Tempt the Stars

when the lazy drift became a tidal wave threatening to sweep me off to some other shoreline altogether.
    I lay back slowly, carefully. And the crashing waves gradually diminished to nauseating undulations. Which wasn’t a great improvement, but at least I was conscious. But lying there, trapped by my body, virtually helpless when I had about a thousand questions to ask—
    I almost wished I was unconscious.
    Because this was torture.
    But, slowly, my eyes adjusted. Enough to see a strip of light leaking in under the door, some night-in-the-city faux dark sifting in through a minuscule gap in the blackout curtains over the windows, and the soft glow of my alarm clock, too dim to read. And a small rectangle gleaming on the nightstand, just below it . . 
    And I found I could move, after all, because it was my phone.
    My hands were shaking so much that I almost dropped it, and the light from the screen was blinding up close. But my fingers somehow found the right buttons.
U K?
    I hit SEND . And then I waited, feeling dizzy and sweaty and hopeful and sick. And keeping an eye on the door because the vamps usually knew when I’d woken up. Changes in my heart rate and breathing told them, even when I wasn’t about to hyperventilate.
    For a long moment, there was no response. And my breathing started to get ragged, which was stupid, because it wouldn’t help. I told myself to calm down, that signs of distress were only going to get me noticed faster, that the last thing I needed was a bunch of questions I couldn’t answer. . . 
    But it wasn’t working.
    And then I got a text back, and felt my spine unknot slightly.
    Until I read it.
    Yes, now let me sleep.
    Sure, Caleb, I thought viciously, jabbing in a response.
S P K? tel me w@ hapnd!
    There was no response for a long moment. My hand flexed and I had to almost physically restrain myself from throwing the phone at the wall. And then—
    I am too old for this shit.
    I stared at the little screen:
w@?!
    Stop doing that.
    I took a deep breath. Caleb rarely used text speak, and he hated when I did. He was also a grammar Nazi, so I tried to be careful as I translated.
    Is P. okay? What happened?
    H & r dis. tt C. P held. U sum.
    I just stared at that bit of nonsense for a long moment, wondering if I was going crazy or if Caleb was. No wonder he hated text speak. He sucked at it.
    In English?
    I waited while Caleb typed. And typed. And typed. Was he
trying
to give me a heart attack?
    He and Rosier disappeared. I talked to Casanova. He said P. is being held until the hearing. You’ll be summoned.
    I stared at that, but it still didn’t make much sense.
    Held where?
    Where do you think?
    Damn it, Caleb!
    Well, what did you expect? That they were just going to leave him here?
    YES! We went through all that, and they let R just TAKE him?
    More interminable typing. I was beginning to think Caleb only used one finger. One that I was going to
break off . . . 
    He doesn’t have him. He’s with the council. And before you freak out, Casanova said there are rules.
    Rules? These are demons!
    And he’s part of their ruling class. And they have privileges, in case you didn’t notice.
    I flashed on the crazy chariot driver in the souk, and the way everyone had practically kowtowed while he ran them down. Yeah, I’d noticed. But Pritkin was half human, and his other half was incubus, and they didn’t seem to get a lot of respect. The council sure hadn’t seemed to mind the idea of losing Rosier.
    Of course, that might just be good taste.
    What privileges?
I typed.
    Like they can’t kill him w/o a trial.
    Great. That made my stomach feel so much better.
Wens it?
    What?
    WHEN IS IT?
    Don’t yell at me. And I don’t know. Casanova said it could be anything from hours to days.
    How am I supposed to know when that is?
I didn’t subscribe to the
Hell Gazette
.
    C. said you’ll know. Now get some sleep. Or at least let me!
    Yeah, right, I thought, and started typing in another message. But Caleb had the usual war mage stubbornness, either that or he’d turned off his phone. Because I didn’t get anything back.
    I lay there for a while, trying again. And again, and again, because I can be stubborn, too. But I finally gave up, panting, because even
texting
was exhausting me. So I just lay there, staring at the ceiling instead.
    I didn’t understand a goddamned thing. I’d spent a week, desperately trying everything I knew, in order to get to Pritkin. And when I finally