The Reaches

[Jude]

Yes, that was the point of hamming it up, of being obvious - said seriously, Near might think that mind-reading was actually done with forehead-to-forehead contact. Jude had not learned the word 'grift' until his twenties; while he did not consider what the Family did to be grifting, they were not above using common cultural assumptions as gateways for more superstitious patrons. When magic was presented in familiar ways, it gave the scenario an 'aha!' sense - the stories were true all along! They had always suspected! They had always known. The truth was more esoteric, less sparkly.

"Do you have tea?" It occurred to Jude all at once that wriggling out of this was not possible, at least not in the way he hoped. Jude was blunt, but that the style of his personality and less an indication of willfulness. All his decisiveness was wrapped up in running away and saving the world, and years of obedience had him hung up on niceties. "Can you make some?"

"It would be like..." How to describe it? "...scrying intention. Feelings, thoughts, memories - they attach to things. I can dust off those attachments. Or, if it's really important, I can look back in time. But that's more... material intensive." Jude found an empty piece of countertop and hopped up, looking suddenly more normal, like he was an old friend who'd come up to have a few beers and shoot the shit. "But it'll attract attention," he repeated. And I don't think you like attention.