Chapter 4 — The Woman in Red

Mara Vale did not wait to be invited in.

She crossed the hotel suite in pointed black heels, closed the door behind her, and looked first at Rowan, then at Eli, then at the three recorders lined around the bed.

“You have twenty minutes before my uncle decides subtlety is no longer useful,” she said.

“Good morning to you too,” Rowan said.

“It is three in the morning. We are well past good morning.”

Eli folded his arms. “Who is Calder, besides the man apparently tracking our weird supernatural sleepover?”

Mara’s gaze sharpened. “Our uncle. Interim chair of Vale Biomedical. And the only person left who understands enough of Halcyon to make it dangerous.”

Rowan sat on the bed’s edge, all the warmth from a few minutes ago gone from his face. “He told you?”

“He didn’t have to. The system pinged an executive diagnostic server. It hasn’t done that in twelve years.” She turned to Eli. “Halcyon was not a ghost, and it was never magic. It was an adaptive neural-feedback program built by Adrian Sloane. It monitored attachment responses.”

“Attachment responses,” Eli repeated. “You mean feelings.”

“I mean pulse, cortisol, stress, proximity, eye contact, consent language. Things Calder wanted to turn into products. Things Sloane wanted to use to protect patients.”

“And Rowan and I were patients.”

Mara looked at her brother before answering. “You were children in an experiment that should have been shut down.”

Eli felt Rowan tense beside him. “Why was I there?”

“Your foster father signed treatment papers after your panic attacks. Rowan’s father put him in the same program because he stopped sleeping after his mother died.” Mara’s voice softened, though only slightly. “Sloane believed your nervous systems had developed a stabilizing feedback loop. He was wrong to test it. But he was right about one thing: you two could calm each other down.”

“So the machine thinks it gets to tell us to kiss?”

“The machine was never supposed to command anything. It was supposed to offer exits.”

Rowan’s wrist burned red again. He covered it with his hand.

Mara’s phone rang. She glanced at the screen and swore. “Calder has called an emergency board meeting for nine. He plans to argue that Rowan’s episode proves he cannot serve as successor. He wants a temporary guardianship authorization.”

“I’m twenty-nine,” Rowan said.

“Your uncle has spent a decade collecting reasons to call you unstable.”

“And you came here because?” Eli asked.

“Because I need the archive you copied. And because I need you both not to do anything reckless.”

Eli laughed without humor. “You met us six minutes ago.”

“I have known Rowan all his life. That is plenty.”

Mara found a hidden directory in the copied files, but it required an access key. The only clue was a string of numbers that Rowan recognized as a storage room in Vale Tower’s archived media department.

“We should go now,” Eli said.

Rowan looked at him. “The tower will be crawling with security.”

“Then you distract them with expensive confidence. I’ll do the useful part.”

“Eli.”

“You told me no more disappearing. I’m not letting you do it either.”

Mara stared at them for one beat too long. “The board charity gala is tomorrow night. Most executive staff will be there. If I can get you invitations, the archive floor will be nearly empty.”

“You want us to break in during a party?”

“I want you to retrieve a tape before Calder destroys it.”

Eli’s eyes caught on the red dress beneath Mara’s coat. Suddenly every odd detail from the last day rearranged itself: Rowan’s nervousness, the late-night calls, Mara’s keycard access.

“You two are close,” he said, unable to keep the flatness out of his voice.

Rowan frowned. “Mara is my sister.”

Eli blinked. “Your sister.”

Mara’s mouth twitched. “Half-sister. The expression you made was extraordinary.”

“I made no expression.”

“You made a very loud expression.”

Rowan’s exhaustion softened into something almost amused. “Were you jealous?”

“Of your sister? No.”

“You thought she was someone else.”

“I thought you were allowed private conversations.”

“You are deflecting.”

Eli stepped closer because retreat felt worse. “You’re smiling at a time like this. That’s offensive.”

Rowan lowered his voice. “You were jealous.”

“I was injured. Emotionally. By your failure to disclose siblings.”

For a second, it was just the two of them. Rowan’s smile faded into something warmer. His fingers brushed the bandage on Eli’s hand, careful not to touch skin.

“I don’t have anyone else,” Rowan said. “Not like you think.”

Eli’s breath stalled.

Mara cleared her throat. “If you are finished discovering family trees, we have a gala to plan.”

The next evening, Vale Tower glittered with donors, cameras, and strings of white lights reflected in the black windows. Eli wore a borrowed tuxedo that fit badly at the shoulders and made him feel like an impostor.

Rowan emerged from the elevator in a midnight-blue suit and stopped short.

“What?” Eli asked.

“Nothing.”

“That was a full sentence of nothing.”

Rowan came close enough to straighten Eli’s lapel. “You look dangerous.”

Eli’s mouth went dry. “That’s just the poor tailoring.”

“No.” Rowan’s hand lingered at his chest. “It isn’t.”

Mara’s voice came through their earpieces. “Archive elevator in thirty seconds. Try to look like you belong together.”

Rowan offered Eli his arm.

Eli took it.

They stepped onto the dance floor before anyone could question them. Rowan’s hand settled at Eli’s waist with practiced ease, not gripping, simply there. Eli placed one hand on Rowan’s shoulder and felt the strong line of muscle beneath the suit.

“You know how to dance?” Rowan asked.

“I know how to remain upright out of spite.”

“Convincing.”

They moved through the crowd in slow circles, close enough that strangers smiled at them as they passed. The attention should have been unbearable. Instead, Eli felt Rowan’s thumb shift once against his side and forgot how to be self-conscious.

At the edge of the floor, Rowan bent toward his ear.

“This time,” he murmured, “if I kiss you, is it acting?”

Eli looked at him.

The elevator doors opened behind them.