Page 49 of Ignition Rites

I pull my hand out of Rafe’s grip.

“Where are they taking him?”

Alistair says nothing.

Helena does.

“Lorelei Vale.”

The name carries cleanly across the space between us, and my skin goes cold, not because of Lorelei, which is mine, but because the surname isn’t.

“That’s not my name.”

It comes out too sharp and too loud, enough to turn more heads.

Alistair’s mouth curves faintly. “Not yet.”

The words hit harder than anything else tonight. Marcus is moved around me, and I follow him with my eyes until the crowd closes behind the men and swallows all three of them.

Rafe comes to stand beside me, and for once he doesn’t touch me.

“That,” he says quietly. “That’s what I was trying to tell you in the garden.”

“You said you’d seen it.”

“Yeah.”

“What happens after they walk them out?”

His attention stays fixed on the place Marcus disappeared. “That part I’ve never seen.”

“Never?”

“Nico and I knew better than to follow when we were younger.”

The way he says it makes me think knew better means somebody taught them, probably the hard way.

“So you know what happens.”

“I know what people say happens.”

“That’s different.”

“I know.”

Across the circuit, Alistair is still watching.

Cassian notices before I do and steps toward me with a folded white cloth.

“For your hands.”

Only then do I realize I’ve dug my nails hard enough into my palms to leave crescents.

I take it, and his fingers brush mine as the silver band on his right hand catches the floodlight. Now that I’ve seen Alistair’s, I can’t unsee the match, and I can’t pretend the gesture is private either — not here, not with Alistair watching.

Cassian knows that.

His eyes hold mine for one beat too long before Alistair’s gaze drops deliberately to the cloth between our hands. Cassian sees him notice and doesn’t take it back.