Her words put me into a stunned silence. Sebastian put her up to this? There was no way. There had to be some kind of mistake.

"Jennifer-"

"I don't believe it either," she admitted defeatedly, "and I have no way of knowing for sure." She reached into her purse and pulled out a folded piece of paper. "Look for yourself."

I took the paper from her and skimmed over it. It was a typed letter addressed to Jennifer, telling her to kill me or there would be consequences. Sure enough, it was signed "Sebastian of the Foster residence".

"That's only the first letter. After nothing happened to you, I got another one, saying they would kill Lily if I didn't go through with it. I... I couldn't..." her sobs grew louder, and I held her again.

"I don't know who sent these letters, but I can promise you it wasn't Sebastian. He would never do anything like this."

The sobbing woman nodded. "I know that, but it's what the letter says."

"Anyone could have written this and put his name at the end of it."

Jennifer sighed shakily. "But Lily..."

I nodded. "Sebastian."

Jennifer looked up to me, but I watched the door as it opened a moment later and my demon butler entered the room. I handed him the letter to let him read over it. "Call James. I want to talk to him about this and make sure someone guards Jennifer and Lily."

Jennifer looked back to me. "Chrystal, I can't-"

"I will pay any expenses that come out of this. I don't want either of you to get hurt." Then another thought occurred to me. "Where is Lily now?"

Jennifer turned white as a sheet. "She's at home in bed. She had a very high fever when I left, and I told her I'd be right back."

I glanced back over to Sebastian. "Tell Sarah to call James. You go get Lily and bring her here."

Jennifer tried to object, but Sebastian had already bowed and left.

"Jennifer, please. The police are already guarding this place. You'll both be safer here while we arrange for someone to take care of you both."

All she could do was nod.

I quickly got to my feet and helped her stand, then led her to the dining room, where I asked Maia to make her something to eat. Jennifer tried to refuse, but Maia and I both insisted. There was no telling how long she had been without a nice warm meal.

A few minutes later, while Jennifer and I were sitting at the table waiting for her food, Sarah came in and approached us.

"I've called James and he said he'd be here as soon as he could. He was in the middle of something, and wasn't sure how much longer it would take, but he promised he'd be here."

"Thanks, Sarah." I looked to Jennifer and saw the relief in her eyes. I turned back to my maid. "Could you also call a doctor for Lily? Sebastian is bringing her here, and I don't want either of them leaving until they are being protected."

Sarah smiled. "Of course, Chrystal." And with that, she walked away.

I stood from my place at the table and looked to Jennifer, giving her a smile. "It sounds like you may be here with us for a while. I should go tell Maia to add a couple extra plates for dinner tonight."

"Oh, no, Chrystal. I don't-"

"Too late, I've already made up my mind. We're all planning on having dinner together tonight, and we'd be very happy to have you and Lily join us."

Jennifer began playing with the ends of her long dark hair. "If you insist, we'd be happy to join you."

My smile brightened. "Perfect. Now, if you'll excuse me."

Jennifer nodded as I walked away and into the kitchen to tell Maia about the company for dinner. As I left the kitchen, I noticed Jennifer had found a book of crossword puzzles and had begun trying to solve one. I smiled and didn't disturb her as I made my way through the dining room and into the main hall.

Once successfully through the door and it had swung shut behind me, I leaned against the wall and slid to the ground with a large sigh. There was so much going through my mind, I didn't know where to start even attempting to organize my thoughts.

Just as I was about to start processing, the front door swung open, revealing Sebastian. In his arms was a small girl, no older than eight, wearing a tank top and shorts. I could tell she was flushed even from across the room. She was sicker than I had expected.

"Take her to an available room upstairs, please, then have Sarah take Jennifer to her. A doctor should be on their way to examine her." I held my head in my hand. "I need to go somewhere and think."

Sebastian nodded, then turned and left to do as he was told.

Not wanting to go all the way upstairs and be away from everyone, I went back into the sitting room from earlier. I let myself plop down onto the couch and lay down with a dramatic sigh. What was going on?

I finally forced myself to, at the very least, attempt to process the situation. Jennifer, a close friend of my mother's, had tried to attack me, but either Sebastian intervened in time or she couldn't bring herself to do it. She had been receiving letters from someone posing as Sebastian to kill me. I hadn't seen a date on the letter, but she had said it had been the first.

What I couldn't wrap my head around was the timing of everything. Clearly, whoever had put her up to this had been planning it for a while. Had they gotten tired of waiting for Jennifer to act and made their own move last night?

If that was the case, then did that prove that both Jennifer and Lily were fine? Surely if they had meant their threat, Lily would have been dead by now. Or maybe they let her be because they assumed she'd die of her illness.

I held my aching head in my hands. All these thoughts rushing through my mind were painful to think about all at once. I needed to relax, but found that I couldn't. In fact, I could only do the opposite.

I got the sudden feeling that I was being watched. I quickly stood and looked up to the window, and the action was immediately followed by a scream.

In the window was a silhouette with familiar piercing red eyes.

But as quickly as he had appeared, he was gone.