18. Redline
Chapter eighteen
Redline
Lorelei
Ash is waiting outside my music building when class ends.
Of course he is. He’s leaning against the hood of his car with his arms folded, sunglasses on despite the sun already dropping behind the west buildings, looking like somebody sent a bodyguard to collect a woman who explicitly did not order one.
Kiwi spots him first.
“Oh,” she says.
That one syllable contains judgment, curiosity, and at least three follow-up questions she has enough survival instinct not to ask while he can hear.
“Ignore him.”
“Can he hear us?”
“Yes.”
“Then I support you completely and have never said anything negative about his hovering.”
Ash lifts one hand, and Kiwi waves back.
Traitor.
Zaconia comes down the steps behind us, takes in Ash and his aggressively parked car, then looks at me.
“Your ride?”
“No.”
Ash pushes away from the hood.
“My ride,” I say, “has apparently developed free will.”
“You said you needed to get back to the house.”
“I said I was going back to the house.”
“Same destination.”
“Not remotely the same sentence.”
Kiwi touches my arm. “You want me to wait?”
Ash hears her. His expression barely changes, but I catch the shift anyway. He isn’t angry with her. If anything, he looks offended that she has a reason to ask.
I look at him, then at Kiwi.
“No. I’m good.”
She doesn’t believe me. People have gotten very good at that lately.
“Text me.”
“I will.”
Zaconia blows me a kiss and follows her toward the parking lot, and I watch until they disappear between two cars. When I turn back, Ash already has the passenger door open.
I don’t move.
“You know there are entire transportation apps built around asking people whether they want rides.”
“You don’t have to get in.”
The answer catches me off guard.
Ash takes his hand off the door. “I mean it.”
“Since when?”
His jaw shifts. “Since you made it pretty clear you hate me showing up places without asking.”
“I don’t remember making that clear.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Interesting.
I tighten my grip on my bag. “So what happens if I say no?”
“I leave.”
“You’ll follow me?”
“No.”
“Drive past my apartment twelve times?”
His mouth almost moves. “Probably not twelve.”
“Ash.”
The humor leaves his face.
“No. I’ll leave.”
A part of me built entirely from spite and suspicion immediately wants to test him.
“No, then.”
He nods once, closes the passenger door, and gets behind the wheel.
I stand on the curb while the engine starts, waiting for him to sit there until I change my mind or make me feel guilty for refusing.
He doesn’t.
The car pulls away, and I watch his taillights disappear at the end of the lane.
Well.
That’s irritating.
I don’t know what to do with growth when it arrives without making a speech about itself.
My phone buzzes.
Ash: call if you need me
I stare at the message before typing back.
Me: that was almost normal
Three dots appear, disappear, then return.
Ash: don’t ruin it
I laugh despite myself, which annoys me too.
I end up taking the bus. It smells like wet fabric, somebody’s fries, and a personal choice several seats behind me that I’m trying not to identify. A toddler screams for seven consecutive stops because his mother won’t let him lick the window.
Honestly, relatable.
By the time I reach the house, the sky has gone purple above the gates, and I know something is wrong before I get inside.
This family rarely announces disaster at volume. It parks three identical black cars in the circular drive and expects everyone else to recognize the warning.
The cars have European plates, and one bears a small gold emblem near the rear window: a circle crossed by three vertical lines.
I’ve seen it before on Nico’s cufflinks.
I stop halfway up the steps.
Helena opens the door before I touch it, her gaze traveling past me toward the distant bus stop before returning to my face.
“You took public transport.”
“Congratulations. We solved our first mystery.”
“Mr. Vale was meant to collect you.”
“He did. Then he discovered consent.”
Helena’s expression suggests consent is an administrative inconvenience she would prefer not to discuss before dinner.
“There are guests,” she says. “Your mother asked that you change before coming down.”
“Why?”
“Dinner.”
“That word keeps doing a lot of unpaid labor in this house.”
She steps aside, and I enter.
The foyer smells different: incense, but not the kind used at church. This is sharper, all resin and smoke with something floral caught beneath it. Voices carry from the formal dining room, French and English and another language I don’t recognize overlapping in low conversation.
My pulse speeds, and there’s no coke and no flower to blame.
Good to know I can still manufacture bad decisions naturally.
I should go upstairs and change.
Instead, I follow the voices.
The dining-room doors are open a few inches.
Through the gap, I can see Alistair at the head of the table and Dominic seated to his right.
Nico sits farther down with one hand around the stem of a wineglass he isn’t drinking from, while Cassian stands beside the sideboard with a cream folder open near his elbow.
Three strangers occupy the opposite side of the table: an older man, a woman with silver hair, and someone around my age whose back is turned to me.
Nobody notices me at first.
The older man is speaking.
“—the French branch has already agreed to the sequence. Ravello will accept the transfer after Liore signs.”
Transfer.
My hand tightens around the edge of the door.
“Marazul will not move until her standing is confirmed,” Alistair says.
“Her standing was confirmed at the Offering.”
“No. Her local standing was confirmed.”
Local.
Nico looks toward the doorway and finds me.
His face doesn’t change enough.
That’s how I know I should leave.
I push the door open instead.
“What transfer?”
Every person at the table stops.
There it is, my favorite family tradition: silence, followed by everybody deciding who gets to lie first.
Alistair rises. “Lorelei.”
“Don’t.” The word comes out harder than I intended.
Good.
“Don’t Lorelei me like I walked into the wrong conference room. What transfer?”
The young man across from Nico turns.
I know immediately that I’ve never met him, and I also know somebody expected me to.
He has dark hair, a narrow face, and the deeply unfortunate calm of someone raised in a house where silence means status. His gaze travels over me once, not leering but assessing.
Which is worse.
“Who is that?”
Alistair doesn’t answer.
Nico does.
“étienne Laurent.”
The man inclines his head. “Lorelei.”
He knows my name.
Of course he does.
“Why?”
étienne glances toward the older man beside him, his father, presumably, or whoever this family has assigned to speak on his behalf.
The older man smiles.
“Your reputation travels.”
“I don’t have a reputation.”
“You do.”
“Then somebody’s been working overtime.”
“Enough,” Alistair says.
I turn on him.
“No, actually. Not enough. That seems to be the problem.”
Carmen appears behind me and touches my elbow. I didn’t hear her approach.
“Lo.”
I pull away before I think about it.
She flinches.
I hate that I caused it and hate even more that I don’t apologize.
“What is Liore?”
Nico closes his eyes for half a second.
Cassian goes completely still beside the folder.
There.
Found something.
“What is Ravello?” I ask. “What does local standing mean?”
Alistair comes around the table. “You are not prepared for this conversation.”
I laugh, and the sound comes out wrong in the formal room.
“Do you people practice that sentence together?”
“Lorelei.”
“No. I have been measured, dressed, anointed, watched, claimed, and signed for. Now I find out I’m being discussed internationally, but somehow the conversation is the dangerous part?”
The silver-haired woman looks at Alistair instead of me.
“Perhaps,” she says, “this should have been handled before her arrival.”
“My arrival where?”
Carmen grips the back of a chair. Nico looks furious now, though not at me — at Alistair, Dominic, the visitors, or possibly every person in the room.
étienne says nothing.
So I turn on him.
“Are you the one I’m supposed to choose?”
The question hits the table like a dropped glass.
Dominic’s expression changes, the reaction tiny but enough.
I don’t understand the whole arrangement yet, but I understand enough: Rafe’s brother came home because Dominic wanted another set of eyes on the preparation, Dominic spoke about a father being disappointed, and someone else’s son was already involved before anyone told me there would be another choice to make.
étienne’s father answers first.
“There are protocols.”
“Great. I love protocols. They’ve been wonderful to me.”
“Lorelei,” Cassian says.
I look at him.
He has no right to sound worried, which is inconveniently different from me wanting him not to be.
“What?”
“This is not the place.”
“Then tell me the place.”
He doesn’t answer.
Of course he doesn’t.
Whatever has been holding me together gives way so cleanly that the anger on the other side feels almost peaceful.
I turn toward the sideboard.
The folder beside Cassian is made of cream stock with brass corners, and I recognize it before I touch it. Cassian moves, and so do three other people.
They’re too late.
I grab the folder.
Alistair’s voice changes.
“Put that down.”
Finally.
A sentence without incense on it.
I open the cover.
The first page is mine.
Lorelei Vale.
Still wrong.
Beneath the name is a sequence of dates and locations connected by arrows: Marazul, Liore, Ravello. At the bottom, a line in smaller print reads, Local rite establishes eligibility for inter-branch consideration.
My eyes stop there.
Not marriage, not exactly, and apparently not yet.
Consideration.
Several names appear beneath mine: Cassian Vale. Rafael Devereaux. A red line striking through the space where Asher Vale used to be. Nicolas Devereaux. étienne Laurent.
Two more names I don’t recognize.
My stomach drops.
Then I turn the page and find a record I don’t remember signing.
Communion witness: Marcus Deering. Sponsor: Cassian Vale.
Beneath Cassian’s name, in ink that looks far too calm, is mine.
My right hand closes around nothing.
For half a second, there is pressure against my fingers and warmth over the back of my hand, someone else’s grip folding mine shut around something I cannot see. The dining room disappears beneath the smell of oil and iron, and a flash of certainty moves through me so hard my stomach turns.
I’m about to reach the end of something.
Then it’s gone.
I’m standing in the dining room again, holding a page that says Marcus was there.
I don’t remember Marcus being there.
I look up.
Cassian is already watching me.
Whatever he sees on my face makes him close his eyes.
I turn the page again.
Travel authorizations. Medical clearance. A blank section labeled FINAL PLACEMENT.
The Offering was not the destination.
It was qualification.
The ritual, the flower, the witnesses and chanting, the folder closing after Rafe and Cassian signed — all of it was paperwork for whatever comes next.
I close the folder.
Nobody tries to take it from me now, which is how bad the room has gotten.
Alistair watches me with disappointment in his face, not because I found the file but because I found it before he wanted me to.
“You were going to send me somewhere.”
“No.”
“Bullshit.”
“The branch sequence is not relocation.”
“Then explain it.”
“You are not ready.”
I throw the folder.
Not at him.
I wish I could say that was restraint, but mostly I don’t want him touching anything I touched.
It hits the table hard enough to knock Nico’s glass sideways, and red wine runs through the scattered pages, bleeding across names, arrows, and dates.
Nobody moves to save them.
Good.
“Stop deciding that.” My voice shakes, but I don’t care. “Stop deciding what I’m ready for. Stop deciding what I know, where I go, who I want, and what my body means on whatever fucking chart you people keep updating while I’m asleep.”
Carmen says my name.
I look at her.
She appears devastated, and I cannot afford to find out why.
Not tonight.
“I’m leaving.”
Alistair’s expression hardens.
“No.”
There it is.
The real word beneath all the careful ones.
I turn toward the hall, and Ash is standing there.
I don’t know when he arrived, but his face takes in the table, the spilled folder, me, and Alistair in one sweep, every protective instinct in him visibly waking.
For once, I don’t want it.
“Ash.”
He looks at me.
“Don’t.”
The word catches him mid-step.
I point toward the front door. “I’m leaving. You are not coming.”
His jaw locks, and for one terrible second I know everything he wants to say: it isn’t safe, don’t go alone, not after this.
I watch him swallow all of it.
“Okay.”
One word, with no argument, no condition, no demand that I call when I get wherever I’m going.
He steps aside.
I walk past him.
At the front door, my hands shake too hard to work the lock. Ash reaches past me, then stops before touching it.
He looks at me.
I nod.
Only then does he open the door.
The night air hits my face, and I keep walking.
Nobody follows me out of the house.
For the first time since I came here, I leave because I said I was leaving.
I make it halfway down the drive before I realize I still have one page from the folder clenched in my hand.
I don’t remember taking it.
Under the gate lights, I unfold the paper.
Six cities.
Four countries.
My name running through all of them.
Marazul is circled, with Liore next in the sequence, and beyond that are Ravello and three branches I have never heard of.
At the bottom, beside a date six weeks away, someone has written a single word in red.
TRANSFER.
I stare until the letters stop looking like language.
Then I start walking again.