[ She's parahuman. It's a logical deduction to make. Most people here have some unusual quality, Krouse explained what parahumans were in enough detail to cover the breadth of their wildly diverse abilities, Lisa hasn't tended to be subtle about what she can do even if she doesn't admit it's a power. Harold is a thinker, if not a thinker the way Lisa is a thinker.

There's no real reason for Krouse to lie when Harold has intuited it in one informed guess.

Except Harold has to tag on that bit about knowing too much about other people being a curse, and Krouse doesn't really make a decision. John, elsewhere in the party, might recognize the shape of the impulse, as different as Krouse and Lisa's relationship is from Harold and John's.

Lisa's a private person, too. ]

I don't know.

[ The lie is smooth, easy, seamless. It's a lie he's told often for different people, for himself. Knowing a parahuman's power is the first step to working out countermeasures for it. Krouse shrugs, a loose rise and fall of his shoulders that doesn't shift the tray balanced on one hand. ]

It could be a lot of things. Postcognition, social precognition, telepathy. Or maybe she's just smart. It doesn't take a power to be good at reading people. I mean, you know that.

[ Curving the insight back on Harold, redirecting the conversation in a way that's not precisely challenging, but there's a subtle wall there. It's not protectiveness, or loyalty, or anything sentimental. Krouse won't let it be. Lisa is a fucking nightmare pain in the ass.

He'd call it professional courtesy. ]