Tempt the Stars

Chapter Twenty-eight

“Release her!” Caleb jumped to his feet and threw out a hand—and a spell. Which ricocheted off the demon lord at my side and exploded against the ceiling, leaving a big black mark among the dirt and smoke stains. None of the bar’s regulars so much as flinched, except for the bartender, who hurried over with a bow and another glass.

Pritkin didn’t react, except to pour another drink, so I didn’t, either. We both knew Rosier couldn’t hurt me. He’d sworn a vow, which apparently would kill him if he broke it, not to take my life.

Unfortunately, it hadn’t said anything about not plaguing my existence.

“Sit, sit,” Rosier told Caleb genially, who was looking in confusion from Pritkin to his father, maybe because he’d finally noticed that my assailant and his friend could have been twins.

I guess he’d kind of been too busy before.

Well, except that one twin had never had a chance to clean up after his joyride out of hell. As a result, Pritkin’s bare chest was streaked with dirt, his hair shed little puffs of dust if he moved too fast, and he hadn’t lost his shoes only because he hadn’t had any on to begin with. He had found some jeans somewhere to replace the ridiculous silky pants, but that was about the only improvement.

Rosier, in contrast, was wearing a plain dark gray suit, but the cut would have made Armani weep with envy. His shoes were polished to a high shine. His casual silk shirt was forest green, his son’s favorite color.

Or maybe it was his, too, although probably not for the same reason.

At a guess, Pritkin liked it because it had reminded him of home while he was stuck in the middle of the desert. Rosier probably chose it deliberately, to bring out the vivid color of his eyes. The ones that were so much like his son’s. The ones that were smiling at me as he took a seat.

I had to sit on my hands so I wouldn’t try anything fun—like clawing them out.

“Don’t stop there,” Rosier said, glancing at Pritkin. “Tell her the rest.”

Pritkin ignored him. Caleb remained standing, body tense and ready. The only one who moved was Casanova, slowly sliding under the table.

“Very well. I shall, then, yes?” Rosier glanced around at us, white teeth bared. “Let us see. I believe Emrys covered the part about—”

“His name is Pritkin,” I said harshly, cutting the bastard off.

“That’s even worse than the terrible ‘John,’” Rosier reproached. “In any case, Emrys is a human name.”

“But he doesn’t like it.”

More big white teeth. “In life, my dear, there is much we do not like but have to accept. It is part of growing up. Something Emrys is long overdue to learn.”

I glared at him. He grinned back. The kind of reckless, insouciant grin I would have thought Pritkin incapable of, before I saw him windsurfing a rug through hell. “You really don’t favor your mother, do you?” Rosier asked, searching my face. “Pity.” He leaned back and a lit cigarette appeared in his hand. “Now, there was a beautiful

woman.”

“Too bad she thought of you as cattle,” I snapped.

Rosier didn’t look perturbed. “Yes, no doubt. And that is part of your problem, isn’t it?”

I debated not answering, but I needed to know what he meant. I needed to know why Pritkin was just sitting there drinking, instead of yelling or conniving or . . . or doing something to try to get out of this mess. I needed to know why he looked like we’d already failed.

“What is?” I finally asked.

“You haven’t put it together yet?” Rosier sighed out some smoke. “But then, you always were a little slow, weren’t you?”

“Then make it simple,” I grated out, wishing I had something, anything, that would work on this son of a bitch. But it’s a little hard to age someone out of existence when that existence is measured in millennia.

“Very well,” he said, suddenly brisk. “The so-called gods might have fed off us, but it seems they weren’t much kinder to their human bait. Except for your mother, who decided that they were destroying the creatures to which she’d foolishly allowed herself to become attached. Or so she said.” He let out a sigh and looked at me through the haze of smoke. “I’ve always found that excuse to be rather . . . paltry . . . for someone decidedly not steeped in sentiment.”

I glared at him. “So? What does any of this have to do with—”

“Think about it, girl, assuming you have the capacity! She wants to protect her beloved humans, she determines that her fellow gods must go, and her gift—which was rather stronger than your little version, by the way—would allow her to banish them and slam the gates shut behind them. The trick, of course, was ensuring that they did not return.”

“She used a spell,” I said, wondering why my stomach had just dropped.

“Yes, a spell. Which she had to cast herself, and then maintain until her little Silver Band or what have you could grow strong enough to do it themselves. And there was sure to be opposition, sure to be a mass of forces battering the other side. By denying her fellow gods the free run of earth, she was also denying them their only way into the hells. No more fat . . . cows, was it? No more free meals. Without earth, they were restricted to the heavens, and if that wasn’t enough, she cut them off from Faerie, as well! I suppose she had to; better to block the whole bridge than half, and she had so many faithful worshippers among the fey. . . ”

Rosier paused, but I didn’t say anything this time. Because he was right—sometimes I didn’t pick up on things as fast as Pritkin or Caleb. Sometimes this crazy new world I’d somehow stumbled into made my head hurt trying to comprehend it. Sometimes I’d bitched about wishing I had an instruction book, something to lay it all out, to make it simple.

Right now I was kind of glad I didn’t.

Because right now my brain was coming up with answers I didn’t like.

“Starting to make sense?” Rosier asked evilly. “A huge spell, a god-denying spell, and not just around one world, but encircling two. And then to hold it, against all comers? To reinforce it as needed, until the weak, pathetic humans could take over? Where did she get that kind of power, hmm? She was strong, yes, but not that strong! Not anything close. So where do you think it came from?”

I looked at Pritkin, but his eyes were on his father. He hadn’t said anything, but one hand was flexing slightly. I didn’t like that. I liked Pritkin loud and bitching, in other words, his normal state. I didn’t like it when he got quiet.

Nobody else usually did, either.

“Where?” Rosier asked, and his hand hit the table, hard enough to make me flinch. “You can’t be that dim-witted!”

“She hunted demons for it,” I said, because he was right; it was obvious.

“Yes” came out as a hiss. “But not just any demons. She’d always gone after big prey in any case, preferring a challenge. Why should this be any different? And, really, small fry wouldn’t help her. She needed so much power, only the biggest, juiciest prey would do. She hunted, oh yes—Artemis the huntress, Hel with her fiery hunting dogs, Diana with her bow! She hunted in whatever name they call her, whatever confused, tortured, muddled memory they have, the people in my world, in yours, across hundreds more, they may have forgotten much, but they remember that yes, she hunted.”

There was no pretense of amiability now, no calm demeanor, no mask. Rosier was on his feet, backing me into the wall, the face that was usually so like his son’s suddenly alien as it twisted in pain, in fury.

“Through thousands of years, across hundreds of generations, even your people could not forget the vague but persistent memory of the greatest hunt of them all! It’s in your statues, on your vases, in virtually every depiction of her ever made. The memory of the methodical, the tactical, the relentless butchering—”

“No!”

“Yes! The butchering of the greatest among us. The Great Reaping of the demon lords.” My back hit the wall, but he didn’t stop coming. “Just where, my dear, do you suppose my father went? Why am I Lord of the Incubi, and not him? Did you never wonder what became of him? Never crossed your mind? No?”

I shook my head. This couldn’t be true. Couldn’t be. The demons . . . they could be terrifying, but they weren’t . . . they couldn’t have deserved . . . it wasn’t true.

“She killed him on a whim. Happened across him one day when she was raiding elsewhere and followed him home. Might not have bothered to venture into our world otherwise, as her daughter would so recklessly and thoughtlessly do, for we incubi, we’re not worth the effort. But when he fled for his life, in mortal peril, the instinct of the hunter—”

“I don’t believe you! Why should I believe you?”

“You don’t need to take my word for it. You wish to have your day in court? Please. Feel free. Go plead your case in front of the survivors of your mother’s massacre, and see how far you get! But this one,” Rosier said, grabbing the shoulder of the son who still hadn’t moved. “The one you took from me, as your mother took my sire—no. No, little child of Artemis, no. Him you do not take!”

And suddenly, something came over me at the sight of Rosier’s hand clenching on Pritkin, of his fingers digging into his flesh. Something wild and strange and unexpected. Something I didn’t understand except as a trickle of that dark emotion I’d felt on seeing Pritkin again, trapped and coddled at his father’s court, dressed in finery he had no use for, surrounded by sleek, sterile perfection instead of his usual cheerful mess, with none of the things he loved in sight, no potions, no books, no crazy weapons for fighting the creatures that were his jailers now.

Just a man lost and bitter and alone, in a world he hated. A man surrounded by the jealousies of a court who would happily see him dead. A man who was suffering for one reason, and one reason only.

Because he had dared to help me.

And suddenly, the trickle became a flood.

“I will take him,” I said, knocking Rosier’s hand away, “anywhere I damned well please, demon!”

“Ah, there it is,” he hissed. “There it is! The arrogance of the goddess. Unfortunately, you are not your mother, girl. You do not have the power to back it up. You don’t have the power to do anything. Why you’re not dead yet, I will never understand, but I have the strong suspicion that it has a great deal to do with bewitching my son.

Somehow.” He looked utterly baffled. “Somehow you managed to tie him to you, to drag him into your fights, to endanger his life again and again. But no more!”

“That’s for the council to decide.”

“It’s not their concern!” Rosier snapped, and pulled on his son’s arm. “Any more than it is yours. Come, Emrys.”

Pritkin didn’t move.

His father made a disgusted sound. “You know how this will end!”

“He doesn’t know!” I said. “None of us do, until the council rules. And my mother said—”

“Your mother hasn’t seen the council in thousands of years! She doesn’t know anything about it! She was lying to you, girl, probably to get you to stop plaguing her life!”

I flinched, because I’d had a similar thought myself. But I didn’t really believe it. And even if it was true, it wouldn’t change anything.

What other choice did we have?

“I don’t know what will happen if we go in front of the council,” I told Pritkin honestly. “But I know what will happen if you go back there, back to that life. And so do you.”

He didn’t look at me—it was almost like he didn’t even hear me—and Rosier smiled.

“Yes, he knows. He’ll be the prince of a great house. You would have him a pauper. He’ll rule a large court, and have influence in countless others. You would have him a servant, running your errands, cleaning up your endless debacles! I will give him a vast kingdom—what would you give him?”

I looked up, so angry I could hardly see. “His freedom!”

Rosier snorted out a laugh. “That hoary platitude. Sometimes I forget what a child you are.”

“It isn’t childish to want to choose your own life!”

“No, it’s criminally naive. The only free person is the beggar in the gutter. And he’s only free to be cuffed about by his betters. Everyone of any substance has obligations. It is time for Emrys to live up to his.”

He pulled on his son’s arm again, and this time, it worked. Pritkin got up. And I grabbed his other arm in both of mine, because this wasn’t happening.

“Pritkin, please. Mother wouldn’t have sent me here if she didn’t think there was a chance!”

Nothing.

“Why won’t you play for that chance?” I said, my voice rising in panic because I didn’t understand this. I didn’t understand any of this!

“You’re better off if I don’t,” he told me, lifting his head.

“What?” I asked incredulously. Because he looked like he meant it.

“Finally, he comes to his senses,” Rosier said, pulling his son away, only to have Caleb step in front of him. “Have a care, war mage! I have taken no oath to spare you!”

“Right back at you,” Caleb said, eyes steady and feet planted.

“You’re as foolhardy as she is,” Rosier snapped. And then kept on talking, which he liked to do as much as his son didn’t. But I wasn’t listening.

“How can you say that?” I asked Pritkin. “How can you just give up?”

“I’m not giving up. I’m accepting reality.”

“What reality? You don’t want to go back there! And I need you—”

“You don’t, as you’ve made clear these past few days. If you can break into my father’s court, fight off the council’s own guards, force a meeting . . ” He ran a hand through his hair. “You’ll be all right, Cassie.”

“No! I won’t be! I need you—”

“Why? What can I give you that others can’t?”

“What?”

Green eyes suddenly burned into mine. “It’s a simple question. You said you need me. Why?”

“I—I told you. This job—”

“Which you’re handling admirably.”

“I am not! I couldn’t even get to my parents without help!”

“There are other demon experts—Jonas for one.”

“But I need you!”

And all of a sudden, Pritkin was backing me around the table. Not like his father had done, in a rush of anger, but slowly, relentlessly. To the point that I kept tripping over chairs.

“Then give me a reason.”

“I . . . there’s so many—”

“Name one.”

“I can name a hundred—”

“I didn’t ask for a hundred; I asked for one. And you can’t give it to me.”

“Yes, I can!”

“Then do it!”

“I . . ” I stared at him, because he looked like there was a lot riding on my answer. Maybe everything. And I didn’t know what he wanted to hear, because I’d told him the truth. There were literally so many things that I didn’t know where to start. How could he not see all the ways he’d changed my life? How could he not know—

But he didn’t. It was in the way he turned his head away, when I just stood there. In the way he closed his eyes. In the small, self-mocking smile that played around his lips that I didn’t understand but knew couldn’t be good.

I had to say something, and it had to be the right thing, and I didn’t know—

Pritkin’s eyes opened, but I couldn’t read his expression. For once, the face that was usually flowing with a thousand emotions was . . . blank. Resigned. He was already distancing himself, already leaving me in every way that mattered, before his body ever walked out that door.

And I didn’t know what to do about it.

“You’re right,” I told him desperately. “I can get others to do what you do. They won’t be as good, but . . . okay. It could work. But it doesn’t matter because no matter how good they are, they can’t replace you. They can’t because I don’t need you only for what you can do. I need you . . . for you.”

I’d learned that the hard way, all week. I hadn’t realized how much I’d relied on his scowls or his shrugs or his grudging looks of approval to help me figure something out—until they weren’t there anymore. Or how I could talk to some people about a lot of things, but only to him about everything.

And how unbelievably valuable that was.

I stared into his eyes, wondering how to get through. I sucked at emotional stuff; I always had. It was easier to make a joke or some stupid quip than to try to put into words emotions I was never supposed to have. Emotions that were dangerous to have, because they left you vulnerable and I’d learned early that vulnerability was a very bad thing.

When I’d heard that my governess had been murdered by Tony, I hadn’t cried. It had felt like someone had twisted a knife in my gut, but I still hadn’t, because I knew she’d hate it. Knew she’d view it as weakness. “Tears are useless,” she’d told me a hundred times. “Don’t cry; act!”

And I’d tried. I’d tried. Because mostly I agreed with her. But now I didn’t know what actions would help, and I didn’t have the words.

I didn’t have anything.

“You called me admirable,” I told him miserably. “But I’m not. I mess up all the time, and not all of them are things I know how to fix. The Pythia is supposed to have all this power, but there’s plenty I can’t fix! And some days, most days lately, I just feel like . . . like I’m going to explode. And there’s nobody around to tell me I’m being stupid or to bring me terrible coffee or to make me run a marathon until I’m too tired to worry about it anymore. Or just to listen—”

“To your unending babble?” Rosier snarled, turning away from Caleb. “If you want a confidant, buy a diary! My son is meant for better things!”

I met Pritkin’s eyes. “Yes. You are. But you asked. And I don’t know how to say it right; I don’t know what you want. I just know I need you, I need you, I can’t do this without you—” I was crying now, as I hadn’t for Eugenie, as I hadn’t for myself. But I couldn’t help it because I was screwing this up, I was getting this all wrong, and he was going to leave—

“Oh, spare us,” Rosier said, sounding disgusted, but I barely heard him. All I could see was Pritkin’s face. All I could think was that this might be the last time I ever saw it.

And that was enough to do what an army of demons hadn’t, and send me into a full-blown panic. “You can’t go! You can’t!”

Hard hands tightened over mine. “Cassie—”

“Just try. You just have to try.”

“It isn’t that simple. Even if—” He stopped.

“Even if what?”

“Cassie, the council . . . it isn’t like a human court, with rules and procedures and some semblance of justice. They are arbitrary and capricious at best, and at worst . . . they’re the definition of chaos.”

I blinked at him. Because I’d heard that word before. “Mother said chaos is like jumping off a cliff, not knowing what’s at the bottom,” I told him. “But she didn’t seem to think that was so bad. I didn’t understand what she meant then, but I think . . . maybe I do now. Sometimes there are no guarantees. Sometimes, if you want something badly enough, you just have to jump.”

Pritkin still didn’t move, but something shifted in his face as he looked at me. I wasn’t sure what it was, but his father didn’t seem to like it. At all.

“Fine,” Rosier said flatly. “We’ll do this the hard way.”