Page 81 of Redline Communion

I turn on him.

“No, actually. Not enough. That seems to be the problem.”

Carmen appears behind me and touches my elbow. I didn’t hear her approach.

“Lo.”

I pull away before I think about it.

She flinches.

I hate that I caused it and hate even more that I don’t apologize.

“What is Liore?”

Nico closes his eyes for half a second.

Cassian goes completely still beside the folder.

There.

Found something.

“What is Ravello?” I ask. “What does local standing mean?”

Alistair comes around the table. “You are not prepared for this conversation.”

I laugh, and the sound comes out wrong in the formal room.

“Do you people practice that sentence together?”

“Lorelei.”

“No. I have been measured, dressed, anointed, watched, claimed, and signed for. Now I find out I’m being discussed internationally, but somehow the conversation is the dangerous part?”

The silver-haired woman looks at Alistair instead of me.

“Perhaps,” she says, “this should have been handled before her arrival.”

“My arrival where?”

Carmen grips the back of a chair. Nico looks furious now, though not at me — at Alistair, Dominic, the visitors, or possibly every person in the room.

Étienne says nothing.

So I turn on him.

“Are you the one I’m supposed to choose?”

The question hits the table like a dropped glass.

Dominic’s expression changes, the reaction tiny but enough.

I don’t understand the whole arrangement yet, but I understand enough: Rafe’s brother came home because Dominic wanted another set of eyes on the preparation, Dominic spoke about a father being disappointed, and someone else’s son was already involved before anyone told me there would be another choice to make.

Étienne’s father answers first.

“There are protocols.”