Under the Spell of Shattered Sight, Archie could've torn people emotionally to shreds with just a hint of their own secrets, leveraging their own behaviors against them. One of the skills his parents had taught him was how to read people; they'd intended that skill to be used for thievery, of course, but he'd turned it into something that could help people. With the Spell of Shattered Sight, he would've turned that skill into a weapon that would leave wounds no surgeon could heal. The only reason he hadn't was because the Spell hadn't affected animals and Pongo had had the sense to keep him corralled away from potential victims.

However, that didn't mean Archie couldn't turn that potential weapon into a tool to get straight to the heart of things so Gold could figure out how he wanted to move forward.

"Before I answer that, let me ask you a question: Will you accept my answer as the truth or will you try to argue that I'm lying regardless of my answer? And don't tell me what you think I want to hear. We're both way too old for that."