Page 1 of Redline Communion

Chapter one

Not Yet

Lorelei

The house is doing the thing it does right before somebody decides something. An expensive kind of quiet, like everyone is holding their breath just to see who exhales first. No Helena clicking her way down the stairs. No light under Alistair’s study door. No one checking on the girl who asked out loud where they were taking a boy in front of half of Marazul, then stood in a corridor beside Ash and chose not to look through the door while a mother begged for her son’s life.

Nobody came to check on me.

That should have felt like mercy. Instead it felt like being filed away like data.

Cool. Great system. Very sustainable.

By morning, the crescents my nails carved into my palms have scabbed over into four neat, stubborn commas on each hand. Every time I close one around the banister on the way downstairs, they tug hard enough to make me wince, which I refuse to make audible on principle. I could have cleaned them properly last night. I could have slept, too.

Apparently we don’t always get what we want.

Cassian’s already busy in the kitchen when I enter.

Two mugs sit on the counter, both full. Mine is set across from him — cream, too much sugar, exactly right — like he clocked my footsteps on the stairs and had it finished before I hit the last one.

I take a sip and savor it for a beat too long because I’ve stood in this exact kitchen with this exact man before, watching him lose a fight with a coffee machine like it had personally insulted his mother. It was the one time I got to see him be a person instead of a doctrine with good bone structure.

This isn’t that.

This is a man who already knew the shape of my whole morning before I did and built the set for it. Same tile. Same kitchen. Same watery morning light through the window. Somehow the sameness doesn’t feel like a memory. It feels like déjà vu, like I’ve already lived this exact five minutes once and got robbed of the receipt.

In this light, Cassian feels like an entirely different man.

Or maybe he isn’t different at all. Maybe I just liked the first version better.

“You didn’t sleep,” he says without looking up from his phone.

“Neither did you, apparently, if you had time to run a whole barista shift.”

“I don’t sleep well after the Reaping.”

“Understandable. Must be exhausting, ruining somebody’s life on a schedule.”

His gaze lifts.

I expect annoyance, maybe correction. Instead, the corner of his mouth moves the smallest possible distance before he sets the phone facedown.

“I didn’t ruin Marcus Deering’s life.”

“No. You just stood there while somebody else handled the paperwork.”

The almost-smile disappears.

Good. I should feel better about that than I do.

“Sit,” he says. “Drink before your coffee gets cold.”

My legs make the decision before my pride can object. I lower myself onto the stool across from him, more tired than I’m willing to admit.

His eyes drop to the hand wrapped around my mug, then to the small crescents I didn’t bother hiding.

“Did you clean those?”