“Where do you want to sit? You’re the guest. Sit at the head of the table,” he offers, plopping down my plate as well as a small plate for Kit before he sits beside me.
“This table is as big as my living room.”
“I considered having it enlarged at one point,” he says while he eyes it.
“Uh… I oddly feel like there’s a limit on how big a table should be, and you’ve already reached it.”
He laughs, and then I contemplate laughing once I look at my plate. It’s just a bunch of cooked vegetables that have kind of mushed together. I guess this is what happens when you ask a god to cook for you.
“Oh… you really… went all out,” I say as even Kit sniffs her plate apprehensively, and Kit will eat anything.
I look over at Torin, who is busy eating away, and decide that maybe it tastes better than it looks. I scoop up a bite and find that it’s tolerable, but in no way delicious. No wonder he loves our food so much.
“Thank you… for this,” I tell him.
“Of course,” he responds before taking another bite and then sighing. “I really want a burrito. Can we just hop through the Door, grab some food, and come back?”
“This is fine. It’s just vegetables,” I say as I eat. It’s in the realm of neither bad nor good. “We would waste hours heading out to get different food. And what if the Door closes?”
He sags in his chair and returns to picking at his plate like he’s not the one who made it and put everything on it. I finish eating well before he does and then look around.
“What exactly is our plan? It’s going to take us weeks to go through all of these books. Maybe even longer.”
“I’m too pretty to have to think up plans,” he says. “What about a dance?”
“What about staying on task?”
“We can take a bath together. I’ll wash your back. You wash mine.”
I sigh and decide that I really need to find this book quickly or I’m going to lose my help… and my sanity.
Chapter Twelve
Riley
We search well into the night until I can’t keep Kit focused at all and have to give up.
“Let’s head back to your place,” Torin says, but I’m afraid the Door will close, leaving us struggling to get back here.
“We’ll just stay here for the night.”
“Fine, fine. My bed is definitely big enough for us to share.”
“In this enormous palace, there’s only one bed?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“It’s a one bed plotline now,” he says. “On this fateful night we have but one option… we must share. Whatever will we do?”
I ignore his words but let him lead me upstairs where he opens a door into an impressive bedroom unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Outside of this room, the décor is relatively minimal and vibrant. But in here, there’s a surplus of things. And while none of it seems cluttered, it appears way more lived in.
The wall is adorned with weapons of all kinds with only two empty spots, which he fills by pulling off his scythes and hanging them up.
“These are all yours?” I ask as I question just how many weapons one person needs to be versed in.
“They are. You may touch them, but they’re all sharpened so be careful.”
