Page 13 of Truthfinder’s Promise

Merlin looked to Meredith for confirmation, and she was a little touched he seemed to trust her more than Val. Then again, she did have the superior footwear. She nodded at Merlin. “Your monster’s safe with us. But I think it might be best if you and Rath waited at the top of the stairs.”

“Okay.” But he walked up to the door first. “Monster? My friends are gonna get you out. Please don’t eat them. They said they’ll have to knock you out if you try to eat them and I don’t want them to knock you out.” Then he obediently trotted up the stairs. Rath’s only concession was to climb six steps, positioning himself as the last line of defense between the monster and Merlin.

Meredith was interested to know what he thought he was going to do against something that, if it made it to him, would have taken out Valkyrie, Meredith, and four members of an elite combat unit. She gave him a pointed look. “You do realize if whatever this is gets past all of us, you should be running, right?”

Rath gave her a contemptuous look. “Want to take your own advice, Truthfinder?”

Ugh, had she been that bratty as a teenager? Probably. On the surface, he had a point. Truthfinders were not combat Aspecters by any stretch of the imagination. The only true weapon a Truthfinder possessed was their Telling—the ability to force an individual to confront every truth about themselves they’d ever tried to hide from. It didn’t work on everyone—there was always the rare individual who had fully accepted who they were and weren’t bothered by it—but it left most people sobbing on the floor.

“Oh, if it comes to that,” she told Rath, “I guess we’ll find out if monsters are afraid of monsters too.”

Val lifted the heavy metal bars like they were toothpicks. She didn’t try to wrench the door open—likely the handle would give before the deadbolts in that scenario. Instead, her Aspect coated her fist in a protective layer of armor, lending temporary strength to the bones and muscles in her arm and fist. She proceeded to knock every single deadbolt out of the door, each punch equaling one hole through the steel.

“Show off,” Meredith muttered.

Valkyrie had a dagger in her left hand as she grabbed the handle and pulled the door open. No terrifying, tentacled creature came charging out to drag them through a portal to another realm. Instead of the earlier growl, a low, soft whine issued forth.

Ignoring the common sense that dictated Meredith stay behind Val, the person actually capable of fending off a physical attack, Meredith stepped up beside her, feeling along the inside of the room’s wall for a light switch. She found one, and the same horror-esque yellow lights that illuminated the stairwell flooded the room.

Valkyrie blinked in surprise. “It’s just a dog.”

A dirty creature covered in matted white fur hunched pitifully in the middle of the room. It looked like a dog. It had a tail and four paws and cute little ears just like a dog, and when she looked at it, everything emanating from it said dog, dog, dog.

It was definitely not a dog. Because when Meredith looked at it and thought dog, her power screamed lie, lie, lie.

“Monster’s a puppy?” Merlin tried to dash down the stairs, but Rath caught him and held him back.

“Why would Elijah bring a dog here?” Rath craned his neck, trying to peer around the people in front of him. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“I don’t know,” Valkyrie said, her voice lacking any real concern. “But that’s all it is.”

Meredith stared at her. “You seriously think that’s just a dog?”

Valkyrie Tremayne, formerly Valkyrie Winters, who had grown up with the calculating evil that had been Elijah Winters, who knew better than anyone that Elijah never did anything without a purpose, and that Elijah certainly wouldn’t have been interested in a mere dog, shrugged. “Anyone else see anything besides a dog?”

Nova answered Valkyrie’s shrug with one of her own. “Maybe Elijah needed someone to listen to him bitch.”

Rath, who had been the only skeptical one at the outset, relaxed the longer he looked at the white mutt.

Meredith narrowed her eyes at the not-dog. He whined even more piteously and crawled a couple inches toward her.

She softened. She was overreacting. It was just a dog. A sad, miserable dog that needed care and proper food and—

Lie. Her Aspect roared awake and for the briefest second, she caught the strands of something woven around the not-dog. It wasn’t Aspect—they’d all have felt it if the creature had Aspect—but it was magic.

Not all kinds of power were Aspect—some abilities, like those the Oracles possessed, were something different. This was one of those different things.

Meredith focused, trying to penetrate the shroud that surrounded the creature. It wasn’t illusion. It almost felt like… belief? But when she pressed, the shroud wove together more tightly, leaving no cracks or crevices for her power to slip through.

“What are you doing?” Valkyrie asked.

Meredith’s concentration slipped. Everyone was looking at her like she was nuts. “Nothing.” She glared at the dog. It crept forward on its belly, close enough to rest its wet nose on the toes peeking through the open toe of her boots.

“Looks like it likes you.”

It didn’t like her. It recognized that she was the one person present its concealing magic didn’t entirely work on, so it was cozying up to her.

What kind of power could not only make Valkyrie see a dog, but also override all of the logic that should be convincing her that even if she thought she saw a dog, it didn’t make any sense?