and Mom’s bookstore. “I thought Rina said to save it.”
Owen laughed. “It’s cloaked. That’s just an illusion.”
“Cloaked? An illusion?”
“Your house still stands, and we have people staying there,” Mom said, “keeping it protected. They’re actually using it as a secondary safe house, too. The primary Atlanta house is full, with so many seeking refuge from Daemoni attacks.”
“I thought the attacks had stopped.”
“The rogue attacks continue, because they can,” Mom said. “Enough of them to scare some of our more vulnerable into hiding.”
“And Sheree’s at the main house, still in detox, so that limits how many others can safely be there,” Owen added. “We were lucky the Daemoni didn’t find your house before our people got there.”
I watched the screen as the camera focused in on the rubble. The reporter ran a continuous commentary about the fire diminishing my house to nothing but a few charred four-by-fours, my probable death, and the authorities considering whether it was all a coincidence or foul play. A mystery, I knew, they’d never solve. It was kind of funny, to know the house really stood there and there were people inside. Then a feeling of discomfort poked at me, thinking about strangers sitting in my house, roaming the halls . . . our bedrooms.
“I packed anything important or meaningful before Dorian and I left,” Mom said. “It’s all been shipped here. We don’t really have many personal belongings, especially you. I think you took with you what you really wanted?”
I considered it and nodded. My laptop, Tristan’s old bag, Mom and Dorian were most important to me. I hadn’t owned many clothes and brought most of them with me to the Keys, so there really wasn’t much in the closets or drawers for anyone to pilfer through. What was there, they could have. It still felt strange, though.
“That’s what we mean,” Owen said, pointing to a screen showing a yellow-bagged body being wheeled out of a home on a gurney. “And that.” Another screen displayed pictures of a woman and a man, both in their mid-twenties, side-by-side, and the word “MISSING” labeled across the top in large, bold letters.
“You think those are Daemoni attacks?” I asked.
“Probably,” Owen said.
“How do we stop them?”
“We’re doing what we can,” Mom said. “We have troops out there, but the Daemoni outnumber us. It will probably get worse before it gets better.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re waiting for you and Tristan. Once you leave the island—and you will have to eventually—they’ll be distracted from the Normans.”
My stomach tightened into a ball and bile burned my throat. Mom was right, of course. We would have to leave eventually, and Dorian with us, and we’d probably always be under attack. On the other hand, if they weren’t chasing us, they kept themselves entertained with innocent people. I jumped to my feet, the need to escape squeezing the breath out of me.
Mom eyed me. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going . . .” Leaving the island was out of the question, but I at least needed to be outside. “I’m going for a run.”
“Ah. I’ll go with you.”
I thought I wanted to be alone, but after the first half-mile, I was glad to be with Mom. We hadn’t had any one-on-one time since before I went nearly insane with the Ang’dora. Besides Tristan, she was still my best friend, and I could talk to her about things I couldn’t bring myself to discuss with him. Such as this mess with Owen.
“I thought you didn’t like the council, but you agreed with them, didn’t you?” I asked as she took us along a path through the woods behind the mansion.
She gave me a questioning look. “Who?”
“At the meeting, there were at least one or two who thought I should be with Owen. You used to think that.”
With the grace of a gazelle, Mom hurdled a log lying across the path. I jumped it, too, but surely not as elegantly as she did.
“I admit at one time I thought Owen was safer for you.”
“Is that why you wanted him to be my protector? To try to get us together?”
Her eyes cut sideways at me. “You don’t miss anything these days, do you? I wondered if you’d caught that meaning from Char.”
“I guess my mind’s finally in a place where I can pay attention.”
“I wanted Owen to be your protector because he’s a powerful warlock, possibly the most powerful we have after Martin. I saw that truth the day he was born.”