"We discussed it right before Gabriel and I solved the mystery of my parents' last crimes. You've never asked if that solution had anything to do with mind control. Because you know it did, don't you?"
"Or I'm simply not interested in knowing. As a possibility, mind control is intriguing. In reality? I have no interest in making people do anything they don't want to. Far too much effort." He paused. "Unless it could compel them to buy my books . . ."
"Compel. That's an interesting word."
"Is it?"
"You said I need to find my own answers. But what if I was somehow being compelled not to ask the questions? Mentally influenced to avoid even posing those questions?"
"Brainwashed, you mean? Compelled to accept the unbelievable based on faith alone?" He peered at me. "You aren't going to church, are you?"
I gave him a look.
"Religion exists to instill false security and blind faith," he continued. "Yet it is imperfect. To accept the message, you must hear the message. You must 'drink the Kool-Aid,' so to speak. But how would that work on a practical level? Disseminate something in the air or water to keep people from asking questions about Cainsville? That's science. Otherwise, if there is a message--or charm or compulsion--it would need to be delivered in person, repeatedly, to be maintained. Completely impractical."
"So you're saying it couldn't happen."
That maddening curve of his lips. I was clearly frustrated, and that amused him. What did he see when he looked at me? A child. I was sure of that. Like the Huntsman. Like Tristan.
They were one thing and we were another, and to them we were children. Adorable and entertaining toddlers, fumbling in the dark. Like Macy, when she'd gotten angry at the hospital. I bared my teeth and I hissed and I flashed my claws, and Patrick saw not a wildcat but a kitten. Adorable in her infinitely tiny fury.
"For the purposes of transmission, consider it a disease," he said. "A condition. How does it pass from source to recipient?"
I shifted, not wanting to play his game but not wanting to walk away, either. "Methods of transmission . . . Air. Water. Direct contact. Consuming infected material."
"None of the above."
"Heredity?" I said. "Passed through the genes?"
"That would be a convenient method for an isolated little town."
I opened my mouth to argue that I wasn't from Cainsville. Neither was Gabriel. Except both of our families came from here.
He pushed to his feet. "And there ends tonight's conversation. When you have more, ask me more. Until then, have a pleasant night, Olivia."
He started to walk away.
"You lied about the hound," I called after him.
He turned, brows arching, and a memory twitched, telling me--
&nbs
p; I inhaled. I knew what it was telling me. And I pushed it aside. For now.
"The hound. I asked you about big black hounds, and you said the only folklore you knew of was the Black Shuck. You forgot Cwn Annwn."
He tensed. I saw a flicker and . . . nothing. I saw nothing. But I sensed a reaction.
"The hounds of the Otherworld," I said. "That's what it means, literally. But not necessarily what it is, right? Cwn Annwn is the Wild Hunt. The hounds are only part of it. Like the horses. The real Cwn Annwn are the hunters."
Patrick's gaze bored into me, and again that look tweaked my memory. Again I knew why and ignored it for now.
"I met one," I said. "A Huntsman, I think they're called. He gave me this." I opened my hand to show the boar's tusk. "I don't suppose there's any chance you can decipher what it says?"
After a long moment of silence, Patrick said, "I suppose this has to do with the boy."
"Boy?"