Page 150 of Legacy Elite

"Then you understand what I'm asking."

"I do. And you'll get most of it." I take them one at a time, because if I'm going to refuse the man I should be precise about what I'm not refusing. "I won't claim to speak for her. Not in a chamber, not at a dinner, not to a journalist. If anyone assumes I do, I'll correct them publicly.

"I won't promise her Draeven's support on anything. Not the seal, not restoration, not a vote. She'll never hear from me that this House is behind her, because I don't know that it is.

"I won't pass her anything of ours. Nothing confidential. Nothing from a briefing. Nothing said in this room tonight.

"And if a real conflict comes, I'll say so. Out loud. To all three of you on the same day."

"But," my father says.

"But I'm not stepping away from her to improve how this looks. I'm not going home for a term." I make myself say the last part properly, because he has never once accepted a sentence I softened. "And if somebody eventually stands in front of me and says Draeven or her, it won't be a long conversation."

Nobody says anything.

My father looks at me for what is probably ten seconds.

"Well," he says.

"Yes."

"You understand this may cost you."

"I know."

"Do you?" And there's something under it that isn't anger. "I don't think you do, Lucian. You've never lost anything. That isn't a criticism, it's a description. You've been extremely fortunate and extremely capable and those two have never once pulled against each other, so you've never had to find out what you'd actually pay."

I think about a woman at the end of a table saying they brought six.

"Yes," I say.

He looks at me a moment longer.

"All right," he says.

And that's it. Nobody disowns anybody. Isolde starts putting papers into a case and my father finally drinks from his glass, and the whole thing dissolves back into a family in a room, which is harder than the alternative.

At the door, Isolde touches my arm.

"For what it's worth, I like her."

"I know."

"No," she says. "You assumed. I'm telling you."

I'm halfway into the corridor when my father says my name.

I stop.

"I hope nobody makes you choose," he says.

I look back at him standing in the middle of a borrowed room.

"So do I," I say.

Chapter twenty-one

Jessica