Page 46 of Ignition Rites

And my own answer, I didn’t say I was pleased, which was the closest I came to honesty tonight and possibly the closest I’ve come in years.

I had watched Rafe kiss her at the circuit from behind dark glass, watched her catch his jacket and lean into him, watched the crowd understand what they were seeing. By the time everyone began pretending it was merely gossip, the gesture had already entered the only record that matters in this family: who noticed, who approved, who objected, and who believed they had just witnessed a claim. I noticed. I objected. That distinction is becoming inconvenient.

My phone buzzes again.

Talia: You never answered. What happens if he wants her more?

I read it twice. Talia knows what she was hired to do, and she also knows Ash well enough now to understand that whatever exists between them stopped being entirely contractual some time ago. Perhaps that is why she asked. Perhaps dinner frightened her, or perhaps she simply wants to know whether I have a contingency for the moment one of my brothers stops cooperating with the future I selected for him.

I don’t, and the admission comes with considerably less ceremony than I expected.

Me: I don’t know. Too many things I thought were fixed have stopped behaving like certainties.

The typing indicator appears.

Talia: That’s the most honest thing you’ve ever said to me.

I almost tell her that isn’t true, then remember the standard she is comparing it against.

Me: Don’t get used to it.

Talia: That's the Cassian I'm used to.

I put the phone away. The chapel door is still behind me, and I don’t turn around. Instead I walk toward the residential wing, which is new, and so is admitting why.

Ash is somewhere in this house after walking Talia out and kissing her twice. Rafe is probably sleeping better than either of us because he has never understood the value of suffering quietly when he can simply make a mess in public and deal with the consequences afterward. Lorelei is behind one of these doors, and for the first time since the opener I am not going to kneel on stone and ask God to make wanting her disappear. I already know He won’t.

I stop outside her room. There are easier memories available, like the car, weeks ago, when I told her, The name your mother gave you, and watched something in her expression shift because she had expected me to give her less than the whole thing. I don’t choose that one. My mind gives me the box instead: gold light, her lace mask, my right hand against her skin, the moment I removed my own mask afterward and made certain there could be no confusion about who had touched her, and her face when she understood.

I left her mask on the altar, and that should disturb me more than it does. A relic would be the wrong word, and so would trophy, and I have stopped pretending I don’t know why I cannot throw it away.

I stand outside Lorelei’s door with one hand at my side and the other curled loosely around my phone. The house is quiet enough that if I knocked, I would hear her move inside. If she is asleep, I could wake her, and if she is awake, she could open the door, and neither possibility is harmless anymore.

At dinner she told me I didn’t get to say it like nothing happened, and she was right.

My hand lifts and stops inches from the wood.

Let her sleep, I tell myself, and for once I can’t decide whether it’s an excuse or the truth. If I knock tonight, it should be for something more honest than jealousy, so I lower my hand, and I let her sleep, and I walk away.

Chapter fourteen

Victory Screams, Baby Please

Lorelei

Everyone here has been waiting for tonight since the season started, and I’ve only been close enough to understand why for a few weeks.

I haven’t spoken to Ash in four days. I haven’t fully sorted out what I feel about Cassian, or what he feels about me, or what any of it means now that Rafe kissed me in front of half the circuit and made sure Alistair’s people had something new to record.

Rafe’s hand is warm around mine at the rail. He should be racing tonight, but instead he’s beside me, benched: Alistair called it a reminder about discretion, and Rafe called it being punished for kissing the wrong girl where the wrong people could see. Neither version fooled either of us.

“You okay?” he asks, close to my ear, the crowd noise swallowing everything but the two of us.

“Ask me after tonight.”

The floodlights are brighter than I’ve ever seen them, the whole strip washed gold-white, banners snapping overhead with the Vale crest stitched large enough to read from the cheap seats. Alistair stands on the raised platform near the finish line, masked like everyone else, though there’s no version of lace that hides him, not with that posture or the way people reorganize around him without needing to be told.

He lifts one hand, and silver catches the floodlights. It’s a plain band, and my stomach tightens before I understand why.