Tempt the Stars

there’s one other thing you might want to know.”
    “Such as?”
    “Such as, if your parents were hoping for privacy in their cottage, they got it. Laura said nobody went out there—not even the other ghosts. Demons can feed off ghost energy even easier than human—there’s no body to get through first, you know? And they weren’t taking chances.”
    “So? I’m not a ghost.”
    “I said easier. Demons feed off humans just fine if they want to put in the effort, and there’s a crap ton of them out there.”
    I frowned. “How many?”
    “Laura didn’t know. She never went there herself, not being stupid. But some of the vamps came back spooked as hell, telling stories about hearing what had to be hundreds of demons, seeing crazy lights, feeling space warp around them, the whole nine yards. They were scared shitless.”
    I frowned harder. “What kind of demons?”
    “What difference does it make? The moral of the story is, if the scary-ass bastards at Tony’s were afraid of that cottage, maybe you should be, too!”
    “My
mother
is in there,” I reminded him. And it wasn’t like she couldn’t handle demons. From what I understood of the old legends, she’d practically ruled them at one point.
    “Yeah, sometimes,” Billy said, sounding crabby. “But what if she’s off somewhere when you pop in? And how exactly are you gonna do that when you don’t know the layout of the place? You’ll have to show up outside, where you can see where you’re going, and that means getting through the woods to the front door. And then waiting for somebody to let you in—assuming somebody’s home to start with. And that whole time, you’ll be a sitting duck for a bunch of hungry demons. ’Cause you know as well as I do that you don’t know how to fight ’em off—”
    “Stop it.”
    “Okay, sure. I’ll stop it. Just as soon as you tell me how you plan to get in.”
    I didn’t say anything for a minute. “Jonas knows about demons.”
    “Yeah. And I’m sure he’ll be thrilled about making another trip to Tony’s right now. And even if so, he wouldn’t be happy about helping you do something that could change your whole existence—”
    “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 said 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