After a couple of hours, Cortin could no longer ignore a niggling feeling she'd had since entering the dungeon; she broke off her interrogation, signaling Odeon and Blackfeather to join her in the suite's office.
"You feel him too, huh?" Odeon asked, as soon as the door closed behind him.
"I feel something like being watched, yes. It's not Sara, but she's the only other person here—what 'he' are you talking about, and how could he be watching anything?"
"Shayan," Odeon said flatly. "There's a different feel to his mind-touch—I couldn't sense any menace from him—but after what he did to me, I can't mistake his identity."
"Shayan!" Cortin and Blackfeather exclaimed in unison.
"But I didn't sense anything," Blackfeather continued. "I would've thought any time he was around, physically or otherwise, I'd know it."
Odeon shrugged. "I can't say about that, Sara—all I know is what I've just told you. He's watching us, for whatever reason, yet I feel very strongly that he's not going to interfere." He rubbed the scar across his mouth, frowning in puzzlement. "Impossible as it sounds, I get the impression he intends to help us somehow. Not that he likes us—any but Sara, anyway. The feeling's more like … it's vague, not based on deliberate communication, but I'd call it something like a determined, if reluctant, alliance."
Cortin frowned. "Are you sure?"
"It's vague, like I said, but I'm as sure as I can be under the circumstances. I don't think it's possible to lie, mind to mind—could be your truthsense is a special form of telepathy."