Tersan let out a breath. "I guess her being here means that she's not a Sacred Mother. Otherwise, you wouldn't have brought her."
Sullha nodded. "Sometimes it's hard to tell because they don't have any outward markings to identify them, but I don't think she's one of them. She doesn't hum or sing, and she doesn't praise Mortdh after everything she says."
"But you're still not certain," Tersan said.
"I didn't have enough time with her to work out where she really stands, and she's not very talkative. I haven't figured her out yet."
Tersan nodded and looked at the bathroom. A boy opened the door and ran toward the back of the yard where the older kids congregated in the afternoons.
"I can vet Rohilah," Yaaf said. "I can enter her mind. I can read what's in there. I can tell you whether she's safe."
Sullha stared at him.
He could've saved her a lot of time and effort by telling her he could do that before. Then again, she had known that he had the ability. He'd entered her mind to ensure that she kept his secrets. It just hadn't occurred to her that he could use his ability that way, but it must have occurred to him.
She kept staring at Yaaf for long enough that he started to look uncomfortable, and Tersan took a step back to clear the line of fire.
"You can do that?" she said.
"You know I can."
"You can just go into a person's head and find out what they really think, and you can do that with any of the mothers I bring to you?"
Yaaf nodded.
Closing her eyes, Sullha shook her head and then opened them.
Nothing had changed on the playground. Tomek was still in the sandbox with Bianca, and the boys on the climbing structure were still trying to push each other off the highest bar. The sun was still slipping toward the western wall.
What had changed was everything she'd been planning for the past two days. It had just been rendered unnecessary by Yaaf's ability, which he had forgotten to mention.
"What's wrong?" he asked, even though he probably knew.
"I've been racking my brain coming up with excuses for why I was meeting with the women on the list you gave me and ways to vet them as quickly as possible because we were running out of time. I was willing to take risks so it could be done before the deadline, while all along you could have made it so simple for me."
"You knew that I could thrall."
"It hadn't occurred to me that you could use your ability to read thoughts. You didn't tell me that."
"I thought it was self-explanatory."
"In your world it might be, but not in mine. I don't live among immortals. I don't know what they are capable of. I need to be told that you can rummage through human brains."
"I'm not rummaging," he said.
"I don't care what you call it." She glared at him. "The point is that you can do it, and you didn't tell me, and I have been losing sleep over a problem you could have solved in five minutes."
Yaaf had the decency to look sheepish.
"You still need to find these women and bring them to me, and that probably requires all those tricks you came up with. I can only provide a shortcut with the vetting so you won't have to spend hours assessing them."
He was right about that, and his logical argument doused the fire that had ignited within her when she'd thought he was being inconsiderate.
"Fine. From now on I'll bring the candidates to the playground for you to read."
"I'm sorry I didn't suggest that before."
She accepted his apology even though she was still annoyed, because anger was easier to deal with than talk about love.
