Chapter 27

27

H ours after she crawled into the bed, after he teleports to the other room, her mind still willfully awake, the bed dips next to her.

The new body is an unfamiliar weight, but she doesn’t need to open her eyes to know it’s Killian all the same.

“You should absolutely be asleep,” he mutters, like that’s the pressing issue of the day.

As if Chloe hadn’t been cursing herself with her continued consciousness, her eyes hurting, her head pounding, her limbs like angry lead.

“I don’t know how long this lasts,” she confesses instead, and her throat still aches from the temporary lack of air, from the choking. “They said some sleeplessness, I don’t know how long it’ll be here.”

He makes a disgruntled noise, somewhere in the back of his throat, before he shifts closer, closer still, but not touching. So close the air between them is charged with the possibility, of the potential of closeness.

“Wait, don’t you have your own bed?” Chloe asks, turning in the bed and blinking up at him.

This time, there are no streetlamps to illuminate him, just the blinking light from the microwave muted from the other room.

“You’re in it,” he replies instead, and at least this time he’s almost amused. “Why would I have a guest bedroom here?”

“Do you need me to…” Chloe trails off at the ridiculousness of what she was about to say. Does he need her to sleep on the chair, after they’ve shared a bed for the last few nights? After the battle, where soreness still struggles with exhaustion and sleeping in a chair would make it infinitely worse.

After they had that stolen kiss, the one that still pounds in Chloe’s heart.

“Demons don’t have the same awkwardness humans do,” he replies loftily, in the exact tone both Melekai and Ambra use when they are, in fact, feeling awkward. “If I wanted you someplace else, I’d put you there.”

That last sentence is quieter. Almost hushed.

“I guess this house is the most secure place in the world right now,” Chloe muses, and he exhales something between a laugh and a sigh of relief, that she’s not fighting him on it. She turns in the bed again, curling up away from him, resuming the exact position she was in before he joined her.

If he’s going to insist it’s not awkward, then she’s going to do her damndest to make it as normal as possible.

“Only because you’re not trying to take down the protections,” he murmurs, and tentatively, ever so tentatively, rests his hand near to the small of her back, spreading his fingers on the comforter between them, close enough the tension of the blankets change.

Chloe’s breath hitches before she makes herself exhale.

“I don’t like that she injured you,” he whispers to the air.

So they are talking about this.

“I don’t like that they did something that forced you from your other body, so we’re even,” Chloe says, blinking out towards the dark window.

“You’re not understanding,” he says, and she can feel the tension in his voice, as he shifts in the bed. Closer. “No other demon gets to hurt you.”

Chloe swallows.

She’s been around the other demons long enough to know where this train is going, and she doesn’t know how to feel, how to think, not when he’s this close and there are mere centimeters between his hand and her back.

Of course she knows about demons and their protectiveness. The college intentionally manipulated Maison’s nature for their use with Delina, causing him so much heartbreak. Ambra’s so wrapped up in the idea that Gurlien could get hurt that she would jump and run to protect him at all costs, even at her own detriment. Terese, for all that she is human, fought off another demon possession for her love.

Melekai even died—albeit for a short time—for his Necromancer.

Chloe breathes out, controlled, her skin prickling.

She’s known Killian a hell of a lot less time than any of those pairs, and it sits, afraid, deep in her stomach.

Is she, once more, getting herself into something too deep, too dangerous, just by embarking on this quest with another person? Is she risking more than her life?

But then, there’s a little graze of contact from his hand, so soft it’s tentative, like he too can’t quite comprehend what is happening, and Chloe’s back unwinds. Relaxes.

Like just that little touch brings some safety. Some contentment, outside of her control. Some sense that despite all her worries, despite everything else, she’ll be okay. Just fine. Alright, as long as she stays right here, next to him.

It’s directly at odds with everything else warring inside of her, and she squeezes her eyes shut in the frustration of it.

Chloe’s not immune to the knowledge that her mind contradicts itself sometimes, but this is somewhat beyond the pale.

Next to her, Killian sighs, a quiet movement of air. “You sure you won’t let me knock you out?”

“Absolutely positively not,” Chloe snaps, her heart already racing a bit too much. “I fall asleep as normal or not at all.”

Gingerly, he rests a hand on her ribs, right where the bruise throbs. It’s not enough to hurt it worse, it’s not enough to do anything to trigger any pain, just a slow weight to soothe the discomfort.

And Chloe hates that it works, too.

Of course she sleeps. Of course.

Of course, after just a few minutes of furiously ignoring him and her heart, she slips away into blissful unconsciousness and doesn’t open her eyes until the weak winter sun shines through the blinds.

Of course.

Of course her body decided, beyond her control, to believe in safety the moment she has an actual fucking demon at her back.

And now the demon breathes, slow and steady, next to her, the barest hint of a rasp of a snore in the sound, his hand still resting lightly on her bruised rib.

Of course.

Moving as slow as she can, Chloe slides out from underneath his touch, and he doesn’t wake.

The handsome face of the dead guard is squished into the pillow next to her, the brown black curls sticking straight up, rumpled and normal.

So normal it almost gives her pause.

Almost.

Chloe slips on her socks, each motion as quiet as she can make it, before padding into the small kitchen.

And directly into the glare of the twelve-year-old.

Chloe freezes, like she’s been caught doing something she shouldn’t.

Seanna stares at her, flat, then pokes her head around to see where Killian still lays, his face smushed into the pillow, before leaning back in. Careful, she lifts a finger to her lips, then taps her hand on a rune carved into the doorjamb.

A silence rune.

All at once, the soft sound of the almost-snore drops out of her hearing, leaving just the noise of the kitchen.

“He thinks that I haven’t figured out how to do that yet,” she says, almost surly, crossing her arms over her chest. “Don’t tell him.”

“Understood,” Chloe says, a little thread of amusement worming its way through the sudden sensation she’s in trouble. She sticks her hand out, giving the twelve-year-old the widest smile she can muster. “Hi, I’m Chloe.”

The girl leans back, openly and hilariously skeptical.

She’s rather normal appearing, with mousy brown hair bundled up in a scrunchie and a neon green shirt that’s a few shades too bright for her complexion.

“Killian doesn’t bring people back, and now you’ve been here twice,” she says instead, ignoring Chloe’s hand and turning to the meager stove. “He doesn’t want me talking to you.”

“I gathered that,” Chloe says, and the twelve-year-old scowls at her, before filling the kettle and placing it on the stove with very little grace, the sort of motions of a child who hasn’t ever been taught, just observed. “To be fair, I had absolutely been arrested twice by the time I was your age.”

Again, with the skeptical look, and Chloe grins with her, propping herself up to sit on the counter.

“He also gets scared when he has to interact with anyone who’s not me, so I don’t know how he could sleep with you all night,” Seanna says, and Chloe barely maintains a straight face at that.

She’s seen him in fear too many times, seen the terror cross his face in those brief moments before he schools his expression.

“And no magician is supposed to know I’m here,” Seanna continues. “So why are you here?”

Chloe glances back to the doorframe, to where Killian still sleeps, oblivious to the conversation.

“If it helps, I’m not part of the college,” Chloe says, and the girl's eyes widen. “I got kicked out almost eight years ago, so I’m not affiliated with them in any way.”

“I thought you couldn’t do magic without being a part of them?” she asks, and there’s something shrewd in her question. Like she already knows the answer and is quizzing Chloe instead.

“They just don’t like it,” Chloe replies, and while dealing with children has never been her strongest suit, this kid’s open skepticism of everything she’s saying tickles her. “But totally possible.”

To prove her point, Chloe grabs the magnet from the side of the fridge and spins just enough energy into it that it pops up, warping shape into a perfect cube.

It’s an easy trick, and Seanna is unimpressed.

“My dad was an experimental demon handler, I’ve seen that before,” the girl drawls, and it’s just enough information that it cements an idea further into Chloe’s mind. “You can’t impress me.”

Which is an awfully bold thing for a twelve-year-old to say, but Chloe’s not going to push it.

“I’m helping Killian with a…project,” Chloe says, circling back to the question earlier. “I have tools to do so, he doesn’t, so we’re…working together.”

“And sleeping in his bed,” Seanna deadpans, “you don’t understand, Killian is scared of everything. Why are you here?”

And the first answer that floats through Chloe’s mind is to bring up the spirit fox, but she stays her tongue at that, instead raising an eyebrow at the kid as the kettle begins to whistle.

“I’m making sure he doesn’t get trapped,” Chloe says, slowly, thinking of all the small places and ways he could’ve been captured in the last few days. “He’s breaking into bases. I’m making sure he can get out.”

She squints at her, then shrugs, obviously attempting to be nonchalant in the way that only preteens can be.

But her lips twist in something resembling worry far beyond her age.

“He’s weak around cages,” the girl mutters instead. “My dad kept him in one for three years.”

Chloe stills her motions, as she pours hot water into a cup of noodles, avoiding her eyes.

There’s not terribly many reasons to keep a demon in a cage for terribly long, not unless you’re trying to do something with them. Ambra had told her enough about that.

And Killian had wanted to kill the Terese project they found.

“Well, we destroyed the absolute shit out of his old cell in this base,” Chloe says, and the girl's eyebrows flash up before she schools them down. “They’re not holding anything there ever again.”

Chloe grabs a box of pop tarts, her mind whirling, as the kid stares hard at the cup of noodles, waiting for it to be ready.

“I can teach you how to break demon traps,” Chloe says, finally, her brain swirling from idea to idea on how to actually teach it.

She knows about wards, she can see demons, knows enough about Killian to know he can switch bodies, but Killian suggested that she hasn’t had formalized training. Her mother was nearby, but the sharpness in the pre-teen features show a longer history of neglect than just that bad situation.

And Killian had killed her father. And the girl doesn’t seem too terribly torn up about that.

The girl’s eyes light up.