Chapter 33

33

T his time, he teleports them to a warehouse, abandoned in a row of abandoned warehouses, where the sky outside is dark with coal dust and only a few feeble sounds of traffic reach them.

And, more importantly, there’s a full complement of magical components. A spellweaver’s paradise, paint and transporting materials, as well as a too familiar shattered glass cage and a rather rudely disrupted desk.

The whole thing has traces of another human, human wards woven dead into the ground around them, with Killian’s familiar protections written over them.

Chloe opens her mouth to speak.

“I took this space from the girl’s father after his death and made it my own,” Killian interrupts. “I found it valuable as a planning area.”

“Okay,” Chloe says, peering around it. “Is that a stasis chamber?”

“It was,” he answers, then with a lazy flick of his hand, rights the desk, before he pauses, almost unsteady. “You’re hungry.”

She hears the question behind the statement, so she rubs her eyes. “Somewhat, yeah,” she says, having basically awoken into another crisis, but it’s far off, foreign to her at the moment.

He squints at her, before he vanishes, leaving her in the large warehouse.

“Okay,” Chloe murmurs, and her phone beeps, almost too loud in her backpack.

She pulls it out, her mind racing. She can write up the trap, craft it, sure, but she’s hardly the expert at the actual weaving.

AMbrA (2:02 AM): Just how often are you teleporting?

MAISON (2:02 AM): We have you in the Old Soviet Block? Somewhere?

AMbrA (2:03 AM): Why is he jumping around so often?

Chloe blinks up at the warehouse again, once more in too many emotions.

She should absolutely tell her friends. Absolutely let them know everything—everything—that’s going on. The temptation is to hide it, to deflect.

But…

She had promised Ambra she would tell the truth.

CHLOE (2:05 AM): We had a safe spot that got compromised. Gathering information now.

It’s less than they deserve, but also enough that hopefully they wouldn't panic.

And then, outside of the group chat, Ambra’s contact bubbles up.

AMbrA (2:07 AM): He’s taking you to his safe houses?

Chloe hadn’t outright said that, but trust another demon to pick that up.

CHLOE (2:07 AM): A few.

AMbrA (2:08 AM): Let me talk to him.

CHLOE (2:08 AM): I think he’s off getting me food.

AMbrA (2:09 AM): Oh so he’s feeding you now.

Chloe rolls her eyes and shoves the phone into her pocket, where it beeps again and forces her to pull it out once more.

AMbrA (2:10 AM): When you get back, we need to have wine.

In the short amount of time since Ambra entered their lives, she and Chloe had gone to a wine bar all of once. Ambra had been skittish the entire time, jumping at small noises and barely focusing on the conversation, but afterwards Gurlien had given Chloe a heartfelt thanks, saying that it meant a lot to Ambra to have done so.

It pulls a smile to Chloe, even with all the dire need around. Even in the middle of this crisis, where someone is tracking them while they’re tracking the spirit fox. Even while she has to craft a trap for someone, a trap that will probably mean someone’s death.

CHLOE (2:15 AM): I’m down. Is Gurlien around? I need some trap-setting advice.

AMbrA (2:16 AM): He says he’s not here.

Clever.

Chloe huffs out anyways, glancing around the giant space.

There are fragments of anti-demon wards everywhere, deep and astringent, all decayed to pointlessness.

Some of them are the type that breaks when the caster dies.

In normal situations, on a normal day with all the time in the world and no stress, she would pick through them. Evaluate them, see what she can co-opt and learn from them. There’s a difference between breaking traps and learning from them, and this…this would be such an opportunity to learn.

Carefully picking around the shattered edges, Chloe makes her way to the righted desk, swinging her backpack off her shoulder, unzipping it with the sort of mind-numbing practice of someone who’s had to do it too much and pulling out her research.

Of course, it can’t help her with this, but it gnaws at her as she spreads the scroll across the desk.

Her scrolls put the next place for the spirit fox in Southern Washington, at one of the small bases tucked in between the hub that is Seattle and the city of Portland, hidden deep in the farmlands that spread there once you leave the mountains.

Chloe could’ve driven to it in a few hours on any day of the last year.

Hell, she drove past it once to go shopping at a specialty metals store, just a few miles away, and she never knew that the college had any presence there.

It burns in the back of her throat, acrid.

She could’ve been so much further along, if she only had her original research back then.

The scroll buzzes under her hands, like it too is aware of all the broken magic in the room, so Chloe twitches the scrolls up in her hands—her heart leaping.

Too much of the magic is still remnants here. Too much of it is still active, and the moment it sensed the whisper thin scroll it started to buzz towards it.

Quick, she rolls it back up, shoving it into the inert backpack.

Killian may think that all the magic is dead, may think that everything in this room is beyond any function—any maybe it is, for a demon—but oh, Chloe’s going to have to be careful.

“Fuck,” she mutters.

The compass had posted due west, but when she pulls it from her pocket now it swings wildly left and right.

Which means she’s pretty much on the exact opposite side of the world.

Interesting.

Unwilling to bring out any other page of research, she reaches back into her backpack, grabbing her little travel kit hairspray and her roll of plain butcher paper.

Too many people scoff at plain butcher paper, but it’s one of the better casting and transporting materials Chloe’s found.

She heard from Alette that the late Dr. Frisse, the mad scientist who caused so much heartbreak in all their lives, would cast on a thin surface of magic and wrap it up as if it’s cloth for transport, but Chloe can’t quite comprehend doing that on any scale.

Keeping a careful eye on the still too-alive magic, she rolls out the butcher paper on the desk, and it doesn’t fully react, just buzzing on the outside of it.

She never would’ve noticed that before.

And, somehow, with that idle thought, everything crashes into her.

She never would’ve noticed it before. Never would’ve noticed the extra magic flitting around. She never would’ve had a thought for any malignant magic around—because she wouldn’t have been able to see it. She had been, her entire life, fully unaware of all of the broken parts of the universe, and it’s all because she died.

She died.

Halfway between transforming the bottle of hairspray into the simplest of spray paint, it slips from her hand, clattering against the wooden desk.

The wooden desk she would’ve never looked twice at.

All because she died.

If she hadn’t died, if she hadn’t begged for it and to be brought back, then none of the last few weeks would’ve happened. She wouldn’t have been stuck in the old cabin, a stark reminder of what she had lost in such a short time. She never would’ve been knocked out deep underground. She never would have killed a demon, killed an actual demon, someone who had a name that she didn’t know and had a home they counted as their own.

Would’ve never encountered Stella again, seen the hollows of her cheeks start to fill in. Would’ve never seen Michelli, never learned her name, never promised to help with whatever other issues the Wights had in their pockets, whatever that promise meant, however it’ll shape her future.

Her best friend would be talking to her still. Her best friend would be completely happy to pick up her texts, to discuss all these obscure theorems, everything. Would be enthusiastic in figuring out the puzzles, not pretending she doesn’t exist.

She never would’ve shot at Killian—would probably not be aware of his existence. Would not have gone into a hotel with him, would not have slept in his house in his bed, would not have made a cup of noodles with his surrogate daughter. Would not have seen the fear flicker over his face, would never have felt the soft touch of his hand in hers, wouldn’t have been held from falling by the touch at the small of her back.

Would have never gotten herded into a little booth at a tiny diner after he evaluated the food handling capabilities of the hotel. Would’ve never been held behind a demon bubble, would’ve never been kissed so softly in the dark of the night, would’ve never had anyone place such trust in her to reveal things that could put his very species at risk.

Chloe sits, hard, on the cold concrete floor, before picking herself up and stumbling to the single couch, burying her hands in her hair.

All of this happened because she died. Because she begged to be killed, all for the convenience of finding the spirit fox.

The weight of it sags against her like the middle of the couch, creaking against the springs of her soul. That just by that one query, that one half-assed plan that she was convinced would work, all of this happened.

A whisper of air flits against her cheek, and without even looking up, she knows that Killian is back. That the air he displaced made its way to her so easily.

There’s an inhale before he’s next to her, and she can smell a completely normal burger in the paper bag as he sets it close.

“Chloe?” he asks, soft, and the same undercurrent of fear is there as well, the same undercurrent she would’ve never been aware of.

“I’m okay,” she mumbles out, and she’s clearly not.

He makes a sound deep in his chest, before he throws his arm around her, solid, so solid she can’t believe she wouldn’t have seen him before.

If she hadn’t died.

“Well,” Killian drawls, and it’s so heartbreakingly normal, heartbreaking because she never would’ve heard him before, and now she has a catalog of his tones, a reference of all the ways he speaks, ones that can fit so neatly into her mind that she can’t comprehend a world without it. “This isn’t what okay usually looks like.”

It makes her shoulders hitch up, and his hand comes up, rubbing between her shoulder blades.

For a horrifying second, she thinks he’s going to make her explain this. Make her put into words all of the turmoil bubbling inside her, all the crushing weight that she so closely almost missed this, but he just tugs her closer, leaning his cheek against the top of her head.

And despite all the urgency, despite the quickly cooling burger in the crumpled paper bag next to her feet, he holds her, until her shoulders stop shaking and her face is wet, but her head is lighter.

As if sensing the turn in her, he presses a kiss to the top of her hair, gentler than she deserves.

“I died,” Chloe mumbles out, instead of anything intelligent and clever. “I died and came back and all of this is because of that.”

He doesn’t say anything, just strokes her black hair back away from her face.

“Of course my friends are angry, I died. I volunteered for that.” The words bubble out from her, almost incoherent. “Of course I can’t sleep. Of course I see random magic. Of course everything is different.”

Still nothing, and it itches at her, on whether or not it’s acceptance or judgment, so she pulls back, scrubbing at her eyes so she can see him.

“I just…”

“Everything hit you?” he asks, and his true face, the one behind the handsome guard’s, is soft with something close to understanding. “When after one action, everything changed, and you’ve been just going as if nothing happened, until it hit you?”

It’s about as close to it as possible, so she nods.

“Where you can just look back at that choice and marvel at what might’ve happened if you had done any one step differently?” Gentle, he takes her face in his hands, cradling her chin. “I’ve been wondering that every day since you shrugged off my sleeping spell back in that tunnel. Wondering what had stayed my hand from just eliminating you, wondering why I rooted around for your home in your mind, wondering why I didn’t just stop a rival at the spot.”

She manages a watery smile, but he doesn’t match it.

“I don’t know what I would’ve done if you weren’t here.” He drops that sentence as if it weighs nothing to him. “I would’ve died trapped in the base in Minnesota. I would’ve never gotten the reading from the cage, not fully, not with the demon protecting it. I would’ve just been working, toiling away, at the first tunnel underground, as the tracking ceased to make sense, and I would’ve gotten nowhere.” Still cradling her chin, he swipes his thumb along her jaw, like her very bone structure is a book for him to read. “I wouldn’t have known you.”

Somehow, that little sentence emerges like a vow. Like in this entire process, it’s the part that’s most important. That despite everything else, knowing her is the biggest treasure from this hunt.

So she clings to him, almost wondering at her own actions, at how her hand comes up to fist around his shirt, holding him close. Like he’s the life raft out of this, like he’s the only buoy in the sea.

“If the amount of texts you get is any indication, I don’t think that your family is that angry at you,” Killian says gently. “If anything, they’re worried and miss you.”

“Not Gurlien,” Chloe replies, and it’s a bit more bitter than she had hoped. “He’s only texted me in the emergency.”

Killian stills, like he’s considering something, and Chloe pulls back enough to look him in the face.

“I could probably connect with his abomination again,” he offers, like that’s a normal thing to say in a conversation like this. “Get the two of you in the same room, I’m fairly sure she’d do that for me.”

“Probably,” Chloe says, almost begrudging, “she’s pretty frustrated by it.”

His eyes flicker to the desk, to where her butcher paper and spray paint sit abandoned.

“It wouldn’t work,” she says, which is one hundred percent the accurate truth. “It wouldn’t stop the fact that it’s because I died. Making his girlfriend bring him here to talk won’t solve that.”

“Nothing will,” he replies casually, but his hand is on the small of her back still, softening the blow. “Nothing will change your actions in the past, good or bad as it may have turned out.”

It’s the truth. It still stings.

He draws back, just enough to reach over and grab the bag of fast food, handing it to her.

“I can still tell you need to eat,” he says softly. “Whether or not you died and came back, whether or not people are angry about you or your life changed drastically, you need to eat.”

“You can tell that too easily,” she says, and she meant it to be a friendly grumble, but it comes out too vulnerable.

He shrugs anyway. “I like to,” he responds. “I like the idea of being able to look at you and know what you need.”

It’s a nice soft thought, one she grabs onto as she eats the burger, watching as Killian pushes himself up and re-wards some of the windows. He moves with the same strange grace Chloe’s seen from the other demons, a sort of ease with the magic of the room, with tying into the natural lines.

There are a hundred things she should be focusing on, but instead she just observes. The wrecked magic on the floor, the remnants of the previous owner's power, stir around his feet, as if buffered away by his sheer force.

No wonder he didn’t seem bothered by it, as he idly nudged some out of his way with his shoe. It’s absolutely dwarfed by him.

After watching him putter around and re protect the place, Chloe pushes herself up, approaching the table with the dropped spray paint and the butcher’s paper.

Immediately, he teleports to her side.

“Can you shift the leftover magic away?” Chloe asks, picking up the spray paint and giving it a testing shake. “I can tell it’s there and it wants to change things.”

Within a blink of an eye, it’s gone, and she sets to spraying out a trap.

Without a word, after she’s finished the trap, he slides another piece of paper on top of the desk.

“Another?” Chloe asks, shaking out her tingling fingers.

“A fail safe.”

Before Killian stiffens, his eyes flashing the light back at her, and Chloe tilts herself back.

“Another base was just destroyed,” he says, remote, his face utterly expressionless.

“Okay…” Chloe says, unnerved. “How…”

“I left part of myself there,” he says, still remote. “A way to monitor, a way to keep track. It’s gone.”

Chloe doesn’t quite understand the implications of that, but she shakes out her hands anyways. “Do you need me to find out more info? I can ask…”

He’s already shaking his head no. “Atlanta base. It’s gone.”

Atlanta.

Just the biggest base—and prison—on the continent. Attached to the actual school of the college, the place she—and Maison, and Gurlien, and hundreds of others—were trained. The place where they spend their early teens, all figuring out themselves, figuring out the way their magic worked, the propaganda they were fed.

Students still stay there until around age fifteen. There were probably a hundred or so there at any given time, ranging from age three to teenage.

Where prisoners—political, innocents, dangers to society—were kept, locked in stasis or locked behind bars. By the hundreds.

“Do you know if people got out?” Chloe whispers.

At one point, Maison’s mother had been kept there.

Killian turns his eyes to her, still blank, with just a frisson of terror trembling through his shoulders. “I don’t know.”

Chloe breathes out, careful, measuring the time.

This wouldn’t go unnoticed.

This is bigger than the Toronto base. This is far bigger than the small base in Minnesota.

This would be felt around the world.

In her pocket, her phone beeps, but she doesn’t move her hand to it.

“The college isn’t going to…be okay with that,” Chloe says, and after a second realizes she’s afraid.

She’s afraid. Fear trembles into her fingertips, racing up and down her spine, curling into the pit of her stomach. She’s seen—too many times—the destruction that the college has wrought when it’s felt entitled to do so.

And this…this would be all out war.

Her phone beeps again, and again, filling up the wide space.

Killian’s jaw twitches, like keeping himself still in front of her is an effort. Like the only thing keeping him from explosion is his iron control.

“Who would…” She trails off, her sentence hanging unsure in the air between them.

Her first instinct is to ask who would have the ability. Who would have the manpower. Who would have the knowledge.

But then again, she was part of the group that took down Toronto with just four people.

Chloe pulls out her phone, and Killian watches her with blank eyes.

GURLIEN (12:38 PM): Check in now. Check in.

AMbrA (12:38 PM): Chloe, are you okay? I can’t find you.

GURLIEN (12:38 PM): Ida Grove. Check in.

MAISON (12:38 PM): They just exploded the entire demonology ward underneath Atlanta. I can’t tell who died and who escaped.

DELINA (12:39 PM): Everyone’s freaking out. Are you okay? All I can tell is you’re not dead.

GURLIEN (12:40 PM): Check in. Chloe, where are you?

“They can know,” Killian whispers, though his voice is somewhat wrecked. “You trust them, they can know.”

CHLOE (12:40 PM): Walnut Grove. I’m okay, somewhere in Europe. Is everyone else okay?

GURLIEN (12:41 PM): Everyone accounted for in the Frisse base.

GURLIEN (12:42 PM): They’re saying everyone in the Atlanta Base is dead.

Chloe exhales, squeezing her eyes shut, showing Killian her phone. He doesn’t look at it, his eyes still focused on her.

“Fuck,” Killian mutters, and a laugh pushes its way out of Chloe, completely out of her control.

“Yeah,” Chloe says. “Fuck.”