Blood Rites (The Dresden Files #6) - Jim Butcher Page 0,69

your father the next year when she was on the run."

"Running from who?"

He shrugged. "Maybe my father. Maybe some people in the Courts or on the Council. I don't know. She'd gotten into some bad business and she wanted out. Whoever she was in it with didn't want her gone. They wanted her dead." He spread his hands, palm up. "That's almost everything I know, Harry. I tried to learn all I could about her. But no one would talk to me."

My eyelids felt gummy. My chest hurt. I looked up at the portrait of my mother. She was a woman of evident vitality, life flowing from her and around her, even in the painting. But I'd never gotten the chance to know her. She died in the delivery room.

Damn it all, what if Thomas was playing it straight with me? It would mean that I knew a little more about why the White Council all watched me like I was Lucifer, the Next Generation. It would mean being forced to accept that my mother was involved in bad business. Scary, big, bad business of one kind or another.

And it would mean that maybe I wasn't entirely alone in this world. There might be family for me. Blood of my blood.

The thought made my chest hurt worse. As a child, I'd fantasized for hours at a time about having a family. Brothers and sisters, parents who cared, grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles—just like everyone else. A group of people who would stick together through everything, because that's what families do. Someone who would accept me, welcome me, maybe even be proud of me and desire my company.

I never celebrated Christmas as a kid, after my dad died. It hurt too much. Hell, it still hurt too much.

But if I had a real family, then maybe things could change.

I looked up. Thomas's face had always been difficult to read, but I saw another mirror of myself there. He was having some of the same thoughts as me. I wondered if he'd been lonely, like I had. Maybe he'd daydreamed about a family who wouldn't be trying to manipulate him, control him, or simply kill him.

But I stopped myself before I could follow that line of thought. Things were just too dangerous, and this issue too sensitive. I wanted, on some level, to believe Thomas. I wanted to believe him very much.

Which was why I couldn't afford to take any chances.

After a long moment, he said, "I'm not lying to you."

My voice came out soft, quiet, and calm. "Then prove it."

"How?" he asked. He sounded tired. "How the hell am I supposed to prove it to you?"

"Look at me."

He froze, his eyes still on the floor. "I don't… I don't think that would accomplish anything, Harry."

"Okay," I said. I started to rise. "Which way is my car?"

He lifted a hand. "Wait. All right," he said. He grimaced. "I was hoping to avoid this. I don't know what you're going to see if you look in there. I don't know if you'll still feel the same way about me."

"Ditto," I said. "We'd better sit down."

"How long will it take?" he asked.

"Seconds," I said. "Feels longer."

He nodded. We sat down about two feet from each other, cross-legged on the floor at the foot of my mother's portrait. Thomas took a deep breath and then lifted his grey eyes to mine.

The eyes are a window to the soul. Literally. Looking someone steadily in the eyes is an uncomfortable, intense experience for anyone. If you don't believe me, pick a stranger sometime, and just go up to them and stare them in the eye until that moment when there's a sudden acknowledgment of lowered barriers, that moment that inspires awkward silences and racing hearts. The eyes reveal a lot about a person. They express emotions and give clues to what thoughts are lurking behind them. One of the first things we all learn to recognize, as infants, are the eyes of whoever is taking care of us. We know from the cradle how important they are.

For wizards like me, that kind of eye contact is even more intense, and even more dangerous. Looking into someone's eyes shows me what they are. I see it in a light of elemental truth so clear and bright that it burns it into my head forever. I see the core of who and what they are during a soulgaze, and they see me in the same way. There's nothing hidden,