Tempt the Stars

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.”
    I sat down on the bed, suddenly exhausted. It had been a long day at the end of a long week, and my chest hurt. I wanted to scream, to cry, to throw things, but I didn’t have the energy. I wanted to black out and find Pritkin there when I woke up. I wanted . . 
    God. Sometimes I didn’t even know.
    “Not tonight,” I admitted, rubbing the back of my neck. If I hadn’t felt up to dealing with a few nosy witches, I sure couldn’t take whatever was guarding dear old Mom.
    “Come back to the suite,” Billy told me softly. “Before you give Marco a heart attack. Get some rest. Tomorrow . . . maybe things will look different.”
    In other words, tomorrow maybe I’d come to my senses.
    “Yeah, maybe,” I said, because I didn’t want to argue anymore.
    Billy nodded, and winked out, looking relieved. Which did exactly nothing to make me feel better. Despite the way he’d been sounding lately, Billy Joe wasn’t the timid type. Billy Joe had been a high-stakes gambler in life, until he ended up in a sack at the bottom of the Mississippi for cheating the wrong guys. When Billy thought something was too risky . . 
    Well, let’s just say the odds weren’t great.
    And it wasn’t like everything he’d said wasn’t true. But so was something he hadn’t bothered to mention. That if our positions were reversed, Pritkin would have come after me. Whether I’d liked it or not, whether I’d wanted him to risk it or not, he wouldn’t have just left me there. It probably wouldn’t even have crossed his mind. I knew that, with more certainty than I knew which direction the sun would rise tomorrow.
    So how could I just leave him?
    I curled up on his messy bed, and even after a week, the sheets still smelled good. Like soap and gunpowder and magic. I lay there, staring at the ceiling, and didn’t cry. Because it was weak, and I couldn’t afford to be weak.
    And because you only cried for people who weren’t coming back.
    And that wasn’t the case here, no matter how it looked. I had to get to him, had to get him away from his loathsome father, had to find a way to keep him. And for that, I had to get to my mother.
    Somehow.
    But it had been a week, and so far, I hadn’t even managed that first step. I’d exhausted myself flipping around through time like a crazy woman. I’d been chased by guards through the old Pythian Court, almost gotten myself run over in London, been shot at by Tony’s thugs. And for what? I was no closer to finding Pritkin than I’d been a week ago.
    When he left me.

Chapter Five
    “The Star . . ”
    A soft chime woke me.
    “The Star . . . The Star . . . The Star . . ”
    A soft, annoying chime.
    I groaned and rolled over, because it was too damned early, and the chime suddenly became more muffled. “The Star . . . The Star . . . The Star . . ”
    I