Page 2 of Redline Communion

“Did you ask me down here to discuss wound care?”

“I didn’t ask you here.”

“You made me coffee.”

“Because you were going to come downstairs eventually.”

“And you know that because?”

“Because you’ve never once let a bad night end quietly. I heard you get up twice before you actually came down. You don’t do anything the first time you decide to.”

The problem with Cassian is that he can say something that sounds almost like a compliment and still make it feel like he’s been taking notes on me.

I wrap both hands around the mug. “What does not yet mean?”

He doesn’t answer immediately.

“Real answer,” I add. “Not one of those sentences you people dress up and send out pretending they have jobs.”

Cassian turns his mug a quarter inch against the counter, buying himself time. I clock it instantly, delighted despite myself. Dominic does the exact same thing with his glass when he’s deciding how much truth a person can survive.

Careful men. Expensive habits.

I decide Cassian is stalling because he already knows the answer and doesn’t want to give it to me. It’s easier than wondering whether he doesn’t know how.

“It means you still have a lot to learn,” he says.

I stare at him.

“Wow. Incredible. Truly nothing I couldn’t have gotten out of a fortune cookie.”

“It’s the truest answer I can give you.”

“It’s a cop-out.”

“I didn’t say it was interesting.”

I hate that I almost laugh, mostly because he notices. There’s the faintest shift in his expression, quick enough that I couldn’t pretend I imagined it if pretending had been working out particularly well for me lately.

“Your father called me Lorelei Vale.”

“He called you that because he wanted to see how you’d react.”

“And?”

“Now he knows.”

“That I don’t like people changing my name without asking?”

“No. He knows that you’ll correct him in front of an audience.”

I think of the floodlights. Helena’s folder. The way the crowd kept cheering while Marcus vanished beyond the garages. I think of Alistair watching me as though I’d handed him information just by refusing his name.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It’s something he’ll remember. Whether that’s good is still to be decided.”

“Is that supposed to scare me?”