C.E. Murphy - Truthseeker

Disconcerted, pleased, she offered him a seat and took one across from him, drawing her arms in tight. “Thank you. Would you … would you mind taking the glamour away? My vision swims when I look at you.”

Startlement washed over his features. “You can see through it?” Even as he asked, though, he began the same ritual he’d done before, removing all the metal from his person.

Lara grimaced and looked away, double vision made worse by his small rapid motions. “I almost didn’t notice when you were outside the door, just standing there. But as soon as you moved … yes. I can see through it. It’s like two people are trying to stand in the same place.”

“Is this better?” His voice was once again lighter. Lara glanced back, and for a few seconds was arrested by impossible things.

Impossible that he should look so much more right , when everything about him was so clearly wrong. So inhuman, with his delicate bone structure, his alien eyes, his slim elfin form. But there was truth to him now, impossible or not, and he sat more easily in her gaze. “Much. Thank you. Although your clothes don’t fit as well now.”

He smiled. “You would notice that. They’re made to fit the mirage, or I’d look like I’d been poured into skinny suits, and I haven’t the height to carry that off.”

“Skinny suits create the illusion of height. It’s a very affected look, though, more rock star than weatherman. You could do it, but—” Lara broke off and shook herself. “I’m sorry. It’s easier to think about your clothes than …”

“Than everything else? I am sorry, Lara. I wish I had an option other than utterly overwhelming you.”

“But you don’t,” she said quietly. “Not if you’re going to make it home again. Dafydd, you need to explain more. A lot more.” She sat forward, clasping her hands together. “Begin with the power. You said humans don’t have much magic,” which sounded absurd, spoken aloud. Of course humans didn’t have magic. A day earlier she’d have never dreamed it was a point worth arguing, despite her own strange skill. “But your people, you have magic, just not … truthseekers?”

“We do, yes, but I’m not sure why there are no more truthseekers.” A faint wrongness rippled through his words and Lara tilted her head, trying to comprehend it. He saw her and breathed a sigh, almost a laugh. “How strange, to talk with someone who hears the subtleties of doubt in my voice. I have a theory. Truthseekers were never common, and their gifts were not particularly …”

“Welcome?” Lara offered, unsurprised.

Dafydd nodded. “I wonder if perhaps the ability was bred away, perhaps not quite deliberately, but not without purpose, either. Or perhaps it’s just that there are too few of us, and the power too rare.”

Lara pressed her eyes shut. “So you’re left with me.”

She heard him move, felt the warmth of his hands cover the knot hers had become, and only then opened her eyes. He crouched before her, gaze turned up, both earnest and apologetic. “I’m left with you, because in this world of six billion souls you’re the one I’ve found with the gifts I need, but more important, because you’ve the courage to have called me back. I cannot imagine how unbelievable I must seem to you.”

“You can’t imagine how unbelievable you would be to other people,” Lara corrected softly. “And neither can I, Dafydd, because I don’t have the luxury, or the crutch, of easy disbelief like most people do. Tell me what the poem means, the one you quoted to me. Mending the past and breaking the world?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. The ferocity of his confession tightened his hands over hers, and she freed one hand to touch the tense line of his jaw, unthinking of the intimacy until it was too late. There were profound lines around his mouth, aging him, but they eased under her fingertips as her touch lingered. Humans teased men who couldn’t grow beards as being boyish, but there was nothing boyish about the slender man before her.

“I don’t know what the prophecy means. Mending the past—the truth will set us free,” he said, half-mocking. It sent a spasm of discordant notes down Lara’s spine, sarcasm a close brother to untruth. “I can only guess that it means you’ll be able to help us lay my brother to rest and bring his murderer to justice. As for the rest—” He broke off, shaking his head in frustration.

Lara tipped his chin up, studying the lines of helpless anger in his face. If she were Kelly, she thought, she’d let herself stop thinking and simply act on the impulse to bend and brush her lips against his, taste the glow of his skin and give in to the urge that had said I could make a life with this man .

You never take risks. That’s why you never meet anybody . Kelly’s words rushed her, and heat built in her face now, when it hadn’t earlier. Maybe Kelly was right; maybe she was too cautious, her truth-sensing ability holding her back when she might have been daring. Lara acted before wisdom could overwhelm her, and ducked her head to touch her lips to Dafydd’s. “It’s all right. You don’t have to have all the answers.” His breath caught, an unexpectedly rough sound, and she inched back to offer a fragile smile. “I’ll come with you. I’ll try to help.”

The relief and shocked joy in his eyes was worth the price of her own internal agitation. A smile leapt across his features, so bright Lara laughed and touched his lips with her fingers again, then dropped her hand in uncertain apology.

He caught it before it had fallen more than a few inches and brought it back to his mouth, kissing her knuckles. “I owe you a debt I can never repay, simply for the act of trying. Thank you, Lara. Will you—The sooner we go, the better. Will you come now?”

“Now?” Alarm leapt in her chest and turned her fingers cold. “Don’t I need to pack? Or something? How long will we be gone?”

“Time flows differently from my world to yours. The worldwalking magic will have ensured that very little has passed there, to so many years here. But in bringing you home with me, it will reverse. The time you spend there will be as moments here.” He smiled again, bright and hopeful. “I should have you home in time for dinner tonight.”

“Oh.” Lara pressed her free hand over her stomach, trying to settle nerves. “I suppose I don’t need to pack, then. We can—yes. We could … just go now.” Her pulse was wild in her throat, unadulterated fear mixed with pure excitement that wanted to turn into uneasy laughter. “All right. Well. All right.”

“Thank you. Thank you, Lara Jansen.” Dafydd drew her to her feet, then turned half away from her to sketch a rectangle in the air. Lara arched an eyebrow and he winked at her, so blatantly trying to ease her anxiety that it worked, a tiny smile breaking through her worries.

With a showman’s flair, Dafydd hooked his fingers in the top of the shape he’d traced, gold light bleeding around his hand. He bowed theatrically, and with the action, ripped open a door to another world.

Lara’s vision flared to gold, color blinding before it faded out to leave shimmers around the edges of the doorway Dafydd had cut into the air. She caught a startled breath, stayed from making it a shriek by Dafydd’s fingertips against her mouth. “This would be hard to explain to your neighbors, so please don’t shout. I should have warned you.”

Lara moved her head away and cast him a skeptical look. “Should have,” she agreed. “But that would have taken all the fun out of it, wouldn’t it.”

Amusement creased lines into the thin skin around his eyes, then faded without leaving a mark. Rather than reply, he nodded toward the doorway, and Lara turned her attention that way, aware she’d been trying to ignore it.