“No, Druid Vetrius, I cannot.”
He pressed forward, his knee still, the tips of his fingers invading my side of the Unmantle. “Have I caused you harm, Seamstress? Have I hurt you? Have I not given you nothing but honesty? I do not wish to see you maimed or dead, though you seem intent on pushing until I fulfil such a demand.”
One of the flies dropped from the others, belly-up, its wings no longer beating; a question answered before it was asked. So he did not wish me ill, then.
“No, but—”
“There are different ways to discern if someone is lying,” he interrupted. “Less effective, but still useful—the eyes, for one.” Ours must have locked through the lattice, for mine pricked at the contact. “But since you cannot gaze into mine, however much you might like to, I can teach you some other ways.Quickly.”
I scrunched my skirts.
“Many attempt to lie to a druid—out of fear, desperation, or simply because they are schemers, eager to appease those in power and take some for themselves.” He became animated,hands moving in time with his words. “Before I was blessed, I trained myself to deduce them. People are never half as cunning, nor half as clever, as they fancy themselves to be.”
I sat straighter, eager to be a keen student.
“First, the speed at which they reply. Too quick, and they have rehearsed an answer; too slow, and they are scrambling for a lie. Sometimes it’s silence; other times, their hesitation is clumsy. A stutter, a ramble, an attempt to distract.”
“And?” I prompted.
“Second, I listen for a shift in their voice. Tones rise when nervous, become shrill and desperate. A break, like that of a boy on the cusp of manhood, and they are almost certain to be hiding something.”
“What other transformations?” I encouraged, wishing I had a roll of parchment to quill notes.
“The best liars are practiced.” His voice lowered. “They may attempt to manipulate or distract, to turn your attention back to them. Smoke and mirrors, tricks as old as the soil of Thromarra. You must not fall for it.”
It was a warning as well as a plea. I searched for his eyes behind the filigree, but found only the starlight of torches and cold, hard metal.
“The best have mastery of all. They can name a lie in the same breath as a truth, muddying them both until even they forget where one begins and the other one ends. That is why, without my blessing, there is no certified way.”
I fiddled with the ends of my hair, twirling the strands between my impatient fingers.
“So, provided you answer in an appropriate window, your voice remains steady and sure, and you make no attempt to distract me, I should assume you are being truthful? That you haven’t mastered the art of lying? That is, indeed, quite the leap of faith, Druid.”
He hesitated.A lie?
“There is another way.” He lacked the enthusiasm of his prior lecture, each syllable measured with a restraint that had not been there before. “It is subtle, requiring a refined sort of skill that I am unsure you possess.”
I bristled.Try hemming silk.
“Tell me,” I demanded.
“By measurement of blood,” he immediately replied.
So I was to taste him.
“I must suck your thumb, too?”
“So eager to get a taste of me?” He chuckled. “No, you shall not suck me this day. But you mustfeel.”
I ignored his innuendo, even if my thundering heart could not. “…feel your blood?” I gripped the bottom of the opening, edging closer, as if my proximity might somehow grant a better insight into the workings of deception.
He cleared his throat.
“Not literally, but the way it moves through my body. Blood is telling; it is not stagnant in our flesh, but fluid,alive. Do you not notice the fluttering in your chest when you are nervous, excited, or afraid? Right here.”
With that, he flattened his large hand over the expanse of my chest, the chest I had inadvertently pushed closer to him, his fingers brushing my throat. Palm rested over my heart, it pounded under his touch.
“So, which one is it? Nervous, excited, or scared?”
