Well, Link had been cooling off, but then that. He went stone still, staring at Pruce, certain he couldn't have heard that. Zelda wouldn't be that careless, she had to know there was a reason the missing third piece was just that- missing.
Shit, she wasn't even supposed to know. So much for his hope the night before that she'd been speaking about it generally and not specifically.
Link practically upended his brain, trying to find a way to dismiss what she'd said without calling her a liar. He would if he had to, every instinct he had, bred true through thousands of generations of his family, said that the Triforce of Courage had to be hidden at all costs. That wasn't a cost he wanted to pay though.
He curled his eyebrows up in a look of extreme confusion as he tried to come up with that reason. "She thinks what?"
The image of three unnaturally colored fires flashed through his head, and whether that was his own mind raiding those not-his memories at the speed of a Guardians' beam, or the Sword helping him out, it didn't matter, it was something he could latch onto.
"Ooh," he said, letting a look of realization cross his face. "Okay. No, she wasn't picking up on the Triforce." He shook his head. "The Sword was tempered with fires of the old goddesses who created the Triforce. So it has the same energy. Zelda must be picking up on that. I haven't exactly had a chance to catch her up on that bit of history, she'd have no way of knowing."