“Why did you come and find me after so long?”

“I meant to speak to you before your birthday,” he said, “but I have been distracted. It is not easy for me to forgive. It’s a failing of mine, and it always has been. When you spoke to me that day, I knew you’d never see me the same way. Liro says that is the nature of things; he says we are all constantly evolving. But he doesn’t live the way I do, and the life I’ve chosen requires discretion. And now you know.” He sighed. “I came and found you after so long because I am the one who brought you here. And because I didn’t finish your training. I came and found you because we have both wronged each other, and because after all those years of feeding you and teaching you, it seems a waste to go on wronging each other. I am not a young man. I am too old to be this self-righteous. One of us had to offer peace, and it needed to be me.”

* * *

Sorcha took the news better than I thought he would. He was stoic about it, and he wrapped himself up in a carefully constructed nonchalance. I had prepared myself for the worst and had approached him with a gentle caution one typically reserves for injured animals or the sick and elderly. I sat across from him on the bed we shared and took his hands. “I don’t know if I’ll stay there,” I said slowly, “but I have to go back.”

He pulled his hands from mine. “Yeah, all right. How long ’til you go?”

“Two weeks, I think.”

He nodded. Sorcha leaned back against the wall, his head tilted up in some slight cocky defiance. He smirked. “You know you’re walking yourself into a trap, yeah?”

“He doesn’t have anyone else, Sorcha.”

He raised his eyebrows at me. “Well, who’s at fault for that? And it’s not like he’s the only one who needs you.”

“I know. I’m sorry. But I’m the only one he needs right now.”

Sorcha smiled, but it was a private smile, one that was unreadable to me. It surprised me to see he still had hidden corners, that there were parts of him I didn’t know. “Two weeks, you said?” I nodded. “Well, let’s not waste them. Kiss me.”

“Sorcha, no.”

He rested his head on my shoulder. “Hell, it was worth a shot.”