While Ulrik took a second to figure out where to start his story, I settled on the armchair more comfortably, crossing my legs and leaning back. He finished the little that was left in his glass and poured himself another one.

"As you well know, life in Norway was hard—there's a reason why we were so adamant about emigrating to the British Isles. My mother was a nobody, the daughter of a shepherd. She had nothing to offer but her beauty. Luckily for her, she had enough of it to attract the eye of a mysterious traveler, who came across her as she was guarding her father's sheep. He was thirsty, so she gave him the little she had left. And he was hungry, so she gave him the slice of bread that was meant to sustain her that day.

"It didn't matter if he was a king among gods; she touched his heart in a way no one had in ages. Her selfless generosity was all it took for the man to become smitten with her. He had traveled through the world of men many times, and none of the mortals had treated him with such kindness. But this young woman, who had nothing but the dress on her back, had given him everything.

"When he returned the following day, he had a loaf of fresh bread, dry meat, a piece of cheese, and a flask of mead. They shared, although he let her have most of it, and it was all it took for her to return his infatuation. Before the month ended, they were married. It didn't matter back then that she'd only seen sixteen summers while he looked like he'd known well over forty of them. This would mean one less mouth to feed for her parents, so they happily gave her away.

"He built her a house on a hill with his own two hands. Odin kept his true nature a secret, probably because this was an amusing distraction to him. I think that pretending to be a mortal like her brought him a sense of mortality. It made things fleetingly temporary, and it gave him a thrill he'd never known. I can sympathize with the sentiment."

He paused, and I remained silent, clinging to his words with all my attention. After a long sip of his wine and a deep breath, he continued.

"Then I was born, barely a year into their marriage, and blissful years followed. From my understanding, they were happy. Truly happy. My father brought back game to feed us, Mother had a garden that produced a generous amount of vegetables, and the three goats my grandfather gifted as a dowry wedding gave us the milk we might need. When I was around seven, though, my father's deceptions caught up with him.

"Frigg had grown tired of her husband's absence. She sent her Valkyries to look for him in the eight worlds. And one of them found him—found us. So, Frigg came to Midgard to reclaim her husband. But she didn't know he'd built a family there. She had no idea that for the past eight years, he'd been playing house with a mortal woman. She became feral when she learned. My father already had bastards like me, so I wasn't the source of her offense. No, she couldn't tolerate that he'd married another woman. It was an insult to Frigg's image, to her role as the Goddess of Marriage.

"In a moment of pure rage, she killed my mother. It unfolded right before my eyes, and Odin did nothing. Losing his mortal wife wasn't worth angering the goddess. Then he followed her back to Asgard, abandoning me to an empty house and my mother's cadaver. I buried her in a shallow grave marked by the biggest stone I could lift at that age. Then I waited. I waited for my father to return. But he never did. Weeks passed. Months. The food ran out, and I had to kill one of the goats to survive just a little longer. I considered leaving and heading to my grandfather's farm, but I didn't know the three-day journey well enough.

"Eventually, I accepted the fact that I would die like this, an orphan abandoned by his own father. But Frigg eventually came back. She returned one afternoon, accompanied by a witch that served her."

"A witch?" I echoed, interrupting him for the first time. "A witch-witch?"

"Yes, those exist as well. Not the flying-on-a-broom kind, but there are some women, versed in the art of the occult, who can cast spells and curses."

"And why did Frigg come back with one?"

"Because she needed something done on me."

"She put a spell on you?" He nodded and gave me a few seconds to process it and figure out what he meant. When I did, my eyebrows came together. "Immortality?"

"Exactly. She refused to see me in Valhalla, but she couldn't get Freyja to promise she wouldn't let me in. So Frigg did the next thing she could think of, and she ensured I would never die in the first place."

"That...one way to do it, I suppose," I mumbled.

Old Norse deities, much like most mythologies, were deeply flawed individuals. That Odin's wife would do such a thing to a child out of pure spite wasn't exactly surprising, but it was still a lot. She was, after all, the Goddess of Marriage and Motherhood, but her husband's betrayal had pushed her to her limits.

"Remember that old tattoo I have on my shoulder?" Ulrik asked, gesturing at the spot on him. "The one that's slightly bumpy and irregular." I nodded, envisioning exactly which one he meant. "That's the curse's seal. She burned it on me with her magic, and it's what prevents me from dying. Then, Frigg got me to a small settlement, probably her motherly instinct kicking in, and she returned to her world."

It was surreal to be talking about all this, and I half expected a camera crew to pop out of nowhere while the host told me I'd been punked. It would make more sense than accepting that witches, spells, and gods were real. But Ulrik looked mighty serious as he recounted all of that to me, so I decided to part from my beliefs and common sense to trust him—for now, at least.

"And how efficient is this spell?"

"Flawless. I've tried to die numerous times because of the loneliness of this existence. I'm banned from walking the land of the gods and cursed to live among mortals. Watching everyone die while I went through time untouched was hard. I was fine with it for a few centuries, but then it became unbearable."

"Does it still feel that way?"

He shrugged. "If given the opportunity, I would welcome death with open arms, like an old friend. I have seen enough, and I'm ready to end it. But I've grown accustomed to my situation. I've learned to preserve myself by keeping some distance from the world. I do what I can from the shadows, as it's not my style to stay idle. Also, it helps pass the time, and that's all I could ask for."

I make the wine twirl in my glass and stare at it. I can't look at him for the question I want to ask next. "You said you've...tried to die. What exactly do you mean?"

"Well, I was never cautious with my life, if I'm being honest. I was a real Berserker, charging into battle with nothing but breeches and a weapon. I can be cut, I can bleed, And I've even broken a few bones when I've tried hard enough. But it all heals in seconds—minutes for the bigger ones—and nothing can stop the healing. I've drowned, starved, been poisoned, choked, crashed in a plane, been burned at the stake..."

"Wait, I remember you joking about a plane crash when you flew us to Oslo."

"That one was true. Like I told you, I didn't lie about everything."

I scrunched my nose in disapproval, not sure if I'd categorize this one as being honest. He'd tried to be as transparent as he could, though. "What about your wife?" I wondered.

"She really existed. And I told you it was a long time ago, but you probably didn't realize it's been over a millennium since she died."

"Of course I didn't..." I replied with a roll of my eyes and a crooked grin I couldn't hold back.

He smiled in a soft, tender way. "That life feels so distant that it feels like a dream I can't quite recall. I don't even remember what she looked like, aside from the raven hair and the freckles. We were together for nearly forty years before she got ill. We had three children together: Mardǫll, our eldest girl, Hámundr, our son, and Eyja."

"Those are beautiful names. Have you had many children throughout the centuries?"

"As a man, it's hard to say how many. I tried not to, but I also didn't deprive myself of the pleasures of the flesh."

"I suppose it was bound to happen now and then. Especially when contraception wasn't a thing."

"Even some modern contraception methods don't work for me. Copper IUDs are useless against my sperm. And having a vasectomy serves no purpose, as everything would heal before the doctor has time to stitch me up."

"Ah, that makes sense. Godly genes and all... You said your father offered you the swords. Did he come back into your life, then?"

"I was in my twenties when he did. He tried to apologize, but I refused to hear him. He'd let me starve without the ability to die. He'd let me bury my own mother like we meant nothing to him. He gave me the swords and went on his way. I haven't seen him since that day."

"Really? You never came across him again?"

Ulrik shook his head before taking a sip of his wine. "He rarely ever comes to Midgard, and we don't frequent the same circles."

"Like that club we went to?"

This time, he nodded. "The club is an actual doorway between their world and ours. That golden door in the back is the path. The gods were gold bands, lesser deities like me wear silver, and creatures like Valkyries, Elves, dwarves...they wear bronze."

"What of the black bracelets?"

"That's for our oblivious human guests, which are remarkably rare. The red ones know about the kind of crows that populated the Bifrost."

"It was bold of you to take me there, now that I'm thinking about it."

"There's a system in place, and I decided to trust it. And things weren't supposed to take as long as they did with Tyr. I expected us to have a couple of drinks together, then I would have handled my affairs in ten, fifteen minutes, and then we would have danced."

"I would have liked that."

"I know."

We exchanged a long, charged look, and just like that, I felt the pull of his magnetic aura. Things were going remarkably smoothly, which wasn't something I'd expected. My guard was slowly lowering, and I wasn't sure it was a good thing. I loved hearing all of that, completely entranced by his stories as much as his voice. I'd always known that he was the most interesting man I'd ever met, but this? This went much beyond being interesting. This was unique, extraordinary.

I shook myself out of his effortless pull and refilled my glass. "Tell me more about how you met Yuko," I suggested, although it probably sounded more like an order.

For the following hours, he told me about the incredible lives he'd led throughout the centuries. He'd been the captain of a pirate ship, an emissary in barely explored parts of the world, a university teacher, a physician... He explained how he'd moved to Japan following the A-bombs. He'd gone there to help, knowing the radiations wouldn't kill him but hoping they eventually might. He'd fallen in love with the country, its traditions, landscapes, cuisine, and people. That was why he was still there two decades later when he met fourteen-year-old Yuko, who needed his assistance.

Mesmerized, I listened as he told me about his experience in watching humans evolve into the technological beings we'd become. "Airplanes changed everything, but not necessarily in a good way where I'm concerned," he sourly explained.

"How so?"

"For someone like me, instant gratification is the death of true contentment. It used to take two hundred and fifty days to travel from England to Australia. And once you got there...there was this sense of excitement, of a thrilling adventure you'd earned the hard way, a whole new world to explore. Now, I can be there in less than a day, and there's no challenge in that, no need for patience and resilience. But that has become true for many aspects of life. Music was a scarce pleasure; one had to earn it by watching it live and discovering it through dedication. Now, I can have everything I want on my phone with a few presses of my thumb."

"Do you think we evolved for the worse, then?"

"No, I think this world is better, as it is wide open, and every single part of it is available to be explored and enjoyed. But to me, it has made it all very...dull. Too accessible, too easily explored. I haven't encountered a challenge in a long time, and those used to give me a sense of the unknown, of the unattainable."

"I suppose I can understand how it makes things dull after some time," I conceded, leaning forward to pick up the bottle. It was empty, which made me realize just how long we'd been talking.

But I wasn't done asking questions yet, so I considered getting the second bottle from the cupboard. Ulrik surely wouldn't mind if I offered to open another one, as he wanted nothing more but to keep entertaining me. Was it a good idea, though? I could already feel my head spinning lightly since half a bottle of wine was a lot for the little chocolate I'd eaten earlier. The alcohol was going straight to my head, and I knew all too well what mood it usually put me in—horny. And I didn't need that with him around.

Before I could come up with an alternative, though, a recognizable sound came from the entrance. Someone had just put a key in and was about to unlock the door. Panic flooded me at once. I knew exactly who it was.

Had we been sitting there for so long? How was Gigi already coming back from her night shift? And wasn't she supposed to stay at Vick's tonight?

My eyes darted to Ulrik, who'd heard it as well but didn't seem to realize the clusterfuck that was about to unfold.

What the hell was I supposed to do now?!