"Are you sure you want to know?"
I take a deep breath. Do I want to know? Somehow, I feel like my jealousy is still outweighed by my curiosity. I am probably some weird kind of masochist, to ask him about his ex. However, it feels like an itch that needs to be scratched, a band-aid that needs to be taken off for me to properly see how bad the injury is underneath.
"Yeah... As long as you spare me the saucy details, if there are any."
I hear him chuckle.
"Okay. I... I kind of met her at a low point in my life. My brothers protected me my whole life, and when they finally killed our father to have Damian become the King of Silver City, then–"
"So that story was true? About your... older brother killing your dad?"
"Yeah. As I told you earlier, he wasn't... Anyway, Damian really had no choice but to, it would have been him or us in any case. I was too young, though, so I was mostly kept out of it. I wanted to help, but I felt like the useless, weak younger brother. That's when I began wandering a lot in the streets of Silver City. I wanted to prove my strength to them, so I'd get into fights pretty often to show off."
"Let me guess, you got your ass kicked?"
"Only a couple of times. The... Purple Clan here has the best warriors, so they were my favorites to pick fights with. Although, they took me for a kid just playing, so they never really saw me as a threat or anything like our pack provoking them. A couple of times, though, I did go overboard and got my ass kicked for real. I was too proud to tell my brothers, so I would go off the grid until it healed."
"That's the dumbest idea I've ever heard..."
"I was a teenager. Moreover, wolves heal fast, as long as it's not too bad. Anyway, that time I did end up pretty badly injured, an older lady found me and took me to Sylviana to be healed."
"So they knew they had a witch here?"
"More or less. They thought she was some sort of... natural healer, something like that. She liked to take care of the kids in that neighborhood, so... Anyway, that's how I met her in the first place. From then, I'd come here sometimes, tell her about my brothers, all that anger I had in me that wouldn't go away. We were friends for a long time, but I was the one who..."
"You're saying you fell first?"
"Yeah... She was older and more mature, so I guess she saw me as a brat for a while."
I chuckle. From how I've seen him interact with his family, Liam is probably still in that younger brother spot he was. Although, he's definitely a man to me. I blush a bit, thinking about the bike ride that we shared earlier. Stop thinking about it, Mara, not the moment!
"So that's how…" I say.
"Yeah."
It's not the bigRomeo and Julietkind of romance story that I had imagined... although I can tell why he misses her so much. I wonder how things would have been different if... Sylviana had never been with him, or if I had arrived in Silver City earlier. I still don't really get what is going on between me and Liam.
Sometimes he will get close, like now, and sometimes, he pulls away. It's like there is no way either he or I can avoid this, but neither of us can easily accept it either. I wish I knew what's going on. Everything that happens, I fear a trick of my own mind, like the voices, something that isn't right. I don't know if our relationship is right, but I... like what I feel. It makes me want more.
"Your... role as a witch hunter. Did you start because of her too?"
"Yeah. I wanted to fill in that void, no matter how. I don't trust any witch, and I have seen what they are capable of. I don't want anyone to hurt my family again."
So even though he plays the loner, he is still watching out for them…
I'm a bit envious of that. My whole world is confined to an estranged sister, a lazy werewolf bodyguard, and a friend who isn't telling me the truth. The rest of this city is torn between seeing me as dangerous or crazy… I don't know how much more of that crap I can handle out there. At least here, I feel strangely calm. There's definitely something about this house that keeps me calm.
"So? What are you going to do next?" he asks.
I finally open my eyes, only to find him dangerously close. While I'm still lying on that sofa, Liam is next to me, sitting on the floor with his arms crossed. I frown a bit and look away, unable to endure that stare of his.
"I don't know. This was more or less my best lead until now… I still hope to find more, actually."
That's right, I'm not done searching here. Even if that tree was probably the biggest clue so far, I may have missed something else. I get back up on my feet and look around. The plants are definitely not my domain, but it can't be all there is around here. Even though my name isn't on that damn tree, I bet Sylviana left me some other clue, if she had any idea about my existence. Even if this wasn't about me, she ought to have known there would be another witch coming sooner or later. From what I learned until now, it seems like some sort of rule, but… why Silver City, anyway? If I wasn't related to the sisters in the first place, why would my past self have become obsessed with witches here?
I'll ignore the books, they are not telling me anything I need to know, from what I've seen. There has to be another clue somewhere. Liam watches me rummage around with a frown.
"So you're really not done."
