Page 33 of Spears and Shadows (Defenders of the Light)
“Well, it was when I was younger.” Adam pushed off the doorframe and took a few steps towards her. “And I still come and stay here occasionally, although I mostly live in an apartment in Lincoln Park now.”
A fresh surge of embarrassment took Nora as she processed that it was Adam’s things she had been poking through. She cursed her inner historian, who encouraged her to sort through people’s things to put together what their life must look like.
Avoiding looking into Adam’s twinkling eyes, she gestured to the room at large. “You have rather interesting taste.”
“I suppose I do. Mostly this is just a collection of things that I haven’t been able to part with from my various lives.”
“Various lives?” Nora probed.
“I’ve done a lot of different things throughout my centuries on this earth.” Adam stepped up next to her, and Nora unconsciously shuffled closer. “Every thirty years or so, when people start to realize I’m not aging, I pick up and move to a different place, changing my name and starting over again. Although I end up being a teacher or librarian more often than not.”
“So, Adam isn’t your real name?”
“Well it currently is my legal name, but no, that’s not the name I was given when I was born.”
When Nora asked what his first name had been, he hesitated for a long moment before murmuring, “Xander. My name is Xander, although nobody has called me that since… Nobody has called me that in a long time.”
“Xander,” Nora repeated. The name suited him. “Is it weird not to have people call you by your real name?”
“It doesn’t bother me.” Adam raised one shoulder in a lopsided shrug. “It’s who I am right now. Adam Scott, English professor, wearer of argyle sweaters, lover of chai tea and the color green.”
“Wait, let me get this straight. You are an immortal member of a secret magical society and actually teach English at Northwestern? That isn’t just a cover story you used to get to see the weapons?”
“Of course I am,” Adam said, sounding wounded. “I don’t lie about everything. And I like having a job. For one, my apartment doesn’t just pay for itself, and second, it makes eternity feel like it has a bit more purpose.”
Nora stayed silent, trying to put herself in Adam’s shoes and finding it incredibly lonely.
Adam continued softly, as if he could read her mind. “It hasn’t been all that bad. I’ve met a lot of great people and had a lot of great experiences. I even had a drink with J.R.R. Tolkien once.”
Nora’s attention had been fixated on Adam’s knuckles momentarily brushing hers, but that snapped her back to reality. “Really? What was he like?”
“We didn’t talk that much. I just ran into him at a bar once when he was a professor. I had no idea the legend he was going to become at the time. I thought he was just a guy with a really weird fixation on elves.” Adam chuckled wryly. “Actually, that is how a lot of it has been. I didn’t realize when important things were happening until long after they passed.”
“But you must know so much about history,” Nora argued. “You are a walking primary source! You could solve so many disputes, unravel so many mysteries.”
Adam shook his head. “I don’t really think I could. I lived through the birth of Jesus Christ, and I missed the whole thing because I was screwing around trying to teach myself how to sail on the Mediterranean Sea. Unsuccessfully, I might add.”
Maybe that was the way of the world. Life threw important things at you when you were least expecting them.
“It doesn’t bother me, though,” Adam continued thoughtfully. “The best part of living forever is all the great people you get to meet, and most of those people don’t end up in history books.”
It was a more positive outlook than Nora would have predicted from somebody who had watched everybody they had ever cared for grow old and die. It made her wonder how close he had become to the people he had met, if he’d ever fallen in love with any of them.
Turning from that train of thought, Nora asked, “Why didn’t you just stay here at the Sanctuary like the rest of the Eteria?”
“The people who have remained throughout the centuries tend to get callous. I never wanted to be like that.” There was a long pause where Adam seemed to debate whether he should continue. “I suppose I was also searching for something…someone. I didn’t want to spend all my time on this earth alone.”
Nora met his eyes and found that it was an oddly relatable sentiment from somebody who had seen more of life than she could imagine.
Realizing she had been staring for far too long, Nora broke the silence with a frustrated huff.
“I get what you mean when you say that people get callous. All the time away from humanity hasn’t done anything to soften Seraphina’s temperament.”
Adam brushed his hand through his already tousled mop of curls. “Oh don’t let her get to you. She hasn’t always been so…high-strung.”
“Really?” Nora snorted in disbelief. “Because she seems to have some sort of vendetta against me.”
Adam became very interested in inspecting his loafers as he responded. “Seraphina has experienced a lot of loss in her life, and she’s had a long time to sit with her grief. It’s made her unusually bitter.”
