Page 9 of The Girl Who Only Died Once

Her research takes up the majority of the bag, anyways.

“I’ll teleport you to your drop site if you go talk to Gurlien right now.”

Somewhere in the last few months, with Ambra integrating into their little circle, she learned the truly annoying fact that she can bribe people with the use of her powers to do things shewants. Gurlien finds it charming, apparently, and everyone else is torn between amusement and irritation.

“Right now?” Chloe asks, glancing at the clock. “There’s no way he’s awake…”

“He is,” Ambra interrupts, narrowing her eyes at Chloe. “Was your theory successful? Yes. Did it cause him a non-insubstantial amount of terror and upset? Also yes. Talk to him so he’s not upset for however long you’re gone with this research of yours.”

Chloe opens her mouth to say something, but Ambra preempts her.

“And you know he’d be pissed if you didn’t,” Ambra continues. “And teleportation will be the fastest way for you to get there with the least amount of risk.”

She’s right, of course, so Chloe shrugs, rubbing her forehead, as if that could chase the exhaustion away.

Gurlien doesn’t answerthe door to her knock, and Ambra rolls her eyes and opens it for Chloe anyways.

“Please talk,” Ambra says, still clutching the bag of candy and pushing past them standing in the little space that passes for a living room for them, before she disappears into the small bedroom Gurlien and her share.

Gurlien scowls at her back, and Chloe’s known him long enough to recognize a defensive scowl instead of a real one.

Chance the cat, tightly curled up in his favorite pile of blankets, opens one green eye to stare at Chloe, before closing it again. Because she barely gets any sort of acknowledgement from the cat she helped save anymore.

“You’re not gonna convince me not to go,” Chloe starts. “You cannot begin to convince me—”

“Obviously,” Gurlien snips.

“And I know you disapprove of my ‘methods,’” Chloe can’t resist using the quotation marks, “but I’m fine, I’m okay, and I’ll be okay.”

“Will you?” he shoots back, then scowls at her, this one a real scowl, before he crosses his arms. “Or are you going to continue to just take risks like that without any thought of what happens if it goes wrong?”

“It’s not gonna go wrong,” Chloe says. “Necromancy is a single occurrence magic, you know that. It’s not something that has to be sustained or can revert. And now that I’ve done that, I don’t have to again, the risk is over.”

“No, you’re just going into a place where you are gonna take more risks and be around unknown demons,” Gurlien says, his voice rising, like his actual-demon girlfriend isn’t just in the other room and could likely hear everything they say. “They’re not all nice, and if something happens to you out there, you’re not gonna have the multiple backup Necromancers to save you!”

“What, would it help if I keep a tracker on me so you could find me if something does?” Chloe says, then squeezes her eyes shut, frustration and lack of sleep warring in her brain to produce a truly horrendous headache. “I’ll take the gun, I’ll have my full combat kit. I broke out of prison. I can go dive into some tombs and find…”

She trails off, and the silence is truly horrible. Chance lifts his head to glance at them, like the lack of noise alarmed the cat as well.

“You really think you’ll find what you’re looking for?” Gurlien asks, voice quiet.

And in that ask are all the rough days they spent on the run. The days when Gurlien barely knew what to make of himself andChloe was just trying to find something, anything, she could do to help anyone.

All the days when they argued and fought and collaborated and tossed around theories and ideas of how to find her research again, how to get his powers back, how to survive outside of the framework they both grew up in.

“I wouldn’t do all this if I didn’t,” Chloe replies, aiming for surly and missing it. “Gurlien, I have my research. I have actual starting places. I can now see and therefore counter my biggest risk. I can’t not go.”

“Right,” he mutters, before his face pinches off. “Right.”

4

After that debacle, Chloe declines to bother to say goodbye to anyone else and Ambra stays true to her word, studying the coordinates in her little notebook before gripping Chloe by the arm and teleporting her with a jerk.

Chloe stumbles into the snow—it’s not her first time getting teleported by a demon but it’s still not very comfortable—before shuddering in the immediate, sudden cold.

Icy wind blasts through her meager jacket, and even Ambra ducks her head, sheltering her eyes.

Chloe ties on her bright orange scarf, a thin little strip of fabric that does little for warmth.

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