The City of Crows by Bethany Lovejoy (novels in english .txt) 📗

“I know,” Leo began, “and I’m sorry. But you need to realize--”

“You need to realize that you need me,” I declared, the slightest tremble in my voice. “And that, because of that, you need to keep me happy. Mentioning Rowan doesn’t do that. You know, at this point, it would be easier for me to leave this city, let you tell who you want. What ties do I have anyway, other than Yvie? More than that, I doubt you could even do it. I mean, we both know your threats are empty. The only reason I’m here is because I pity you, and that wavers when you keep using my past against me--”

“What if Rowan is your soulmate?”

I jerked backward at the statement, food and sketchbooks forgotten. There was so much conviction in the way that he spoke, as if he was sure of it. And yet, a nightmarish probability, one that only existed in bad dreams and faded away in the shadow of the even worse dreams I had begun to have. Awful, crazy, not something comprehensible. If he heard it from the old woman or was led to believe it by her, then she truly was crazy.

But just one insane statement wasn’t enough for him. No, Leo had to keep talking, stumbling over his words as he continued. “What if I was never meant to meet you, and now everything keeps going wrong because I did?” My stomach churned, but Leo only grew closer to me, an earnestness to his face. He believed it.

“Leo, if you were never meant to meet me, then you wouldn’t have,” I rationalized. “I don’t know what that old woman told you, but...” I trailed off, swallowing hard. It was funny in its own way, that I would have paid the fortune teller to tell him that we weren’t meant to have met if it were just a week earlier. But now that I knew him, I couldn’t imagine being without him. Over the past two weeks, Leo had become one of the largest parts of my life. “Focus more on reasonable things, the knowledge that she would rationally have. There’s no such thing as fortune tellers, Leo. Watching my mother’s lectures on youtube should have taught you that much.”

His face didn’t suggest that he believed that, but he obliged me none the less. “Names, she gave me a list of names,” Leo repeated, desperate to change the topic. Yanking one of the sketchbooks towards him, he ripped the page with careless abandon, pulling a pen from the book’s spiral binding. Quickly, his pen moved across the scraps of paper, wide loopy letters scrawling out an array of words on the page. I watched in astonishment, the list growing larger and larger by the moment, no rhyme or reason to it.

Some of the names were familiar, deeply familiar. There were friends from my past life, people who Yvie and I still talked to. Others were public figures, numerous ones, names of the rich and famous. Pat Lobdel was one of them, I noted, a shiver going down my spine. There was no pattern, and it was impossible to sy what it all meant.

“What did she say to you?” I asked, my head craning over his shoulder to look at the list. My cheek just barely brushed against his clavicle, my hands gripping my legs as I struggled to contain myself. “What did they do? What are they involved in?” My eyes narrowed, noting a name that sat near the very bottom, one which Leo finished off the page with.

Lydia Wynne. A red herring, likely the only outlier. Still, I couldn’t pay it too much heed, couldn’t worry as to what it meant for her. My mother was an eccentric person, she got into trouble often. Her name did not mean she’d committed a crime. But the others...

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But,” he tapped his pen thoughtfully against the page, “I’d like to know.”

“Leo, that’s…” I trailed off.

Leo’s eyes were genuinely apologetic as he looked back to the page, quickly moving his pen as he realized what name it was. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-- Not him. That’s an accident, I wouldn’t-- No, definitely not him. You don’t worry. ” Taking in my sickened look, he quickly added, “There are some familiar names on there, and I think I could work with a few. I could talk to Pat. Maybe she would be more willing.”

“Pat Lobdel won’t tell you anything,” I mumbled, ripping the paper out of his hands. My finger ran over the drying ink, my mother’s name smearing with it. I stopped just short of the indicated name, squinting at it. It shouldn’t have surprised me; Landon had already said that he was involved in strange things. Still, seeing his name amongst so many others, names that Leo shouldn’t have known. It was all the confirmation that I needed. I found myself wishing we’d never gone to Lacus, that we’d never visited the Lobdel house, and that Leo Hoang had never walked through that book shop door.

But more than anything, I wished that Rowan’s name was not on that paper.

“Leo, I could--” I began.

“No,” Leo stated sternly, taking the paper out of my hands. “You couldn’t, and you shouldn’t. You stay here, just leave it to me.”

16

For Your Sake, Not Mine

Sunlight poured through the large windows that looked over the city in Leo’s apartment, darkening skies signaling the end of another day. It’d taken Leo a week to get an appointment with Pat, the woman acting like she was far too busy to be bothered every time he called her. He reassured me that that was typical of her, and there was not much to worry about. Still, I couldn’t help but feel uneasy. Through all of Leo’s reassurances that he knew Pat and that she was a harmless person, I couldn’t bring myself to trust her.

Leo’s hands worked at the knot at