Page 13 of Redline Communion

“The vessel does not choose the altar,” I say. “The altar is chosen for the vessel, by the hand that built it, for a purpose the vessel is not required to understand, only to complete.”

“Slower on complete.”

I say it again, slower.

“Better.” He still hasn’t turned around. “You’ve had three weeks with this language. It shouldn’t sound memorized anymore.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Then stop carrying it like something separate from yourself.”

I don’t answer that. There isn’t an answer that doesn’t cost me something to give, and I’ve learned not to spend where I don’t have to.

Dominic sets his glass down without making a sound.

“He’s ready.”

“You said that before Marcus.”

“Marcus was no one to her then. Now he has a name.”

“Names aren’t the variable that matters.”

“No,” Dominic agrees. “But they’re the variable the girl notices.”

The line of Alistair’s shoulders tightens. It isn’t a flinch, nothing so unguarded. The stillness simply goes colder before settling back into place.

He turns around.

There’s no performance in his face, which is the thing about my father no one outside this room ever fully understands. He isn’t hiding anything behind the calm.

There is nothing behind it to hide.

“Then Cassian will make sure she notices the right things.”

He looks at me when he says it, and I understand what’s being handed to me before he finishes.

Not a suggestion.

An assignment phrased as though I have a say.

“You’ll officiate alongside me,” he says. “Not physically. A father doesn’t compete for what is already owed to him. But the language is yours to carry into the room. If it fails to land, it fails because you delivered it poorly, not because the structure was flawed.”

“Understood.”

“Say the closing line.”

I say it.

He listens the way he listens to everything — total, unblinking, catching every fraction of hesitation — and I make sure there isn’t one.

“Good.”

He turns back to the window.

Meeting over.

Dominic walks out with me and waits until we’ve cleared the hall before speaking.