hexes for exes

chapter ten, stars misaligned

"AURELIUS," LIVIA REMARKED with some surprise, standing at her door. The twins used to be frequent visitors before, but Aurelius almost never showed up unless he felt the need to.

The younger boy pushed his hand through his blond hair. "Liv. Can I come in? And quickly, before Victoire notices I'm gone and starts looking for me?"

Livia had a faint idea of why the boy was here. She let him in and turned around, heading to the living room. "Everyone's out right now, make yourself at home. Take off your shoes, slippers are over here."

Soon enough they were settled in the living room, not unlike the way they had been a few days prior during the meeting. Livia had her laptop laid out—she'd been writing when the bell had rung.

"What are you doing here?" Livia laughed, humour in her voice. "Can't just be here to hide from Victoire."

"No." Aurelius' face took on a more serious expression. "I have some questions."

Livia's smile faded away. "Right. I was expecting that."

"I assumed you were," Aurelius murmured. "You have to have been, considering that night. So. What happened between you and my brothers? I tried to get an answer out of them and they refused to tell me anything, and Victoire obviously didn't know anything either. I asked Pamela and she said it was your privacy and she refused to utter a single word."

"Good girl," Livia muttered under her breath. But to Aurelius, she asked, "How much do you want to know?"

"Everything."

"Well," Livia said with chagrin, "I can't tell you that. I can give you a few clues, but I think it's best you go to your brothers for the answer in the end. Mine will be hopelessly biassed, and I have no interest in turning you against your older brothers."

Aurelius' blue eyes narrowed. "That bad?"

Livia lifted her shoulders in a shrug. "I don't want to take the risk. I don't want to be guilty of ruining your brotherly affection."

"Just get on with it," Aurelius said with a sigh. "I'm not going to hate them."

"Remember Veronica?"

"Yeah?"

Aurelius wouldn't know the things that had gone on between Livia and Veronica because he hadn't been there. He didn't hang out with their group, spending most of his time with his younger friends around Briarville, Pamela occasionally included.

"I hated her."

Aurelius frowned. "Okay. And what does that have to do with anything?"

"Veronica had a crush on Amphion."

"That I knew. Amphion got into a fight because of her."

Okay, so that was public knowledge. Immediately, Livia's interest was piqued. "Do you know what actually happened? I've heard some things but no details."

"Amphion rejected Veronica, some kind of fight began for some reason and next thing anyone knew they were brawling it out. That's what Zeth told me anyway. I don't know any of the details, I wasn't there."

"I heard it was quite dramatic."

"I assume so, yes." But then he looked at her in that way that she knew meant he was annoyed and wanted an answer.

"We argued over her," Livia murmured, "and my dislike of her. And some very nasty things were said. I don't think we're going to be excellent friends any time soon, if you must know."