Page 91 of The Girl Who Only Died Once

She narrows her eyes even more at him, and wishes that Ambra had come along, so she could actually ask more questions about what all of this behavior means.

“I find it hard to believe that you couldn’t track me already, from what I know,” Chloe says, but twists the structure of the metal, making it into a compass where she is the true north, and it takes so little effort his eyebrows flash up. “It’s twenty minutes away, yes?”

“About.”

And now, Chloe swallows, because there’s a big difference in breaking into an abandoned base and an active, currently under high security one.

“Then let’s go.”

22

It takes her a good extra half an hour to get the car back up to running, and Killian bullies her into getting fast food and eating before they hit the highway, but the car pulls alongside the pristine train tracks, the sun bright and cold, and the same fear settles into Chloe’s bones.

It’s different than Toronto. It’s different than the prisons she was held in, it’s different than the cloying bases she had to pass through, time after time again

It’s smaller, for one. Less protected from human influence. Less likely to be hit by someone like her, someone with so much back up. Less likely to be directly attacked by a demon trying to break in, as opposed to one trying to break out.

In short, it’s the perfect target for this. Maximum reward, little risk for a fully manned base.

But the guards are trained to deal with demons.

The rickety car pulls up to the town right before the base, and it practically glowers with wealth. The roads are smooth, the sidewalks glitter with perfectly curated frost, and even the bare trees have glimmers of leaves already started, out of season and gaudy.

Killian wrinkles his nose at them.

“They support a winery here?” Chloe asks, skeptical, staring at the bare branches of the grapevines completely untouched by snow and ice. “That has got to be a waste of energy.”

“It is,” he says, and there’s an underlying tension in his voice. “Though not every magician is talented at practical things.”

“Better than blowing stuff up, I guess,” Chloe says, staring hard at the grapevines. Spells are woven into the base of each one, spells to resist the cold, spells to warm the soil and the leaves, spells to need less sunshine, all carefully sewn together and stitched to further propel their usefulness.

If the town just twenty miles away hadn’t been so impoverished, it’d be beautiful. A good use of energy. something creative instead of destructive, for once.

But the potholes and broken sidewalk stick in her mind.

The base sits on the hill above, nestled into the stone, and Killian shifts in his seat as it does, a frown pulling down his lips.

“I’ve never seen it in the daylight,” he murmurs. “Just outlined in spells against the dark of their cargo trains.”

If Chloe squints, she can see the barest hint of a tunnel opening up underneath the hill, tracks almost shimmering with enough magic to keep them clear of frost.

Must’ve been terrifying for him.

Must’ve been terrifying for the spirit fox, too.

“And Ambra’s been in here, too,” Chloe murmurs, idling the car at a parking spot. Enough of Ambra’s story had been told to her that the very idea of supporting the college turns her stomach even more than it used to, warping her gut and turning her mouth sour.

When Gurlien had brought her to them, shot so critically, when Alette and Axel were stabilizing her, he had wept on Chloe’s shoulder about all of the horrors he had indirectly seen, at the possible guilt he may have had by association.

Killian nods, almost absentmindedly responding to her, still staring up at the building, his eyes glimmering red.

“Do you think we should park here and walk up?”

The plan hinges on them walking in before a train, before the guards come down to the loading area, before the platform crawls with extra hands. In between the trains, only two guards stand at the mouth of the tunnel and one at the elevator.

He tilts his head, his power flexing in the rickety car, so much that Chloe breathes hard out her nose, leaning her head against the cracked plastic of the steering wheel.

“There’s a flat spot in the trees closer,” he says, voice carefully neutral. “Still outside their shields, but only a five-minute walk instead of this.”

---