Allegiance of Honor (Psy-Changeling #15) - Nalini Singh Page 0,54
as part of her gift and took ownership. Now, sometimes, she saved a life. Against that, the intense psychic control, the pain of living a murderer’s dreams, none of it mattered.
Tanique gave a nod so like Anthony’s that Faith bit back a smile. For all his poise and training, her brother suddenly put her in mind of the youths in DarkRiver. Adorable. He’d probably hate that description had he embraced emotion, but she thought an older sister should have leave to think such things. “I was actually hoping to ask your help with something.”
“I’d be happy to provide it.” His reply came so quickly on the heels of her words that she realized he wanted to build a relationship with her as badly as she wanted to build one with him. “You have an object for me to look at?”
Faith gestured to the box on the table. “It’s in there. Can you take a look, see what you sense?” It was a deliberately vague statement on her part; she didn’t want to influence him in any way.
“Can you open the box?” Tanique’s tone was more sure now that they were in his area of expertise. “It’s so I don’t get sidetracked by any impressions left on the box by those who’ve carried it.”
“I should’ve thought of that.”
Once she’d opened the box, Tanique simply looked at the barnacle-encrusted bottle for a long minute before he reached in and lifted it out, while being careful not to brush so much as his knuckles against the inside of the box. The letter had been deemed too fragile for handling, but Miane had sent a small piece from it that had broken off during the original transit. A blank corner, the paper was protected inside a small plastic sleeve.
Tanique left it in the box for now.
His first words came bare seconds after he touched the bottle. “Youth, curiosity, a feline energy, cold anger. A surface layer only, likely from the people who handled it over the past few days.”
Faith didn’t interrupt, though she was impressed by how quickly and accurately he’d picked up all that.
“The sea,” he murmured, running his fingers over the barnacles. “I can hear its crashing whisper in my mind . . . but you don’t need me to tell you this bottle was in the ocean.”
He angled his head to the right, as if struggling to hear a faraway voice.
“Age,” he murmured. “There are long-ago echoes here, from decades ago. Of an elderly man cleaning the bottle . . . but there’s a new deep imprint, too. A girl . . . no, a woman. A young woman held this not recently but recently enough and for long enough that the imprint hasn’t faded.”
When he looked at Faith, she had to bite back a gasp.
She’d seen Psy eyes turn black. Her own did that during a surge of emotion or when she was using large amounts of psychic power. She’d also seen the colors in Sascha’s eyes when she was using her empathic abilities . . . but this, she’d never seen. Tanique’s irises had taken on a shimmer of pale green. As if reflecting the bottle.
“She was afraid, but fierce. Hurt.” Squeezing shut his eyes, he lowered his head, only to shake it after thirty seconds. “That’s all I get.”
It wasn’t as much as Faith had hoped, but it was fascinating to see her brother at work. “Thanks for trying.”
“I don’t think anyone but the old man spent great amounts of time with the bottle.” Eyes ordinary now, he looked at the plastic sleeve that held the piece of paper. “May I . . . ?”
Faith nodded. She knew the water changelings wouldn’t have offered the piece to a Ps-Psy if they didn’t expect it to be touched. While her brother’s specialty was esoteric and not well known outside of museums—and some crime departments who’d been able to secure the services of a Ps-Psy—most people could connect the dots.
This time, he didn’t have to tell her to open the bag for him. Unsealing it, she shook the piece of paper straight out onto his palm.
Tanique’s spine snapped straight, his jaw going rigid. “Pain,” he said. “Anger again. More pain. Anguish.”
Faith saw her brother’s other hand fist at his side and had the startling realization that to be a Ps-Psy was to be bombarded by emotion. How had her brother survived Silence? It was a question she’d ask him one day, when they were alone and he didn’t feel so