Page 104 of Iron Unicorn

Well, if Olivia had a truth sensing talent, she either failed to understand where she heard the lie or had blinded herself to the signals.

Olivia held out her free arm and said, “Okay. I’m ready.”

Once the princess closed her eyes, I grinned.

Brenda tapped at her phone and turned the display to me, letting me know she was actually testing Olivia’s concentrated empathy and that I was to signal if my levels of unease changed.

Rather than start Olivia with a baseline suppressor, she went for one marked with a five. When that did not produce any results, she stacked on another one listed with a five.

Nothing.

It took another five and three ones added before Olivia said, “Okay, I think I get what you mean now, Terry. Thatisuncomfortable. It’s tolerable. I think?”

“All right. Good result. Keep your eyes closed for a few more moments, please.” Making use of white tape, Brenda covered the markers on the series of suppressors to prevent Olivia from comprehending the reality of her empathy talent. “All right. Follow Terry around for the next hour, please. I’ll be keeping an eye on you both with the other evaluators, but I’d like to see you both get in a little exercise while working with Terry’s new horse.”

“Is this really all there is to it?” Olivia asked.

“That’s all there is to it. I now have a minimum to work with, and assuming that you don’t react poorly for the next hour, I’ll put an order in for a modified generic suppressor for you. We’ve learned our lesson from North Dakota, and we work to make sure none of our patients suffer from a heart attack.”

I eyed the suppressors I wore. “Are these leaking?”

“Yes. All empathy test suppressors have minimal leak to help prevent fatalities during evaluations. His Royal Majesty of North Dakota was kind enough to be our test subject for them, and we were able to fully suppress his empathy with the leak without causing cardiac distress. He had a panic attack of the likes Dr. Stanton would like to avoid in the future, but outside of panic in both the king and queen, nobody was hurt during the testing. As he has a history of cardiac episodes during testing, he was the best person possible to test the suppressors on. I could fling the entire lot of them on you, and while you’d be very unhappy, you’d survive.”

“Let’s not try that,” I requested in a solemn tone.

Brenda laughed. “I have no intention of doing that to you or Her Highness, Terry. My job is to, as accurately as possible, evaluate your talents without doing harm. That’s why we aimed for no more than a four while I’m satisfied with a two for Her Highness. I know the minimum level, and I can give a rough estimate on the maximum level.”

I got to my feet and helped Olivia up before brushing the sand off. “What does that put my horse empathy talent at?”

“I need to give Montana a call to ask about your stud, but I suspect you’re an elite-level talent. If your stud is reacting to the suppressor, then you’ve had a closet talent for years and a strong bond with one horse. It was just getting lost in the noise of your general empathy—and your horse would be content knowing how much you love him and want him to be happy. You visit him every time you’re in Montana, correct?”

“I do.”

“And you are careful to praise and encourage his current lifestyle?”

“Of course. He’s an excellent horse, and he is great at guarding his mares.”

Olivia laughed. “His horse owns the RPS breeding stable. He comes and goes as he pleases, and he’ll even drive his entire herd into the stable if he thinks the weather is going to sour. Hell, he’s more accurate than the forecasters. If Willow is bringing in his mares,allthe animals come in because it’s going to be a bad blow. If it’s a moderate blow, he drives all his mares and foals to the turnout but doesn’t take them right up to the stable.” After a moment, her eyes widened. “Remember that blizzard that had you going to the stable right off work to bring the horses in? You were the first to get worried about the weather. You helped Willow bring in every animal we had at the RPS stable. You chaperoned a bunch of animals in the indoor arena because you were worried about the weather.”

“And then I got stuck there for a week,” I complained. “We had more horses than we had stalls because we overbred that year, we were rolling in weanlings, and we had to triple horses in some stallsandwe had a packed arena. There was exactly one of me taking care of all those horses because it dumped so badly nobody could get to us. And it’s my fault because I sent the stablehands home not realizing nobody else would be able to get back because the weather was already going bad.” In good news for me, the RPS ranch had been well stocked, but the change of the shift, an event in Billings, and the weather had conspired to make me the only person around the entire time. “The horses loved it.”

“You had a bad feeling and went to check on your horse?” Brenda asked.

“I’d been watching the weather forecast, but yeah. It was probably a combination of worrying about the forecast and horse empathy. I likely thought it was just people being nervous because the weather wasn’t looking good and the forecasters had called for a few flurries. We did not get flurries.”

“We got chaos, and we’re used to the snow. But Terry held down the fort. We got lucky at the RPS ranch. None of the horses developed colic, the mares were already pregnant so we didn’t have to separate the stallions from them, and he stalled all the mares who weren’t pregnant. He got paid overtime because all he did for the week was take care of the horses, shovel snow, and cuss at the weather!”

I chuckled, tugged on Olivia’s hand so she’d get a move on, and headed in the direction of the barn. “I’ll give you the number for the ranch. If there is a solid case for horse empathy, I’ll have Willow transported to New York. He’s old, and I’d rather be with him at the end of the road anyway.”

“Palace life will be good for him, and there’ll be other horses.” Olivia gave my hand a squeeze. “I’m sure I can make that mean brother of mine handle transporting him to New York.”

“I would also like to point out that if your horse has been happy, you have no reason to feel guilty over having a missed talent. You’ve been happy and he’s been happy, right?”

“Well, I think so,” I replied, puzzled by the woman’s comment. “He’s cared for, the RPS agents at the ranch spoil him rotten, I spoil him rotten whenever I’m at the ranch, and he’s basically allowed to do whatever he wants. He’s been living in horse paradise since the end of his official RPS career. He’s the king of the RPS herd, he doesn’t have to fight with other stallions over his mares, and the other stallions there are usually his sons, so they have their own mares in a different pasture.”

“Then it sounds like everyone has what they needed in the relationship.” Brenda took point and led us into the stable, and she waved at the other evaluators, who waited near the black mare’s stall. “We’ve got a potential horse in Montana to add to the mix, so while you keep an eye on these two, I’m going to give their stable a call and see how things are going over there.”

I gave Brenda the number before pocketing my phone, unlocking the Standardbred’s stall, and inviting myself in. Sure enough, the mare struggled with her hind quarters, something that she hadn’t done at the auction barn. I could make a guess, and it involved drugs to make her more comfortable.

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