Page 37 of Redline Communion

“That would be an exhausting thing to fake.”

“Doesn’t mean you aren’t faking it.”

“No.”

He stands and straightens his cuff. The polished version of him returns so smoothly I almost wonder whether I imagined the tired man underneath it.

“Everyone in this house has taught you that attention comes with a price,” he says. “I won’t insult you by pretending mine doesn’t.”

“Then what’s the price?”

He looks at me long enough that I become aware of every small thing I’m doing: my hands folded too tightly in my lap, one foot hooked behind the other, the fact that I haven’t checked the time once since I sat down.

“I haven’t decided yet,” he says. “I’ll tell you when I have.”

Then he leaves.

No goodbye. No explanation beyond the soft click of the door closing behind him.

My phone buzzes in my pocket.

Three messages.

Rafe: In the garage.

Rafe: You coming?

Then, four minutes later:

Rafe: Lo?

I came into this wing looking for him.

I forgot.

I sit beside a fireplace that has never been lit and look at the chair Nico left empty.

For weeks, I’ve treated everything happening to me — the Offering, the rules, the folder nobody has explained — like it belongs to this house.

Nico came from somewhere else and recognized every move before I explained one.

Maybe Marazul isn’t the whole thing.

Maybe it’s only the part close enough for me to see.

Whatever is happening to me isn’t unique.

It’s just local.

Chapter ten

Kill the Quiet

Rafe

She opens the door in my sweater and I forget why I came.

Not completely. Dominic, Nico, the Offering, all of it is still waiting in the hall behind me. But Lorelei’s got her hair piled on top of her head like she got tired halfway through fixing it, the sleeves cover half her hands, and there’s a streak of tomato sauce drying across her collarbone.