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Liam’s mom used to say that home isn’t a place, it’s the people that you surround yourself with. Liam thought that was silly. The only people he was surrounded with were his brothers, who were the worst. If his brothers were home, then Liam was good with sleeping under the stars. No, Liam was pretty sure that homes were places.
Like the stall in the stable that his dad made Preston stay in, that Liam sometimes (a lot of times) snuck out to sleep in. Or Liam's room, the single one he'd finally gotten all to himself, that he’d filled with his seed collection. Or the old peppermint tree in the forest that he’d found years ago, and had stashed all sorts of little things underneath.
After all, homes are places that you can go to feel safe, and warm, and Liam doesn’t feel as safe anywhere as he does out in the woods, equipment on his back, Preston at his feet. Liam doesn’t think there’s a person in Calorum that he’d choose to go to over the woods.
(Once, when his mom was walking with him through the woods, before the treaty, before his arrival to Castle Candy, he told her this. His mom had looked at him, eyes violet with sugar plum magic, and she seemed sad. Liam didn’t understand why. Places are important, Liam, she’d said, but people are important too. I’m sorry that you can’t find them here, but one day you will. You’ll find people to be your home. Liam, already reasonably sure his lack of desire to marry was a lot more than a phase, had sighed. He hadn’t understood what she meant, then.)
Liam rises from beside Preston, and feels the cold sparkle of mint as he casts detect poison. Knows what’s on the carrot’s belt, and knows what he has to do. Liam stands in front of a stadium of Bulbians and the Pontifex herself, and marks Sir Carrot as his prey. He stumbles over his words, and it’s awkward and tense and he’d be lying if he said he isn’t terrified at the thought of what’s going to happen to him.
But he remembers that conversation with his mom, and looks at the King and Jet and Ruby and Theo, all huddled together, a murderer in their midst.
Liam thinks he understands what his mom meant, now, about people being your home.