“Is your father as horrible as she says?”
“I don’t know what she told you about him, but whatever she said, triple it, and you might be in the ballpark for his level of darkness and evil.”
“Do you know where I can find the one book with the one page that will tell me how to use the scissors to cut Delaney’s soul from you?”
“No.”
And that didn’t feel like a lie either, dammit.
“But I don’t think there is a book,” he said.
“Why?”
“Well, you got your information from a crossroad demon, and they are all about having backup plans. The small print always works in their favor.”
“Explain that. And tell me the truth.”
“The crossroad demon, Zjoon, is an old hand at getting what she wants and keeping it. She’s had a crossroad so close to Ordinary that it might as well be inside of it.”
“She can’t run a crossroad in Ordinary.”
“I know that. She knows that too. And yet…”
“…she found a way around it. Small print?”
“Small print,” he agreed.
Truth.
“So,” he went on, “Zjoon knows I wouldn’t want her to tell anyone, much less someone who has an ax to grind, about the scissors. And before you ask, yes, they were made by my mother, and yes, they were fashioned to force me to release a soul.”
“Zjoon knew you’d be angry.”
“Furious,” he agreed. “She padded her bet by giving you false information on how to use them. And, well, I wasn’t happy about it. Her giving you the scissors. But not for the reason you think.”
“Because it will force you to release Delaney’s soul and leave Ordinary?”
“No.”
That feeling hit me, the unfamiliar, unfitting piece. “You’re lying.”
He hummed. “Maybe to both of us a little, to you and to myself. I’d like to think the reason I’m keeping her soul isn’t so selfish—staying here in Ordinary, hiding from my world, my father. But I can accept that’s a part of it. It’s not the main reason I don’t want you to use the scissors.”
I waited for that wrong feeling.
It didn’t hit.
I sighed. “Just spit it out, Bathin. You’ve made your point. I can tell when you’re lying, and you can tell when I’m lying. Let’s get this over with. I’m not done kicking your ass.”
His eyebrows went up in surprise. “Not a lie. Good to know. Okay, here’s the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but. If you use the scissors, it will damage Delaney’s soul. Possibly to a point beyond repair.”
The feeling of wrongness never hit. He was not lying.
He was not lying.
Holy shit. He was not lying.
“Okay,” I said, ready to listen for the first time since he’d dropped us in the middle of an Amazonite. “If I use the scissors, I’m going to hurt Delaney.”
