“How… how long ago did this happen?”
“One hundred and ninety-eight years ago,” he says.
“You’ve been alone for nearly two hundred years?” I ask, unable to comprehend how devastating that would be.
He picks up a book before slowly looking up at me. “I have. And of all the nice people in the world I could get stuck with, I get stuck with you.”
“Why the hell would you come back here? You said there was a possibility the Door could close. Why would you risk that and come back? What if you were stuck alone?”
“Because there’s a chance that I could keep you alive if I did,” he says.
I stare at him in disbelief. “How are you not a cynical asshole? I would have been driven to the brink after five years, let alone hundreds.”
Torin flips through the book, and I’m honestly not sure if he’s going to answer me. “Maybe I am, but you’re just as cynical, which is why you haven’t realized it,” he teases.
I raise an eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure that’s not true. The part about you, not me. I’m more than happy to embrace my cynical side.”
He just smiles. “Nah, there’s something good about you for some reason.”
“For some reason? Why didn’t you make a Door sooner?”
“I had such limited magic…” Torin says vaguely. He falls quiet again and I feel guilty for even asking him about all of this… for making him think about something so horrible from his past.
“I’m so sorry you went through that. I can’t imagine how awful it’s been for you. Do you think… like if more people believein you… do you think you can bring your mount back? You seem to really love him.”
“I don’t know. How do you become beloved in your world?”
“Uh… we could put you on TV and you could just like smile at people or something. Idols can get an almost cultlike following. We could shoot for that. Do you have any talents?”
“I can make every person I sleep with climax with just a touch.”
“Oh yes, let’s highlight that for sure,” I say withmuchsarcasm. Then I hesitate. “Does this mean the god of love hasn’t gotten laid in nearly two hundred years?”
“I turned down a succubus for you,” he tells me with a grave expression.
“You could have fucked her and looked for books at the same time!”
Torin leans against the bookshelf and watches me with unreadable eyes. I really don’t know what to make of them, so I decide that a joke is in order.
“You’d have been so fast. You’d have finished in seconds after being pent up for so long.”
His lips quirk up. “Is that a bet? Are you offering?”
“You should have taken Ms. Percy’s offer,” I say as I reach out to a book. “Torin… you’re never going to be alone again, you realize that, right? I get too much joy out of being mean to you. We’ll find a place for you in my world. Although… you sure as shit aren’t going to have a palace like this. The best I can do for you at the moment is maybe a moving box you could chill in, but you won’t be alone. I’ll get you a kitten or something.”
“I would live in a box for you.”
I can’t imagine how much willpower it took him to force his way through that Door and return here to find a book that might or might not even help me. To leave behind people he’s sodesperately yearned for and to come back here where there was no one waiting for him.
“I’m going to help you bring your mount back, okay? It’s not much… but I think I can at least do that. And then you’re never going to be alone again, got it?”
Torin smiles at me. “You try really hard to be evil but deep down, you’re far too nice.”
“I am evil, thank you very much. Now stop slacking off or we’re riding the subway the second we get back.”
“Yes, sir,” he says, returning his attention to his book.
I scowl at him as I wonder why him calling me “sir” made me a little bit horny.
