“The only hitch in this scheme is that our phones don’t work over there,” I say.
Mickey waves off my concern. “I’m working on it. I brought an IT guy back from the dead and he’s trying his best. Until then,the undead will stay here with our phones and run over anytime someone texts us. They don’t mind.”
The millisecond the Door is open, Mickey bolts through, suitcases trailing after him.
“I… sure hope it’s correct,” Torin says. “If it’s not… how much did you like Mickey?”
“It would be karma if it wasn’t and he found himself in some realm where everyone has to do hard labor.”
“Mickey would never survive,” Joy says as she lugsanothersuitcase through the Door while Torin and I watch.
“If you don’t want him just moving in, I will happily kick him out. Just say the word and it will happen,” I promise.
Torin doesn’t seem to mind; he actually appears pleased by this. “We’ll simply put him in the south wing, and you’ll only have to see him when you want to.”
“I like the sound of that.”
When we pass through the Door, we find that it’s thankfully correct and Mickey is already deciding where to go. Torin shoos him off in the right direction and then pulls me into a large empty room with soft floors.
“What is this room? Is it like a sex dungeon?” I ask, looking around.
“It can be,” he says as he reaches out and lifts Kit off my shoulder. “If you can knock me to the ground, we will make it just that.”
“What’s that mean?” I ask. He sets Kit on a bench and walks me to the middle of the room.
“You’re going to learn how to fight even if Kit has been knocked off. You become absolutely disoriented when you’re looking at yourself from a distance, and I can tell you fear it. So let’s learn how to do it.”
I stare at myself through Kit’s eyes and then decide that I have better things to do and reach for Torin’s waistband. But of course I miss because my perception is completely off.
“Fine, rules have changed. You get my pants down, we’ll stop.”
I grumble a bit but mutter, “Fine.”
“Let’s start with something easy,” he says, putting a lightweight ball in my hand. “Just throw it to me.”
I try to judge the distance between us, but the instant I throw it, I discover that he’s farther to my left than Kit makes him appear.
“I hate this,” I declare.
“I know you do, but it could save your life, Kit’s life, and mine. When those wolves had you down and you tried helping me with that earth magic you’d borrowed, maybe the wolves wouldn’t have gotten you through the Door if you’d been able to use it properly, but you couldn’t because your perception was off. I’m not trying to guilt you. I’m just trying to help you get over your hatred toward this and realize how important it is.”
I nod, knowing he’s right. “Okay. Fine.”
He sets it in my hand and I toss it again, this time knowing he’s a bit farther to my left. He has to jump to the side, but he does end up catching it. “Closer. I’m throwing it back.”
When he tosses it, I completely miss it, and when he doesn’t rush over to grab it for me, I realize he expects me to find it. Cursing the ball to hell and back, I trail after it and end up on my hands and knees to even feel it.
“This is humiliating.”
“Why do you think that?” he asks.
“Because…” And what am I going to say? I used to be unstoppable and now I’m not? I’m going to tell that to a god who has suffered more than I have? Finally, I settle on, “I’m frustrated.”
“It’s okay to be frustrated.”
“I want to go back to how I used to be. And I get so… discouraged.”
“This is just a hiccup in the road. You are the strongest person I know, Riley. There is no one here knocking you down but yourself. You’ve spent far too long avoiding what’s happened to you instead of accepting it. It is very clear that everyone at your little magic unit respects you highly. Let me see the confident Riley they saw.”
