Truthseeker

Or at least, Lara thought sourly, that he was putting on a performance as one of the good guys. She’d met any number of parole officers while working with the various twelve-step groups, and only rarely had they been as this man came across: eager to be a peace officer not for the sake of the community, but for his own perceived power. Pete, whose intention to stay straight was geninue, deserved a parole officer more willing to believe in him. Lara hoped he had the wherewithal to prove Cooper wrong.

“How can you tell, if you’re not the regular leader? I think the guy is trouble.”

Lara put on a smile she didn’t feel, uncomfortable with the deception but certain anything else would be taken as aggressive. “I suppose he must have been once upon a time, in order to warrant a parole officer. I studied psychology. I know it’s not the same as being an officer on the street, but I hope it gives me some insight into how people can and might behave.”

Cooper hesitated, then looked pleased, taking her phrasing as a compliment. “I studied criminal justice, myself. Psych always seemed pretty soft to me.”

“And you’re clearly not soft.” Lara bit back a laugh as the officer looked even more pleased, then put her hand on his arm and deliberately steered him a few steps away from the community center’s front door. “Pete’s at sixteen weeks and counting with the program. I’m confident your presence is a continued inspiration to him.” She was absolutely confident, though not at all in the way she expected Cooper to interpret her meaning. “Thank you for checking in, Officer.”

“My pleasure, Miss Ja …” Cooper trailed off, frowning, then walked away looking uncertain of how he’d lost control. Lara, pleased with herself, waved a good-bye and went back inside. Mindful of the pastor’s warning, she pulled the door closed behind her, its locking click! loud enough to make people look around. Surprise washed over Pete’s face and Lara shrugged as she rejoined the group, nodding encouragement to continue at the woman who’d been speaking.

Sometimes, she thought with satisfaction. Sometimes the truth, applied judiciously, could make someone’s life easier, at least for a little while. Maybe it was all she could do, but some days it was enough.

That was it, then, the decision made. If it was what she could do, then it was enough. At the meeting’s end, she closed up the hall, steadied her nerves, and called Dafydd ap Caerwyn.

Fashion dictated that modern men rarely came hat in hand to anything, but Dafydd, standing on Lara’s threshold, looked very much as though he would like to have a hat to wring. Everything about him suited the old phrase: nervous worry in his expression, caution in his slightly hunched stance, as though he expected a blow. His entire aura was one of abject hope. Lara had seen similar demeanor before, usually on puppies who knew they’d done wrong and were pleading for clemency. Unexpectedly entertained by his attitude, she stepped out of the door and gestured him in. “Am I that frightening?”

He murmured, “You have no idea,” then gave her a frown so curious it was clearly a question.

“No,” she agreed, “I don’t. You’re telling the truth. Not even exaggerating, since I really don’t have any sense of how or why I’ve become frightening.”

“Your decisions stand between me and eternal exile,” Dafydd said a little drily. “It awards you an astonishing amount of power and therefore no little ability to terrify.”

“I suppose it would. May I take your coat?”

“Thank you.” He slipped it off and she hung it in a closet as he surveyed her living room. Tidy, she thought: he would find it tidy and perhaps boring, with everything in its place and the colors well coordinated. But it suited her, all the pieces fitting together so when she glanced around nothing tore at her eyes or made jagged music play in her mind. To her surprise, Dafydd turned back with a smile. “I expected more neutral colors, I think, but it’s how I imagined you would live. Beautiful form and function as one.”

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 ski

“Ski

“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 ca

“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.