I opened my mouth and then shut it. I did that twice, my ire completely deflating. “Look, I understand,” I admitted. “Believe me, I do. Tell him I have a strong lead on who did this and to give us a chance to do our job. This is what we do. We catch bad guys. He needs to trust me on this.”

“Kinfolk trust only Kinfolk.”

“Might want to start expanding your circle of friends. You can tell Pen this: it wasn’t a jinn. So he can stand his ass down and forget about starting a war.” I hiked the strap farther up my sore shoulder, feeling echoes of the horrible pain I’d felt earlier. “I’m beat. Stay out here all night if you want, but I’m going inside.”

I didn’t look back to see if Orin stayed or disappeared. I meant what I said. I was beat. Falling off a high rise and making water tornadoes sort of does that to a girl.

With Rex gone, Em in school, and the hellhound in the kennel, the house was a blessed space. No noise, no distractions. Just me, my bed, and hopefully a long nap. Before I went upstairs, I rooted through the junk drawer in the kitchen and pulled out a red marker and wrote FIX THIS on the collections envelope. Then I went into the guest room downstairs and left it on Rex’s bed.

With every step upstairs, it seemed an old ache reappeared. By the time I reached my bedroom, all I could think about was lying down and shutting my eyes. As I sat and toed off my shoes, I saw that Rex had been at work, sweeping up the debris on the bathroom floor and boarding up the stained glass window that had shattered, and my busted bathroom door was gone.

After removing my damp clothes and putting on dry lounge pants and a T-shirt, I dropped onto my mattress and pulled the down comforter over my cold body.

What I got instead of sleep was a good, long look at my ceiling fan.

Aaron’s words kept echoing in my head. Divine being. Divine.

What the hell did that mean?

I let out a loud groan, threw my arms wide, relaxed my muscles until it felt like I was sinking into the mattress, and then I began my breathing techniques. My gaze stayed on the fan, turning slowly. Around and around.

Eventually my mind began to clear. My eyelids fell, all my focus on my breathing.

Did you see what Jen wore to school? I’d never let my ten-year-old wear that.

This is Doctor Harmon’s office calling to remind you of your appointment next Monday at eleven.

Carrie! Who the hell is running the water? I’m in the fucking shower!

Words became clatter. The clatter of a thousand conversations. Louder and louder. Building and building, until I shot up, gasping, my ears ringing and my head throbbing with leftover vibrations.

Jesus! I rubbed both hands down my face, catching a glimpse of my forearms. “No. Oh, no …”

They weren’t blood vessels. How could they be? They were faint and blue, though, running beneath the surface of my skin in patterns, patterns eerily similar to the ancient, unknown script on the warehouse walls.

I sat there in a stupor, my arms out in front of me, resting on my legs, as the panic rose higher and higher. My throat closed, so dry and thick it felt like sand had been poured into my mouth.

“No, no, no, no …” I started to rub my arms, noticing that the patterns were everywhere, and, becoming frantic, I tried to rub everywhere, erase them, get them off me. And slowly, very slowly, the higher my panic rose, the dimmer the images became until finally my skin returned to normal. I let out a laugh, like some demented old witch. Normal. What the hell was normal anymore?

I lay down, curled onto my side, and pulled the covers to my chin, hoping I’d eventually fall asleep and determined to stay like that until I did.

When I woke, it was to Emma’s kiss, telling me she was heading to bed. Must be after dinner, I realized, lifting my head slightly off the pillow to eye the clock. “Did you eat and do your homework?” I asked, half in sleep.

“Yes, Momma,” she said, using her best impression of her grandmother. The gentle caretaker, the southern voice. “You keep right on resting now, ya hear?”

“Hah,” I slurred and let my head sink back down into the pillow.

“I am not moving to the League. And that’s final.”

I stood at the kitchen counter with my morning coffee. We’d been at it now for thirty minutes. Thirty minutes of trying to tell my kid that, despite the ward room, I thought she’d be safer at the League while I dealt with the Llyran situation. You’d think being kidnapped by a deranged noble would’ve instilled a sense of self-preservation in her.

But then, I had to remind myself, I was dealing with an irate preteen who could go from fine and reasonable one minute to hellbent and irrational in the next. Though I was the only one who seemed to have the ability to affect her moods like this.

“Jesus, Emma. Why does everything have to be a fight?” I asked tiredly. She stood by the table, still in her white tank and plaid pajama bottoms, hair down and in its usual early morning, cave-girl disarray. “I haven’t even asked the League yet, but don’t you think it’d be best until this blows over?”

Rex sat at the table, silently eating his cereal. Smart guy.

“No. What about school and the play? You just want me to give up everything every time you work a stupid case?!”

“You know, you’re lucky I don’t ship you off to Orlando with your grandparents,” I shot back. I did not want to do this. Not this early in the morning.

Em laughed. “At least it’s sunny down there.”

“Great. You can go to Orlando, then.”

Her eyes narrowed and pink bloomed on her cheeks. “No, Mother, I will not. I want to stay right here. Not the League. Not Orlando. Here in my own goddamn house!”

“Emma!” Rex and I exclaimed at the same time.

Her lips thinned. The coiled tension coming off of her was palpable. “I can take care of myself. I have Brim. I can take him to school with me. He can be like my bodyguard.”

“They are not going to allow a hellhound in school, Emma. He isn’t even supposed to be here. It’s illegal to keep them in the first place!”

Her hands fisted at her sides. She knew she wasn’t winning this argument. “You make me so angry. I hate you!” she forced through gritted teeth, and then spun on her bare heel and stomped out the back door, slamming it as hard as she could.

Immediately I went for the back door, her comment only firing my blood even more.

“Charlie,” Rex said. “Let her go.”

I paused with my hand on the knob, swinging my gaze back to Rex. “I’m not letting her go, and don’t you tell me what to do or how to raise my kid! The only thing I want to hear from you is that you have a twenty-one-thousand-dollar wad of cash hidden somewhere!”

I jerked the door open, ignoring Rex’s second warning to let her go, and followed my daughter into the backyard. “Emma!” She stopped in the middle of the yard and turned to me. “You can still go to school and still practice for the play. Rex will stay with you, and I’ll have Aaron add a warlock to guard you as well. But at night, you’ll be safer at the League.”

“You have no idea the things I can do. I don’t need them. I told you I can protect myself.”

The breeze blew her hair, but her entire body remained still and so damn quiet that it made me very concerned. She was trying so hard to be convincing, wanted so much for me to believe her. But I couldn’t. How could I when she stood there with her thin frame and narrow shoulders, looking like a hard wind could break her in two?

She doesn’t really hate you, I told myself over and over again as her words sank in. “Emma.”

I saw it building, her frustrated scream, her white-knuckled fists. I just never expected her to unleash a massive power surge aimed straight at me.