4. Torin
FOUR
TORIN
Two weeks of sitting in a chair that protests my existence every time I shift my weight. Watching her glare at me, then slowly—grudgingly—accepting my presence like I’m furniture that happens to bring caffeine.
Yesterday, she laughed at one of my observations. A real laugh, surprised out of her, bright and sudden. It lasted maybe two seconds before she caught herself and scowled.
Those two seconds take up three pages in my journal.
The morning mist curls around my boots as I walk toward Moonthread Square.
The air tastes of pine and coming rain, familiar as my own heartbeat.
I pass the Childers twins—bear cubs, maybe seven years old—who are currently attempting to climb each other in half-shifted form.
Their mother watches from the porch with the exhausted patience of someone who’s given up preventing chaos and is now simply managing the aftermath.
“Morning, Elder Torin!”
“Morning.” I sidestep as one twin tumbles off the other and rolls directly into my path. “Working on your coordination?”
“Working on dominance!” The twin on the ground grins up at me, furry face smeared with dirt. “I almost won that time.”
“You did not,” the other twin protests from somewhere in a nearby bush.
Their mother sighs. “They’ve been at this since dawn. Any wisdom to share?”
“Try honey. Works on most bear-related disputes.”
“I meant wisdom about patience.”
“Ah.” I consider. “In my experience, patience is just stubbornness with better marketing.”
She laughs, and I continue on my way, the sounds of twin-wrestling fading behind me.
The Crescent Cup is already open when I arrive—unusual, since Marcus normally leaves the morning shift to his human staff.
But today the vampire himself stands behind the counter, polishing glasses with supernatural precision and radiating the energy of someone who’s been awake for three centuries and finds mornings personally offensive.
“The usual?” He doesn’t wait for my answer. “Of course, the usual.”
From the back room, Thalia’s voice drifts out: “He’s being dramatic. Don’t listen to him. Romance and professionalism coexist beautifully in certain circumstances.”
“Name one.”
“Our marriage.”
“That’s different. We’re vampires. We invented complicated relationships.”
“We invented nothing. We simply refined.” Thalia appears in the doorway, dark hair perfectly arranged despite the early hour. Her gaze finds me with unnerving accuracy. “The weather witch. How is she?”
“Fine.”
“And you? How are you?”
The question catches me off guard. People don’t usually ask how I am. They ask what I’m doing, what I need, what problem requires solving. Thalia watches me with the patient curiosity of someone who’s seen enough centuries to recognize when a simple question lands differently than expected.
“Working on it.”
“Ah.” She nods like this explains everything. “The mist has opinions about you two, you know.”
“So I keep hearing.”
“The mist is usually right.” She glides back toward the shadows. “Usually.”
Marcus slides her coffee across the counter—the one with her name written in his neat, familiar handwriting.
“Never stop being curious about the person you love,” Marcus says, out of nowhere. “That’s the secret. Works for centuries.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Do.” He picks up another glass to polish. “And, Torin? Don’t wait too long. Patience is a virtue, but so is action. Change is coming.”
I nod and head for the door, two coffees in hand and centuries of vampire wisdom rattling around in my skull.
Radiant Aura Studio is quiet when I arrive.
The door’s unlocked—she leaves it that way now, an acknowledgment of our routine that neither of us has addressed directly. The bell chimes my entrance.
“Your coffee.” I set the cup on her desk, careful to avoid the precarious arrangement.
She looks up. Dark eyes find mine.
“Thank you.” She wraps both hands around the cup, fingers curling against the Styrofoam. Small hands. Delicate. My hands could engulf hers completely.
Stop staring at her hands.
I settle into my chair—my chair now, the cushion permanently dented to my shape—and pull out my phone. The pretense of checking messages. The reality of watching her.
She’s in the middle of arguing with a crystal about its placement, seven minutes before I was supposed to arrive.
The morning passes in comfortable rhythm.
Two clients come and go—a dryad with seasonal anxiety who leaves trails of autumn leaves in her wake, and a nervous pixie whose wings won’t stop flickering. Sakura handles both with steady patience, her magic calm, her voice warm.
The afternoon brings a werewolf teenager whose partial shifts won’t stabilize. His mother hovers in the waiting area, radiating anxiety so strong even I can smell it.
I offer her my chair. She declines. Paces instead.
“She’s good.” The mother nods toward the treatment room. “The weather witch. Tyler’s seen three other healers.”
“She’s talented.”
“More than talented. First session, she told Tyler his wolf wasn’t the problem—the problem was pretending it didn’t exist.” The mother finally sits, perching on the edge of the cushion.
“No one else saw that. Three healers, six months, and none of them understood what she grasped in twenty minutes.”
When Tyler leaves—grinning, his mother near tears with relief—Sakura emerges looking tired but satisfied.
“Good session?”
“He’ll be fine.” She stretches, rolling her shoulders. “His wolf just needed permission to exist.”
“That’s usually the hardest part. The permission.”
She tilts her head, studying me with that perception that sees too much. “Is that what you did? Stopped waiting for permission?”
“Eventually.” I stand, suddenly needing distance. “I should check in at The Den. Network business.”
“Torin.” She stops me before I reach the door. “Thank you. For the coffee. And for... being here.”
“It’s just coffee.”
“It’s not just coffee and we both know it.”
The air thickens. Electric. Her magic stirs—I feel it, that familiar pressure before a storm.
“I’ll be back later.”
Aslan is already seated, radiating the satisfied energy of a recently claimed tiger. His claiming mark practically glows. Annoyingly content.
Rhodes sits across from him, flipping through files with the precision of someone who believes proper procedure will save the world.
Elio lounges in the shadows, because panthers can’t enter a room without making it dramatic.
Veren has already claimed the best chair and is in the process of disassembling one of Rhodes’s pens, piece by piece, for reasons known only to him.
“You’re late.” Rhodes doesn’t look up.
“I was working.”
“You were mooning over the weather witch.” Elio’s voice carries that smooth amusement that makes me want to throw things. “The whole square noticed. Very romantic. Very obvious.”
“I wasn’t mooning—”
“He was mooning.” Veren sets down a spring, examines it, decides it’s not interesting enough, and pockets it anyway. “I have it on good authority from at least four separate sources. Sunny alone counts as two.”
“Since when do you have sources in the town square?”
“Since always, darling. Foxes hear everything.” He starts on the next pen. “Also, I bet Rhodes twenty gold you’d last a week before volunteering for something humiliating. You’ve made me a very wealthy fox.”
“I’m not humiliated.”
“You reorganized her supply closet. That’s not monitoring, that’s courtship with extra steps.”
“Her coffee order.” Aslan holds up his phone, showing a text chain I don’t want to examine. “Oat milk latte, two sugars, extra hot. Marcus has been updating us daily.”
“Marcus needs a hobby.”
“Marcus has a hobby. It’s you.” Elio shifts in his seat, managing to look elegant while sitting on uncomfortable stone. “So. The witch. How’s that going?”
“It’s going professionally.”
“Professionally.” Rhodes finally looks up. “Is that why you’ve volunteered for extra patrols near her studio? Or why you show up two hours before your shift actually starts?”
“I’m thorough.”
“You’re smitten.” Aslan grins with the confidence of someone who’s been through this and come out the other side. “It’s fine. Natural, even. When Leire first—”
“We’re not discussing Leire.”
“We’re absolutely discussing Leire. She’s relevant context.” Aslan leans forward.
“Okay. How?”
“Before, I was existing. Now, I’m living. I can’t remember what my life felt like before her.” His voice softens in a way that makes my chest ache.
Elio makes a gagging sound. “Very poetic. Did you rehearse that?”
“Shut up.”
“I’m just saying—” Elio spreads his hands. “—not all of us need flowery declarations. Some of us prefer action to words.”
“Speak for yourself.” Veren finally looks up, all sharp amusement. “I fully intend to write sonnets about whoever finally traps me. Terrible ones. I’ll read them aloud at Network meetings until everyone begs for mercy.”
“That’s a threat, not a romantic gesture.”
“With me, darling, it’s rarely a meaningful distinction.”
“Some of us prefer both.” Rhodes sighs. “Can we discuss actual Network business now, or shall we continue exploring Torin’s romantic incompetence?”
“Both,” Elio, Aslan, and Veren say in unison.
I sink into my stone chair and accept that this is my life now.
I try to focus on the meeting. Fail completely. Keep thinking about dark eyes and silver-streaked hair and the way she said “we both know it.”
“—listening?”
I blink. “What?”
“The weather witch.” Rhodes taps his notebook. “Her episode locations. They overlap with the Warding Line weak points.”
“I know. I’ve been mapping it.”
“Have you considered that she might be causing the weakness?”
The question hits wrong. My bear rises, hackles lifting.
“She’s not causing anything.” My voice comes out harder than intended. “Her magic must be reacting to external interference. Maybe she’s detecting the problem, not creating it.”
Chairs shift. Rhodes sets down his pen.
Silence.
Then Elio, mildly: “That’s a very confident assessment for someone claiming professional detachment.”
“It’s an accurate assessment based on observation.”