I laugh. “Yeah. That you can hold out for a really long time before feeling the urge to die saving someone.”

“That’s true. We can hold out,” he replies. “I could age along with Georgia until I was around fifty. Sixty maybe. But after that, it would be like she was living with a drug addict. I’ve done it before. Let’s just say I’m not the most pleasant person to be around after a thirty-year stretch.” Looking tired, he closes his eyes, inhales deeply, then continues.

“So, let’s say Georgia and I make it to fifty. Okay, she would be fifty-three and I would be fifty. I died a few months ago—accident—so she’s technically three years older than me.”

“Does that bother her?” I ask.

“Au contraire. She loves it. Calls herself a cougar,” he says, wryly. “But if we both make it to fifty, she’ll be at the prime of life. And I’ll be bad tempered and shaky and itching to dive in front of every jaywalking pedestrian in hopes of getting run over by a delivery van.”

He opens his eyes, pours himself a glass of water and takes a sip. “Already I can’t offer her children, which she claims she doesn’t want anyway. Then, there’s the fact that I’m an integral part of an insular group of supernatural beings whose entire existence is dedicated to a cause. But she insists she’s a part of the group too, since her sister is the Champion. I just feel like if I can get this one thing sorted out, maybe she will have me.”

“Because she won’t have you now?”

“At twenty-three, who knows what they want?” he replies. “She’ll move here with me for a few days, then goes running back to her apartment in Batignolles saying she needs space. Or I’ll stay there with her, and after a couple weeks when I offer to help pay for utilities or something, she freaks out and says, ‘What do you think we are, grown-ups?’”

“Wait. Doesn’t she have to be a grown-up to pay her bills?”

“She put everything on automatic payment. And she has this online assistant who takes care of all the other ‘boring details’ of her life.”

“She has an assistant?” I’m not sure why this is so surprising to me.

“Georgia runs her own extremely successful event planning business,” Arthur replies, proudly. Which seems kind of messed up. He’s been saving lives for five centuries and she throws parties. Shouldn’t she be the one who’s proud to be with him?

Noticing my expression, he laughs. “I know. Event planning sounds frivolous, right? Like non-stop parties. That is how it started. Georgia’s always been the consummate party girl, so it was a natural extension of her personality. But get this....”