Page 33 of A Thousand Cuts

“I’m glad you found each other.”

Liam smiled again, a little wider and easier as some of the tension melted. Fix didn’t want to inject more ice between them, but they did need to get to the particulars.

“When was the first time you realized you were being cursed?” Fix asked. “You said years? Are we talking childhood?”

Liam stiffened completely, eyes shuttering. “That’s insane. Who would curse a child?”

“You’d be surprised,” Fix said with a grimace, tilting his head when he noticed Liam wringing his hands. “So…?”

“Nothing happened to me in my childhood,” Liam insisted. It was blunt. An iron wall. Fix didn’t see a way around it, but maybe there was a crack in it somewhere. He just needed a peek.

“Maybe you didn’t realize it, but it could be connected to what’s happening now?” Fix suggested.

“My curses started later,” Liam said firmly.

“Okay…” Fix acquiesced to the unspoken demand to drop that line of questioning immediately. “How much later are we talking?”

Liam swallowed visibly, his hands shaking before he curled them into fists on King’s back. King grew agitated, as if he could sense Liam’s distress as he held himself together.

“It started around the same time as my…business,” Liam said.

“Do you remember how?”

“I can’t remember what the first curse was off the top of my head,” he said. “I didn’t realize it was a curse at first. I know it happened just before I moved, so I guess I just left it behind.”

“But it kept happening?”

“It just never stopped. It didn’t matter if I moved, eventually they would catch up. I just learned to live with them. I started a list of them at one point, but it got to be too much to keep track of so I gave up on that.”

“Do you still have it?”

“I might.” Liam looked over his shoulders as if trying to locate it. “I’d have to look through the things I just didn’t bother unpacking when I moved here. Doesn’t seem like I’ll be staying long.”

Fix felt everything inside him rebel at the idea of Liam leaving Slatehollow.

“You can’t outrun these, Liam,” he said.

Liam huffed, eyes flashing. “Well I don’t really have other options, do I? Should I hire a personal cursebreaker to follow me around and deal with my mess?”

“I volunteer,” Fix said, trying to make his voice light so Liam realized it was a joke and an attempt to ease the mood.

Liam stared for a moment before actually letting out a small laugh he tried to hide behind his blanket.

“Of course you’re funny too,” he muttered to King, as if he was complaining.

“Have the curses always been nuisance curses like this?” Fix asked to get them back on track, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “Have they ever gone past what that scarf did to you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Any curse can hurt you, even nuisance ones, but the difference between a nuisance curse that causes harm and a deadly curse that was set on you is huge.”

Liam shook his head. “It’s never been anything dangerous that was cast on me, and they usually don’t hurt…just…”

“Make you miserable?” Fix filled in for him.

They locked eyes for a moment.

“Yes,” Liam eventually answered.