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“I’m just going to talk—”
“—and what excuse are you gonna give him for needing to see her, anyway? You can’t tell him about the mage, ’cause that would tell him what Pritkin is. And you know how the Corps feels about demons—”
“I s
aid stop it!” I told him savagely. I didn’t need this. Another freaking roadblock in a week that had been full of nothing else. A week of trying to track Mom down, when she was busy avoiding anybody attempting to do just that. She’d had enemies of her own on her ass, and she’d turned evasion into an art form.
I’d finally bitten the bullet and realized that I was going to have to go back to Tony’s, the only place I was sure I could find her. Only to discover—after tripping the wards and almost getting caught half a dozen times—that she wasn’t there, either. It had started to feel like she wasn’t anywhere.
But then Jonas had shown up this afternoon, declaring that he simply had to be taken back in time right that moment. With his help, I’d avoided the wards—mostly—and Billy had pried the truth out of Laura. So now I discovered that I hadn’t been able to find my folks at Tony’s because they hadn’t been there. They’d been in the cottage.
Which I now learned was surrounded by an army of freaking demons.
“Cass . . .”
“Don’t.” I said tightly. “Not now.”
“Yes, now,” Billy insisted. “Look, I helped, right? I tried—we both tried. But he’s gone.”
“He isn’t.”
“Yes, he is. And you can’t bring him back by sheer force of will. Look, even if you got in there somehow, and even if she told you how to get into Rosier’s court, what then?”
“Then I go get him,” I said fiercely.
“Uh-huh.” Billy looked at me, and he was solid enough that I could see the compassion in those hazel eyes. “Only you know that’s not happening, right? Cass, don’t take this the wrong way, but you couldn’t even burglarize Tony’s without help. And now you think you’re just gonna waltz into hell—”
“Shut up.”
“—and break Pritkin out? When Rosier is probably expecting something exactly like that from you? When he’s prepared?”
“Billy! Shut up!”
“Not this time,” he said flatly. “You need to hear this, and since nobody else knows what you’ve been up to, I’m the only one who can try to snap you out of it. Cass, it’s suicide. Pritkin gave up everything to save you; think he would want you to throw your life away trying to get him back?”
I got up abruptly, because I couldn’t stay still anymore. But it didn’t shut Billy up. Of course it didn’t. I’d never found anything that did.
“And even if, by some million-to-one chance, you were to get him out of there, what do you think would happen then?” he demanded. “It’s not like anything would change. He broke his parole, or whatever you want to call it. Rosier would just drag him back—”
“We don’t know that!”
“Yes, we do. Pritkin told you—”
“What he knew! But maybe he didn’t know everything,” I said, trying to pace and not being able to because of the damned glass. I kicked an arc of it out of the way and the shards flashed in the glow from outside for a moment, like licking flames.
“Oh. So you know more about hell than a guy who lived there.”
“No, but maybe my mother does!” I rounded on him. “She lived there, too, if the old legends were right. And for centuries! If there’s a loophole, she’ll know it!”
“And if there isn’t?”
“Then there isn’t,” I said, crossing my arms and glaring at him. “But until I hear that—from her—I’m not going to just give up. I can’t, Billy—don’t you get it?”
“Oh, I get it,” he muttered. “I’m just not sure that you do.”
“What does that mean?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. Just . . . nothing. But the fact remains, you can’t get to her to ask.”
