Chapter 87: Truth

Theodore raised a hand like he was in a classroom. "Wait. He can’t talk in the barrier. How are we supposed to get an actual answer out of him?"

Lee, still crouched by the ring of candles, shrugged. "Yes or no questions. He can nod. He can shake his head. That’s usually enough."

"Oh," Theodore said, delighted. "Oh, that’s even better."

I did not like the way his face lit up.

Mary stepped forward first, arms crossed, expression perfectly calm, the way a woman looks right before she calmly dismantles your entire life in five questions or fewer.

"Was it a human being?"

I nodded, because obviously. What did she think, some kind of Calfeeth had wandered into my dreams uninvited?

"Was it a female?"

I nodded again, feeling my ears heat up already.

"Was it a female that Sera knows?"

I nodded, and beside me Sera’s eyebrows shot straight up, already scrolling through some internal list.

"Does she live close to Rhys Manor?" Mary asked.

I hesitated, then raised my shoulders in the universal gesture of I genuinely do not know how to answer that geographically.

Sera tilted her head, thinking. "Mistress of Baron Lucas?"

I shook my head hard enough that my neck cracked.

"Lady Catellya?"

Another shake, more emphatic this time, as if speed could somehow convince them to stop faster.

"A maid?" Theodore offered, grinning like this was the best entertainment he had had all week, possibly all year, possibly since birth.

I shook my head again, and Theodore actually groaned in frustration, dragging both hands down his face.

"UGHHH."

"This is very productive," Arthur said, deeply unbothered, his arms crossed as he watched from the corner like a man enjoying a particularly good play.

Sera tapped her chin, narrowing her eyes at me with the focus of someone finally circling the right answer. "Is she twice your age? Or three times?"

I tried, with every fiber of my being, to shake my head.

My head nodded instead.

The barrier didn’t care about my dignity. It only cared about the truth, and apparently the truth had decided tonight was the night to humiliate me in front of five people I was going to be stuck with for the next few months.

The tent went very quiet.

Theodore’s mouth fell open. Arthur’s eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. Even Lee, who had absolutely no stake in any of this, leaned forward with the rapt attention of a man watching a bar fight he wasn’t personally involved in.

Sera’s eyes went wide, then narrower, then wider again, cycling through several stages of realization at a speed that would have been impressive under any other circumstances.

"Is she..." Sera started slowly, testing the words like she couldn’t quite believe she was about to say them out loud. "Is she an academy teacher?"

I nodded.

"Vane?"

I shook my head.

"Eniphia?"

I wanted to shake my head so badly that my neck actually trembled with the effort.

I nodded instead.

For one long, excruciating second, nobody said anything at all.

Then Theodore made a sound like a dying kettle, both hands flying to his mouth, shoulders shaking with the effort of not screaming with laughter.

Arthur had gone completely rigid, staring at me like I had just sprouted a second head, and slowly, very slowly, a grin split across his face that promised this was never, ever going to be allowed to die.

Sera just stood there, blinking rapidly, mouthing the word Eniphia to herself like she was trying to make it make sense through sheer repetition.

Mary, to her eternal credit, didn’t laugh. She simply studied me with the calm, clinical curiosity of someone filing away extremely valuable blackmail material for future use.

"Well," Lee said into the silence, sounding genuinely delighted to have stumbled into this entire situation. "I did not expect tonight to include this."

"None of us did," Arthur wheezed.

Theodore finally lost the battle with himself and burst out laughing, loud and unrestrained, doubling over with one hand braced against the tent pole. "Eniphia?! The one who gave you a zero on your practical exam for mislabeling?!"

I closed my eyes and silently, desperately begged whatever gods were listening for the ground to open up and swallow me whole. None obliged. Ouroboros, notably, remained conspicuously silent, having apparently decided this particular crisis did not meet his threshold for divine intervention either.

Lee, still crouched by the circle, finally reached forward and pinched out the first candle between two fingers. The barrier flickered, its pressure easing off my chest by a fraction.

"One down," he said cheerfully, moving to the second candle. "Three to go. Unless anyone has more questions first?"

"Oh, I have questions," Theodore said immediately, wiping tears from his eyes.

"No," I said, the second the second candle went dark and my voice finally returned to me, cracking with relief. "No more questions. We are done. This interrogation is officially concluded."

"Says the guy still inside the circle," Sera pointed out, far too pleased with herself.

Lee pinched out the third candle, then the fourth, and the pressure around my chest lifted all at once, the cold, heavy weight of the barrier dissolving into nothing.

I staggered forward a step, free, humiliated, but free, and immediately regretted every single choice that had led me to this exact tent, on this exact shore, in front of these exact four people.

Theodore was already composing himself, badly, wiping at his eyes and failing to hold back a fresh wave of laughter every few seconds. "Eniphia. I cannot believe it. I need to write this down somewhere. I need to tell Tony."

"You are not telling Tony," I said.

"I am absolutely telling Tony."

"Theodore."

"He’s going to laugh so hard he falls out of that chair he pretends he needs."

I looked at Arthur for help. Arthur, still grinning, held both hands up in mock surrender. "I want no part of this. I’m just here to witness history."

Sera patted my shoulder with entirely too much sympathy for someone who had personally guessed the answer out loud. "Don’t worry. We’ll never bring it up again."

She was lying. I knew she was lying. Everyone in the tent knew she was lying.