Chapter 761: She Had Seen It All
Mabel had noticed the changes in Liam long before the announcement of the Nalim assessment had ever been made.
They had been subtle at first, small enough that anyone else might have dismissed them as ordinary shifts in temperament from a student who had already been difficult to read.
Liam had always been quiet. He had always carried himself with a detached calm that made him seem older than he was, or perhaps simply less affected by things that should have affected him.
But in the weeks before Nalim, something about that calm had changed. It had become less like control and more like absence. He responded to things with the same flat expression, the same measured tone, and the same sharp awareness, yet the spaces between his reactions had grown colder.
He did not seem angry in any obvious way. He did not lash out, complain, or withdraw in a manner most people would recognize. He simply became more silent in places where silence had already been expected from him, more distant in moments where distance had already been part of him, and more still in ways that only someone watching closely would notice.
At the time, Mabel had wondered if she was seeing too much.
She had been his protector for nearly a year now. She had observed him in training halls, academy corridors, political meetings, dangerous situations, and quiet rooms where he thought no one would read anything from his face.
She knew the way he moved when tired, the way his eyes changed when he was irritated, the difference between his silence when he was thinking and his silence when he was shutting something away.
Because of that, Mabel had wondered if her awareness of him was turning into assumption. Perhaps she was reading too deeply into minor changes. Perhaps the weight of guarding him had made her look for cracks that were not truly there.
Liam had always carried burdens in silence, after all, and silence alone did not mean he was breaking.