thing that made no sense that killed her handler.

Though if Ambra had wanted to, after that, she absolutely could have destroyed them all, even without Korhonen’s compulsion. They were just lucky enough that she didn’t want to.

“Do you think any controlled demon would want to fight us?”

He tilts his head at her, and it’s an achingly familiar motion, now that she’s been around more demons. “Depends on how they’re controlled, what they have over them.”

Also not a good thought.

“And how they were captured,” he continues. “What they put in place around them. Where they were kept.”

“So demons are just complicated,” she says, and it almost helps distract from the uncertainty brewing inside of her. “How were you captured?”

He stills once more, his power flooding through the room, and her breath hitches.

“I can tell when you do that,” she murmurs, and it abruptly cuts off.

He leans forward, temporarily burrowing his head in his hands, clenching at the ever so slightly curling hair.

It’s silent, the only sound the ever-present buzzing of the lights and the whisper quiet thrum of the far away street.

“Humans aren’t supposed to feel that,” he says, voice muffled in his hands.

“Neat,” she says, though the words are dry in her mouth.

He straightens and his face is completely neutral, stiff like a mask.

“I only ask because it could be applicable,” she says, and it doesn’t soften him. “If it can affect how they ward against demons, it could affect the traps I will have to break.”

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