He wore a sneaky grin for some reason.
“Stellon told me a little about your non-verbal communication,” I said. “That it’s impossible to lie to each other that way for instance.”
Actually, being able to ask Pharis questions mind-to-mind might be a wonderful thing. Maybe I’d actually get a straight answer for a change.
And then what he’d just said hit me—after you learn how to use it properly.
“Wait, are you saying I’vebeenusing it? Sending you thoughts… accidentally?” I asked, a bit alarmed.
“Just a few here and there,” Pharis said, but the grin grew, bending one corner of his mouth.
“And you’re rubbish at picking up non-verbal messages. That’s where you really need some work.”
“You’ve tried it with me?” I asked, surprised. “Maybe I did hear you. Maybe I just didn’t like what you were saying and decided to ignore it.”
He chuckled. “If you’d heard me, there would be no ‘maybe’ about it. You’d know. Because it would have sounded like my voice in your mind, the same as you’re hearing me speak now, only I wouldn’t have to go to the trouble of moving my lips.”
I tried to think back on the time we’d spent together. Had I ever heard Pharis’ voice in my mind?
If I had, I’d probably written it off aslosingmy mind, getting carried away with my overactive imagination.
A memory surfaced abruptly. The night Pharis had used the secret passageway to sneak into Stellon’s room at Seaspire.
Though his lips hadn’t moved, I’d had the strangest impression of hearing his voice in my head.
It’s you, isn’t it?the voice had said, terrifying me.
Because Pharis had somehow recognized me as being the same person as Lady Wyn, even when Stellon had not.
And then the voice had warned me to tell Stellon of my secret double-identity or he would. I’d written it off as my own guilty conscience speaking, but maybe Ihadactually heard Pharis’ thoughts toward me even then.
“When exactly did you try it before?” I asked.
For a long moment, he just looked at me. “A few times. Once in the glen by the waterfall when we were surrounded by my father’s troops.”
“Really? And what did you say?”
All I remembered was that he’d tattled about my complicity in the assassination attempt and suggested a public execution, all to prove he wasn’t under a love spell—and to make himself look good before his father.
“It doesn’t matter now,” he said. “You didn’t hear me.”
“And you really think I’ll be able to hear you now? You think I can do this? I’m only half-Elven.”
“True, but you do have a glamour,” Pharis said. “ And as I mentioned, you’ve been projecting some thoughts here and there. So it stands to reason that you’d be able to receive them as well. Sometimes I wish…”
His sentence trailed off into nothingness. Naturally I was dying to know what he was reluctant to say.
It was so rare that Pharis ever expressed regret over anything.
“You wish what?” I prompted.
He slid his eyes over to me, appearing unwilling to answer, but eventually he did.
“I wish I’d told you about your Elven heritage instead of letting you hear it from Stellon. We could have been working on your mind-to-mind communication skills all along.”
“Why didn’t you?” I asked.
“Your father made me promise not to.”
