#Chapter 169: The truth

Iris was all smiles and pleasantries when I met her at our dining room. I’d instructed the staff to serve coffee, tea, and snacks for our little meeting. I sensed Iris’s energy in a small, hazy way when we sat down across from each other at the table, but it was difficult to read. Each individual I interacted with, it seemed, had a different pattern to their emotions. Alexander, for example, felt his feelings deeply and intensely. His touch provided incredibly clear information to me, and was overwhelming in its capacity to inhabit my body. Whereas Nina’s emotions were more… swirly and uncertain. Iris was the first stranger I was trying out my gift with. And as I expected, trying to understand her inner world felt like attempting to read a foreign language. I also hadn’t touched her yet, and wasn’t sure if I could or would do so. Touch helped a lot, and certainly made the perceptions much clearer. “So,” Iris mumbled down into her teacup. “You want to talk to me about Alexan