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"How do you do that?" The question made the Nord smile, as if he had expected her to asked it. Indeed, it had been one that had bothered her for the past couple of days. The man seemed to have a gift in reading a person's thoughts just by looking at them.
Still, Brynjolf looked confused as he gave her his attention. "Do what?" His bemusement was a front, she knew. He seemed to like playing with her. Caine swallowed her frustrated sigh, opting to simply give the man what he wanted and play along.
"How do you read people like you do? You take no more than a look at a man and suddenly you know what he's thinking."
Again Brynjolf smiled and he took a swig of his drink. "How do you read a man's tone and pick up on the same thing?" There was a point to be made here, she could sense it. Caine opened her mouth to speak, but the words caught at her throat.
It was for survival, she wanted to say. "It's just something that I picked up." She said instead. "Something that I learned."
When Brynjolf looked at her she felt like he was picking her apart. Caine met his eyes, forcing the feeling away. She would not let him win if she could help it. The Nord smiled. "That answers your question, then. It's just something that I learned." You're not telling the whole truth.
Caine swallowed. "Can you teach me?" Brynjolf's responding chuckle caught her off guard.
"If I do that no secret will be safe from you, lass. I'd hate to hear the complaints that would follow you."
"We're thieves, secrets are our business." Caine failed to keep the indigence from her voice, feeling her frustration rise in her belly.
Brynjolf leveled her with a look that broached no argument, killing any other words she had on her tongue. "Some things are left better in the dark, lass. You don't want to go digging were you're not wanted." He left her at Vekel's counter, abandoning his drink. Caine swallowed, her fingers running through the cracks in the wood before her, doing her best to ignore the eyes boring into her from the other side of the surface.
She left the next morning, heading for Whiterun, suddenly remembering that she had a Jarl to see.