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That’s sadly the best picture I have found to use for him.  It fits his personality and attitude so very well.

Totally! XD

Karayan nodded.  “I’m glad you trust me,” he said softly.  “Though you are lucky it was me you chose to trust.  I doubt the others would be as honest.”

I grinned, a little too wide. Bold of you to believe I trust you. At least he was falling for it.

I managed to pull my expression into confusion. That was such a safe expression, it always made people assume I was far more ignorant than I really was, so they’d often take the opportunity to show off, thus slipping me more information.

He smiled ruefully, almost patronizingly.

“Did it not occur to you that I could be lying about the goose’s scent?”

Of course, it had. The castle hadn’t specified that there would be any negative repercussions for incorrect guesses, and even if there were, they would fall upon all of us. And even if the castle singled me out, it would reaffirm the other’s belief that I was naive, ignorant or both. I could handle anything the castle threw at me. Hopefully.

“Oh!” I said, startled. It wasn’t hard to fake. It hadn’t occurred to me that he would mention that possibility. If I had lied about it, I would have kept quiet about it.

“Oh, yes… of course, I should have thought of that…” I swiped a lock of hair off my forehead, tucking it behind my ear.

Was he going to hold this over me? Was he going to use the fact that now I owed him, because he had helped me?

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@skylarynn  @this-is-not-an-alien