Chapter 39

39

T he first floor of the base is completely denuded of all traps, shreds of magic flung everywhere, concrete floor blackened from fire.

Chloe creeps forward, as Killian lifts his shield higher above her, as if to protect from things falling as well.

If she didn’t know any better, all she’d see is a barren, blackened room. No furniture, no finishings, nothing.

Nothing but a slash of a warning spell, hastily spilled across the only seam in the foundation.

It’s even more obvious of a trap door than the one that started all of this, the one Chloe descended to first find Killian.

With a glance at each other, Killian wraps her tight in his power, almost forcing the air out of her lungs, and her fingertips glitter with the shield around them as she kneels down next to the trap door.

The warning spell wouldn’t have stopped her when she was 13, much less now, and she lifts it up in less than 10 seconds.

The man—she assumes, at this point—mostly wanted to know if an unwitting college employee was wandering in after him, not to give an iron clad security system.

The lack of care is almost worse.

It takes Killian’s sheer power to lift the concrete block over the trap door, the mechanism for raising it clearly sheared by an explosion. Which means that the man—most likely—had full confidence that there was either another way out or that he would have enough firepower to blast his way back up.

It leads to a set of clean stairs, cut narrow, and Killian glances over to Chloe.

“This will be dangerous,” he warns.

And Chloe knows this. Knows this in the ache in her ribs and the still lingering headache and the way her fingertips tingle after the barest mention of breaking a spell. Knows this in how she had been kept for too long by the college, knows this in the fear in Ambra’s eyes whenever something happens and the stress in Gurlien’s jaw. Knows this in the scorch marks on the concrete and the memory of the faded quilt on the bed she first met the spirit fox.

“Hell yeah,” Chloe responds.

And this time, he smiles at her. Gives her a full-on grin, showing his teeth. “After you.”

The ladder gives her zero issues, and there’s an already broken demon ward on the third rung, ripped to shreds with a slash of bright red blood, barely visible in the darkness.

Before Chloe can fully comprehend what that means, her boots hit the packed dirt of the floor, and her ears pop with the familiar warmth of stabilization spells.

Killian scrambles after her, deliberately not stepping on the broken demon ward, and he lands next to her with nary a change in air pressure.

With a twist of his hand, the light bulbs crackle to life, flickering on one by one, illuminating the hallway in front of them.

Fire runes, written in the same bright red blood, line the crease between the ceiling and the wall, glistening in the yellow light. Fresh.

Someone opened up their veins and wrote them, and wrote them recently.

They’re the same fire runes they found in the single room hiding spot with the skeleton.

“Sloppy,” Killian murmurs, his chin lifting to read them.

Sloppy they may be, they’d still absolutely wreck Chloe if they went off, and she’s absolutely not tall enough to break them. With enough time she could magic up a step stool, painstakingly dismantle them, but instead she just exhales.

“Shield me?” Chloe asks, and he nods, resting a hand on the back of her neck before a slippery power slides over her, coating her in black warping power.

She’s seen Ambra rest her hand on Gurlien’s neck in moments they thought private, in some motion between affectionate and possessive. She’s seen Melekai do the same with Lyra, always with a massage or easing of muscles.

And here he’s doing it, making something safe for her.

The wards shine in the light, waiting to go off, waiting to incinerate anything in their way.

So with one last glance to Killian, to the set of his shoulders, Chloe strode forward.

Immediately, fire sprung up around her, blistering heat for a split second, before the shield shifts, the temperature abruptly disappearing, though the flames licked at her boots, blackening the packed dirt.

She forces herself to take another step, all of the adrenaline in her body suddenly rebelling, her hind brain screaming to avoid the fire. Avoid the fire, avoid the flames and the certainty she’s going to get burned, the certainty she’s going to die.

A spark flickers up her pant leg, and she feels none of it.

The soles of her boots do not melt, her clothing does not singe, and her eyebrows remain firmly in place, no burning whatsoever.

“Next time I try to manipulate gasoline I’m bringing you with me,” she informs him, and who knows if he can hear her over the crackling flame.

The light flickers over his face, illuminating him from below, like a monster in a storybook or a devil from the Bible as he grins and shows her fangs. He has no shield on himself, but his clothing pass through the flames untouched.

“It wouldn’t stop a bullet, it won’t stop a spell, but it’ll stop flame,” he warns, but really, all she needs is the fire.

She matches his grin, and the flames trail across her face at the movement, a ghost of heat against her lips. Carefully, she pulls out the compass, and Killian slides the shield over that as well, protecting the glass and the fragile magnet.

It spins, dizzying so, before tilting down the hall and to the right, sloping deeper into the underground base.

So she sets off, the smell of burnt dirt and bricks smoking up around them.

They skirt around another broken demon trap, the ink smoking up with the flames, Chloe’s heart pounding at each disabled bit of security, despite the invincibility of the shield.

A drip of sweat trails down Killian’s temple, but not from the fire. His hand tightens, almost imperceptibly, against the back of her neck, when another rune sets off, buffeting them with a flame that never reaches her.

“When we get out,” he says from behind her, his voice low, “we are going to some place safe and then we are going to rest.”

It’s a vow, somehow, in that fire scorched hallway, and Chloe watches the needle of the compass until it draws up short, pointing perpendicular to the solid wall, the flames still crackling all around them.

With nary an exchanged glance, Killian clenches his other hand, and the wall crunches inwards, as if it’s made of paper pulled taut.

Chloe’s had to open her fair share of walls, and to have them disappear so easily will never cease to take her breath away. Usually, she has to transform them into pebbles, transform them piece by piece and brick by brick into something else.

And here he casually can tear them away.

Inside the wall is a small passway, the sort built into old buildings for servants to sidle through unnoticed, between the wooden support beams and the bricks.

Killian makes a humming noise in the back of his throat, ducking his head into the passway. “Foolish to still have this,” he mutters.

“I assume that’s why it’s bricked in,” Chloe says, then turns herself sideways to slide in.

The lack of fire is an immediate relief, both on her eyes and on her lungs, and she takes a few large gulps of cold damp air. Behind her, the flames flicker out without the presence of a person, the residue heat fading fast, the glow of some superheated brick the only trace that they had gone off for so long.

Killian has to duck to fit in after her, and whatever spell they’re using to keep the water at bay is weakened here, the concrete slick with condensation and the spare stale puddle. After a few moments of shuffling, Killian lifts his hand, setting the entire passway aglow with his power.

None of the traps here have been tripped, and Chloe’s heart jumps at the first ward she has to untangle, and she can’t help but call it relief.

“So he went the long way around,” Killian whispers, close to her.

“And they bothered to ward this place,” Chloe whispers back, then risks shooting him a brief smile. “Wonder if it was before or after I broke out of Toronto the first time.”

His hand on the small of her back gentles, a quick swipe of his thumb before he pulls it away, the shield slipping away from her like a satin sheet. “You will never cease to amaze me.”

It’s an odd compliment for the moment, and Chloe has to swallow it down, impulsively catching his hand in hers and tangling their fingers for a few moments.

“Well, that was a neat shield,” she says instead. “Neat way to walk through literal fire, that’ll haunt my every dreams.”

Killian cranes his neck to look back at the burnt-out hallway, at the faint glow still reflecting on the bricks. “You set off every fire spell in the entire hallway,” he says, almost admiring.

“And you blocked them all,” she replies, shaking out her clammy hands. “Let’s do that again never.”

They creep down the hallway, until the compass swings ever so slightly to the left, tilting towards the other side of the wall.

Killian’s hand flutters to the small of Chloe’s back, almost as if he’s reassuring himself before acting.

“There’s another broken demon trap out there,” he murmurs, and Chloe’s breath hitches. “Someone took great pains to break the demon traps.”

The lack of traps is sometimes just as much of a trap.

“I don’t love this,” Chloe starts, and he huffs out a laugh, “but unless you want me to dissolve some bricks, you should do the honors.”

“Aren’t you glad you brought me?” he remarks, dry, before flicking out with his other hand, the bricks peeling apart like blistering skin.

Revealing a plain room, white ceilings and white walls and unremarkable gray tile, full of cages.

Full of cages…all full.