He gave me an unconvincing smile. “You gonna die on me, Sunshine?”

“Not today. Although my head is trying its best to roll off my shoulders.”

“Food should help you feel better. C’mon, I’ll make you some eggs.”

I scoffed and followed him out of the bedroom. “The God of Thunder can cook?”

“I didn’t say it would be a five-course meal.”

“Eggs are harder than most people think. Mess ’em up, and they taste like rubber.”

“Lots of butter and milk,” he said. “That’s the key.”

Barefooted and bundled in a bathrobe ten sizes too big for me, I sat at Thorin’s kitchen counter gobbling a plate full of surprisingly good scrambled eggs and toast coated in butter and honey. A month ago, if he had brought me to his house, I might have demanded to leave right away, balking at the intimacy and familiarity it would have insinuated. But being here, now, felt less like invading his inner sanctum and more like finding solace and comfort, as if I belonged here. Plush, but not ridiculously opulent, his house was the home of a real man, not a detached and distant god—a man who connected with the world on a human level, a man who connected with me on a human level.

I stirred my fork through the remaining dregs of eggs and toast crumbs. “How can you be an ancient deity and be so real at the same time?”

Thorin ran his finger around the rim of his coffee cup and frowned. “What do you mean?”

“This is a real house.” I gestured to the ordinary kitchen and living room. “It’s lovely and elegant, but it’s not a palace, a lair, or an ice castle in the sky.”

He huffed a quiet laugh. “Ice castle?”

“I just mean there are no pretenses here. No affectations. No magical anomalies, either.”

He arched an eyebrow. “You expected something different?”

I set down my fork and shoved my plate aside. “I had no expectations, honestly. It never crossed my mind that I might ever be in your house. You might as well have said I would stand at the top of Mount Everest. Not because it’s unattainable, just... highly unlikely.”

He snorted. “I won’t deny my existence is complicated in this realm. I am a simple man at heart, though. I want simple things. They are not always granted to me.”

“I know how to complicate your peaceful existence, don’t I?”

His eyes blazed as he took my hand and laced my fingers between his. “Solitude brought me peace, but you have brought me fire and passion—things I hadn’t felt in a very long time. I’ll never let you apologize for that. I wouldn’t give it back, even if I could.”

“I’m afraid I’ll only bring you disappointment, Thorin.”

“I’ve taken whatever you’ve given me, and you’ve never given me disappointment. I only ask for what you’re willing to give.”

“And that’s enough for you?”

“Your being here, alive and well in my home? It’s enough.”

“For now,” I muttered.

He heard me, though, and said, “Yes. For now.”

After a whole conversation that wasn’t really a conversation about our future together, Thorin took me on a tour, proving just how real and mundane he liked his accommodations. Lots of hardwood, lots of stone, thick rugs and leather sofas—his house reminded me of New Breidablick but on a smaller scale. He showed me his weight room in the basement and a game room with pool and poker tables. Then he took me upstairs to what he said was his favorite place in the house.

He ushered me into an area with walls constructed entirely of bookshelves, all packed to the brim. “There’s not many New York Times bestsellers in here, but you might find something to amuse you.”

I ran a finger over a binding, not as old as some, but not new either. Ulysses, James Joyce. I sniffed.

“What?” he asked.

I slid the book out from its shelf and showed him the cover. “As if.”

“You think in the past five hundred years, I haven’t come across a little free time every now and then?”

“But Ulysses?”

“You ever read it?”

“I have nothing to prove. Give me Dickens or Hemingway if I have to read a classic. Shakespeare, even.” I slid the book into place on its shelf and moved to another row. “Makes a good paperweight, though.”

“But have you ever tried it?”

“Unlike you, I don’t have thousands of years to kill. I read things for enjoyment and possibly for education, but never to prove my eruditeness.”

“You think I’m erudite?”

I turned and found him pulling a face, eyes crossed, tongue out. It was so unlike him, and it utterly undid me. Despite my best effort not to, I laughed. His face softened. He stepped closer and cupped my jaw. “I wondered how long it would be before I heard that sound again.”

I shrugged him off and leaned closer to read a faded title bound in leather. “Apology?”

“Plato.”

“Jeez, and I thought Joyce was a heavy hitter.”

“I was there the day Socrates gave that speech.”

I arched an eyebrow. “The heck you say?”

“Look at the Greek pantheon, and see how very closely their gods resemble the Norse ones.”

“So, you mean... “ The possibilities made my head hurt.

“I only mean there’s nothing new under the sun.”

I tried to make him elaborate, but he evaded my interrogation with noncommittal grunts and shrugs. I let it go and moved to a shelf supporting a collection of books that appeared to have come from the decades closer to my short lifespan. “The Lord of the Rings?” I considered it for a moment. “Did you ever meet Tolkien?”

“Maybe.”

“Give him some suggestions?”

“He researched his own sources.”

“Like what?”