Page 27 of Shelf-Made Man
Alfie didn’t answer, but just a few steps later, he grabbed Tobias’s arm and pulled him to a halt. “I need to tell you something.” Judging from Alfie’s expression, it wasn’t a good something.
Well, if they were going to be discussing bad shit, Tobias might as well fess up. He owed Alfie his honesty. “Me too.” It was as good a spot as any, with that nice view below them. To their side was a low concrete railing with a steep drop-off on the other side. If Alfie was too horrified, maybe he’d push Tobias over the edge. At least hitting the hard ground below would be a softer landing than experiencing Alfie’s rejection.
“May I go first?” When Tobias respondedwith a nod, Alfie sighed. “This is… very difficult. But I must ask….” He swallowed loudly. “There is a magical ritual that some of my people engage in around the time of the winter solstice. They eat pastries and drink a special tea that causes temporary mental fogginess and sometimes hallucinations. They build elaborate constructions out of clay and twigs—these are meant to help concentrate the will. They watch short dramatic reenactments of historical events. And then they express their hearts’ deepest desire in hopes that it will come to pass.”
Uh oh. That sounded remarkably like Tobias’s evening with the snickerdoodles and Legos. “And?” Tobias prompted, throat thick.
“And often their wishes are granted.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
Alfie paused for a moment. He looked so delicate in his too-large borrowed clothes, standing on a sidewalk so far from his home, his pale hair tousled by the breeze. Tobias wanted to wrap his arms around him and protect him from everything. He wanted to see those blue eyes sparkle when they were trained on him, that generous mouth spread in a wide grin, and feel those long-fingered hands cradling his neck.
“The ritual is intended to find people a mate,” Alfie said softly. “If the conjuring is successful, the supplicant will find their true love.”
Appalled, Tobias gaped. “I trapped you in a love spell? Oh my God, Alfie, I didn’t mean?—”
Alfie quieted him with a hand. “No, no. You’ve done nothing of the kind. The spell doesn’t force anyone to do anything, and it doesn’t construct love where none previously existed. It simply draws to the supplicant the individual who is their best possible match.”
Tobias let out a relieved breath. “So I didn’t enchant you or anything.”
“You did not. Quite the opposite, in fact. Your actions resulted in returning me to my living state, for which I am deeply grateful.”
“Then why did you look so horrified?”
“On your behalf. Because you had no notion what you were doing, and now it turns out that your best match is me. An elf who has nothing to offer you except danger, who comes from an entirely different world, who will soon be taken by trolls and….” He glanced away, but then turned back. “You deserve so much better.”
Oh God. Neither cinnamon rolls nor gravel were inside Tobias now. Nope—he had a full-fledged cyclone in there, just like inThe Wizard of Oz, complete with cows, nasty neighbors on bicycles, and other debris.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Alfie, there is nobody I’d rather have than you. I don’t care about the magic or… or fated mates, or whatever the deal is. If I could have you even for a short time, I’d consider myself the luckiest guy in two worlds.”
A smile bloomed slowly on Alfie’s face and he blinked away tears. But when he tooka step toward Tobias, arms raised, ready for an embrace, Tobias stopped him with a raised hand. “But there’s something you have to know,” said Tobias.
“Yes?”
Tobias took a deep breath and said the four hardest words of his life: “I am a troll.”
Chapter
Eleven
Iam a troll.
Even though Tobias and Alfie were out in the open, the words seemed to echo ominously around them, like thunder rolling in just before a storm. Alfie looked as if he’d been shot, and Tobias felt pretty much the same way.
Except for a teeny-tiny part of him that cheered silently, because finally he’d acknowledged who he was and what had set him apart from others for his whole life. He wasn’t just a weird guy who didn’t try hard enough to socialize with others. He was… something special?
But that meant he was apparently also inclined to be thuggish and cruel. And now the elf he’d fallen for looked both terrified and devastated, and Tobias didn’t want any of that. The little cheering voice shut the hell up.
With visible effort, Alfie straightened his backand lifted his chin. “You can congratulate your master for me. This was an especially devious form of torture.”
“My mas— No! I’m not working for Snjokarl. I’ve never met him and had never even heard of him until you told me. And I’d never harm you.”
Alfie’s eyes were as cold as ice floes. “You’ve been lying to me for days. I don’t believe you now.”
Shit. This was even worse than Tobias had feared. “I haven’t been lying. I didn’t realize it myself until this morning.”
