Cara tilted her head slightly, watching him with an expression that was neither impatient nor entirely trusting.
"You don't buy it?" Hope asked, bemused.
She didn't respond. Just kept looking at him like she was waiting for something.
So he shrugged.
"Since you don't buy it, you can call me whatever you want. I don't really care about names."
Cara sighed through her nose, shaking her head slightly as she finally scribbled the name down.
Hope's gaze flickered to the paper in her hands, watching as her pen scratched against it. He didn't care what she wrote. Name meant nothing to him.
She tapped the pen once against the file, then looked back up.
"What's the last thing you remember before the Veil took your soul to the Ashlands?"
The question was sharp. Blunt. But there was an edge of curiosity in her tone—like she wasn't just gathering data, but genuinely wanted to know.
Hope shivered.
Not because of the cold.
But because the memory wasn't distant enough yet.
He hadn't forgotten. How could he?
The way his reflection had been wrong in the cracked mirror of his hideout. The way he had blinked and suddenly realized—
His reflection wasn't his own.
He forced down the memory and focused. Cara was still waiting.
He exhaled.
"I was doing my usual thing," he said carefully, "when I suddenly felt weak. Then the next thing I knew, I was in the Ashlands."
It wasn't a lie, not exactly. But it wasn't the whole truth either.
Cara studied him.
Then she nodded slightly and jotted something down.
Hope kept his expression neutral, but his mind was already working. He needed to be careful.
There were things he couldn't say.
So when she asked, "What was your first trial like?", he blinked once—just long enough to stall.
Then he spoke.
A carefully constructed, half-true version of events.
He left out Kelvin.
He left out Walker.
He left out the sacred centaur entirely.
Instead, he painted a simpler picture. A solo struggle, a relentless chase, a near-death experience against a lesser beast.
He made the lie believable by seasoning it with truth.
Mentioning the terror of being in a place where the very air felt wrong. The way his body had screamed at him to wake up, to run, to fight, even though he had no power.
He spoke of hunger, of exhaustion, of the pain that felt like his very soul was being peeled away.
All true.
But the real battle? The sacred beast? The explosion of darkness that changed him forever?
He buried that deep.
Cara listened intently, not interrupting.
She was sharp. He could tell. The way her eyes flicked over him, reading every pause, every shift in tone.
And yet—
She still scribbled notes.
Hope kept his face calm, but inside, he was watching her just as closely.
Was she buying it?
Or was she just letting him talk—waiting for him to trap himself?