Page 142 of Legacy Elite

"I've been in this situation for months." I turn to face him. "Say the rest of it. You think I should go."

"Yes," Luke says.

He doesn't dress it. I'll give him that.

"Somewhere the Council chooses."

"Somewhere secure."

"Those aren't the same thing and you know it." My voice is going and I let it. "You've spent this whole year telling me what things look like. So tell me what it looks like when the Fourth House heir gets quietly removed from public life to an undisclosed address and nobody sees her for four months."

"I watched a man get carried down a fire road yesterday," Luke says.

"I don't care what anybody calls it. I don't care what it looks like. I want you somewhere they can't reach you." He hasn't raised his voice at all. "You asked me once what I want. That's it."

I can feel him down the bond, and it is nothing like his face.

"Has anybody asked her?"

Torres. Forearms on the table, looking at the screen.

"So far, this is what I have heard," he says. "Miss Miller will be relocated. Miss Miller will be housed. Miss Miller will be escorted." He turns his hand over. "You're all talking about what happens to her like she isn't sitting here."

"Mr. Torres, the security assessment—"

"I'm not arguing with the assessment. I was there. I saw the net." Flatly. "I'm saying she gets a vote."

"You'd let her stay," Luke says.

"I'd let her decide."

They look at each other.

"Why are those the only two options?" Soren says.

The head of security turns to Voss, and Voss is already reaching for a blank page.

"Do we know the breach came from Luftis?" Jon says, from the far end.

"No," Voss says.

"Then moving her through Council channels doesn't necessarily remove it."

"That's a serious implication, Professor," Wren says.

"It's an open question," Jon says. "I'd rather it were asked in a room than discovered outside it."

Ander hasn't said a word all morning. He's sitting with both hands flat on the table, looking at the cover of Voss's folder, and he has not once looked at me since I came in.

At the far end of the table, Jon's hand closes on his pen hard enough that the muscles in his forearm tighten.

It lasts about a second.

Then he sets it down flat and squares it with the edge of the table, and his face hasn't moved at all, and nobody else in this room notices anything.

I do.

I look away before I can be caught at it.