Page 61 of The Last Heir of Elsewhere

She savagely stabbed her fork into the sliced meat on the plate in front of her, and scowled up at me. “Fine,” she said, shoving a bite into her mouth so her words came out garbled. “Ask your damn question.”

I paused, prolonging the moment, if only to annoy her. Was it cruel? Perhaps, but she seemed determined to defy me at every turn, she deserved some small torment in exchange.

I very slowly reached for my glass of wine, taking a long sip while she practically bounced up and down in her seat with impatience.

“What…” I said slowly, as if thinking. “Is your favorite color?”

She gaped at me. “You must be fucking joking.”

I clenched my teeth to avoid laughing. Iwasjoking, in fact, but her reaction was so intense I now needed to see it through, if only to goad her. “Is that too difficult of a question?”

She bared her teeth. “No, it’s too simple. What are you playing at?”

“That’s my business,” I told her, as I had no good answer to give. “Answer the question or leave the table, it’s your choice.”

“Purple,” she blurted out, then immediately gasped, coughing like pain was searing over her throat. Seeming to not think about what she was doing, she reached for the wine she’d so far avoided, and took a large sip.

I had to forcibly close my mouth to avoid gaping at her. That pointless question had just revealed far more than I’d ever expected. She truly could not lie. I’d noticed her struggling before, when she woke up in my cabin, but I hadn’t been entirely sure of what I was seeing. Now, there was no doubt.

“Why lie?” I asked.

“I didn’t,” she spluttered, and again choked as I knew a second round of pain was now joining the first. “I mean,” she coughed. “I didn’t think I had.”

I winced, knowing the feeling of a falsehood well. “Interesting. I suppose that was more of an answer than I even expected. You may go.”

She massaged her neck bitterly, before blurting out: “What’s going on?”

I cocked my head. “Be more specific.”

She paused, as if realizing she’d wasted a question she could’ve used to find out more about her mother. I watched the calculation take place behind her eyes, before she snapped her gaze back to me. “Why can’t I lie?”

“You could before, I take it?”

Of course, I already knew that Lonnie lied often and well, but waited for her nod of confirmation to be sure. All humans lied, but she was more adept at it than most. I had to assume she’d been taught to lie intentionally, since she spewed the same nonsense that Rhiannon spoke with every other breath without ever flinching.

Conversely, Fae children were taught from an early agenotto lie, and how to avoid doing so by mistake. It was a half-truth to say we could never do so. We technically could lie, but the resultant pain was so immense it was hardly worth trying. Even now, two hundred years later, I recalled well the pain of misspeaking by mistake back in my youth.

I ran a hand through my hair, thinking. For once, I didn’t know the right answer, and could only guess. “I do not claim to know every secret of the source,” I said finally. “But I suspect you can’t lie now when before you could because you have begun consciously using magic.”

“Why would that matter?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Perhaps it has always been so. I only know that all creatures who are sustained by the Source struggle to speak falsely…. or,” I added, as a second idea occurred to me. “It may have nothing to do with you individually, but because you have recently ingested a large amount of magical blood.”

She looked taken aback. “You know about that?”

I snorted a laugh. “There is little you have done that I don’t know about, love.”

She flushed, but recovered quickly. “If you’re expecting me to be embarrassed, I won’t.”

I grinned. “Only humans would expect you to be embarrassed by sex. You must know that, having lived at the court.”

She nodded tersely. “I meant about the blood. Isn’t that taboo among you?”

I raised an eyebrow. The Fae viewed blood sharing with the same repressed eyes as the humans viewed pleasure, which was to say, it was not polite dinner conversation. It was taboo, but only for those who were not mated. “Do you wish to waste another question on my opinions of your mating, or would you rather hear about your mother?”

This time, she flushed scarlet and looked back down at her plate. “Fine, where is she?” she asked, in a slightly humbled tone.

I bit my lip. How frustrating it was to have no idea what might have caused her strange reaction. It was really my turn to ask, but she looked so uncomfortable I let it go. “The last I saw her she was on her way to Underneath. Now, I believe she is in the king’s dungeon.”

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