“The eyes are the window to the soul.”

It was a saying many people knew, but Cedric found that most people misunderstood it. It wasn’t poetic or spiritual, it was pragmatic. Sure, other species had eyes that outperformed humans’ in one category or another. Dog eyes had a higher “frame rate” that let them see fast moving objects more clearly, eagles could see things from further away, owls had better night vision, and there were shrimp that could see more colors than humans. Overall, though? Human eyes were some of the best in the animal kingdom

Alongside our hands, they were our primary way of interacting with the world. Facial expressions were easy to fake. Scowls could be suppressed, smiles could be forced, and some people could even make themselves cry at will. Cedric found it bizarre that people would talk about how realistic an actor’s performance was, then would turn around and take other people’s facial expressions at, well… face value.

But the eyes… you could tell a lot about someone through what they did with their eyes. When people entered a room for the first time, their eyes would respond differently. Some people would scan the room as a whole, other people would let their eyes wander until they found something relevant to them. Some eyes would dart between objects, others would gravitate toward people’s faces.

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Or maybe Cedric was the one who had misunderstood the saying. It didn’t matter, he liked his interpretation better. It had helped him learn to fit in, helped him learn to read people. Especially people like Andie. Andie was an open book - doubly so in dreamwalker form. Straightforward, curious, and a very… physical way of interpreting the world meant that Cedric could usually tell exactly what Andie was thinking.

If she was listening to music, she would give away what song it was by tapping her finger or gently bobbing her head to the rhythm. When she got bored, her eyes would slowly move away from what she was supposed to be paying attention to, then start darting around until they found something interesting to lock onto. When she was thinking hard, she’d stare at her hands - which moved around as though she was physically organizing her thoughts. Cedric was confident that wasn’t what she was actually doing, though. He’d asked.

Today, however was different. It was the weekend, and the three friends hadn’t managed to meet up during the day. Currently, they were standing on the rooftop of Dyllan’s apartment building - in dreamwalker form, of course. The purpose of the meeting had been to confirm that Dyllan was feeling better, but Andie had been strangely unreadable the entire time. Cedric could only think of three reasons for this. He found it unlikely that she’d suddenly developed a talent for guile overnight, and if someone or something else was trying to pretend to be her, his shadow would have noticed.

That left the third possibility. The third possibility was… complicated.