“You can sense that in your memories you are running from something you wonder if you truly wish to remember. And you sought your death, all those times, to avoid carrying that burden. I am simply trying to protect you.”
“What burden? I can handle it. What’s this big, terrible burden?”
He shook his head again. “No, Maggie. This is the deal I want to make with you. I will answer all your questions. Every single one. And I will always tell you the truth. But you have to be more specific and careful in your questions. I cannot endanger you. I won’t do it.”
“Why?”
He shook his head.
“Damn it.” She sighed in frustration. She sat back, once more careful not to crush Algernon, and sipped her coffee, watching him carefully. “Fine. We have a deal. But you have to promise not to be obtuse on purpose. Like usual.”
“I’m not obtuse. I’m…esoteric.” He grinned playfully for a second. “But I get your meaning. Agreed.”
“I just have to ask good questions.” She smirked down into her cappuccino. It was already mostly gone. She’d have to get a second cup with breakfast. “I’m doomed.”
He laughed. It was deep, rumbly, and something about it made her smirk turn into a full smile. He swept a hand back over his just-perfectly-out-of-place white hair. God, he looked bizarre in his black suit and white tie, sitting in the middle of Rome at a café on the sidewalk. But god, he looked good.
Deciding she was going to be a few more minutes, she pulled her bag off her back and put it gently on the ground so she could get comfortable. She waited until he took a sip of his coffee before she spoke. “Are we lovers?”
He snorted coffee, coughing violently as he inhaled it into his lungs. He grabbed a fabric napkin and held it to his face, wheezing as he tried to clear the substance from where it didn’t belong. His face was the color of beets again. Mostly his neck, actually. She waited patiently for him to answer and tried not to look smug. Okay, she didn’t try too hard.
Finally, when he could breathe, he stared down at the table. He always looked so confident. It was fascinating to see him get shy. “N…no. We are not.”
“Have we ever been?”
“No.”
She eyed him thoughtfully. He was still staring at the café table like he was debating crawling underneath it. There was something there. Something she could lift the lid on and set loose if she just asked the simple question. Do you want us to be lovers? But she was Pandora opening boxes, and she could wait on that one. It looked particularly “complicated.”
Besides, she should have a little pity on the man. “What are you?”
His shoulders dropped noticeably away from his ears as she changed the subject. “A lich.”
“Which is?” She arched an eyebrow. “I don’t play Dungeons & Dragons.”
He chuckled and coughed once to clear a little remaining coffee. “It means I removed my soul from my body and placed it inside a phylactery. It means I cannot die. Not until it is destroyed.” When she went to speak, he held up his hand. “And before you ask, no, I won’t tell you where it is or what it looks like.”
“Damn.” She liked this game of chess. It was kind of fun. Like they were playing poker. An image flashed through her head of them sitting at a table with a bottle of wine, laughing and slapping cards onto the wood surface. “Are we friends?”
“We have been both allies and enemies. Oftentimes simultaneously.”
“Have you ever hurt me? And I don’t mean ‘just’ killing me all those times. I mean really hurt me. Shit that sticks.”
He frowned. “Yes.”
Points for honesty. She looked off thoughtfully. “Have you ever betrayed me?”
“Once.”
Again, points for honesty. “Do you plan to do it again?”
“Never.”
She nodded. She believed him. “Are you the reason I can’t remember my past?”
“Yes. I’m responsible for the damage you have suffered in an attempt to protect your sanity over the long term.” He sighed. “And I am working desperately to right the wrongs I have committed. But it is…easier said than done, I’m afraid.”
“You lied to me about being my doctor.”