Page 16

“Do you know how hard it is to keep Nikoly away from you, especially once he heard you were sick?” was the first thing Po said to Tiiran the next morning. She put her wrist to Tiiran’s forehead only to skitter back when he sneezed. Her expression stayed serious. “Whatever you feel, whatever actually happened, I suggest you talk to him. Maybe tomorrow if you feel better then.”

“If Nikoly will let him wait that long,” Amie added pleasantly.

“Why would Nikoly…?” Tiiran started to ask, then caught himself. Well, he sneezed again, officially destroying the last dry spot on his one and only handkerchief. Which of course was the moment the library doors opened and Nikoly walked in, saw Tiiran, and made directly for him with a shockingly stern look on his face and his head down as if he was ready for a fight.

Amie and Po melted away, Po offering something about opening curtains upstairs and yet staying within shouting distance that Tiiran waved off.

He lowered his gaze to the pile of requests on the desk in front of him—no responses from any Master Keepers yet—and was grateful the stool was there to hold him up because he was still unsteady. He had nowhere to hide his soggy handkerchief.

Nikoly stopped in front of the desk, very close, and Tiiran tensed, shoulders probably up to his ears again.

“ Honeybee ,” Nikoly murmured, as worried as Tiiran had imagined, which told Tiiran that he must look like a dead donkey’s ass. When Tiiran didn’t speak, Nikoly leaned forward. “Have you eaten?” A question Tiiran was tired of hearing because the answer was obviously no . “Would you like tea?” Nikoly asked next, coming in close to study Tiiran from the tight knot of his hair to the top half of his robe, which had not recovered from his night outside, probably pausing to linger on Tiiran’s red nose or watery eyes.

“I can get myself tea if I need any,” Tiiran lied, reasonably certain his legs wouldn’t carry him as far as the rest area.

Nikoly’s head went back. He frowned unhappily, then banished the frown to attempt a dazzling smile. “It’s no problem,” he said softly. “Or I could walk you to your room if you’d rather rest right now.”

“I’m going to do my copy work sitting down in one of the unused offices so no one catches this from me,” Tiiran informed him as testily as he could with a scratchy throat. He didn’t think he’d make it all the way up to the stairs to his usual hiding place on the third level. “You should stay here at the desk, unless you have something more important to do.”

Nikoly stared at him with sorrowful eyes.

Like a kicked dog , Tiiran thought, then remembered Orin calling Nikoly a pup and lowered his head.

You’re hurt , Orin would have told him gently. You have a soft heart, little cat. And your own foolishness bruised it. He doesn’t deserve your temper.

He didn’t. Tiiran also didn’t particularly feel like listening to Orin right now, even an imaginary Orin, but he did glance up again. “It’s just the snuffles.”

“There is nothing more important,” Nikoly said in reply, so confusing that Tiiran stared at him, eyes tearing up while he grew more and more bewildered.

“What is?” Thinking while sick was always so difficult, and Nikoly was too handsome for early mornings.

“I’ll bring you food at least, before I begin here?” Nikoly asked, his tone tentative, but his upright posture and straight shoulders determined. It wasn’t fair how much looking at him made Tiiran’s chest tight. He’d had a full day and two nights to mope. He should be over this. It was the snuffles tricking him, not all the feelings the fae would laugh at him for.

“I don’t have an appetite,” Tiiran informed him, honestly but snippily, then turned his head to sneeze four times in a row. His handkerchief useless, there was nothing to use as a shield but his sleeve. He shuddered, already dismayed to think about taking his robe to the laundry after he left the library and then working without it tomorrow since he had no replacement.

“ What ?” he snapped thickly after several moments of feeling disgusting while Nikoly stared at him and was handsome and kind and possibly pitying. The anger was sudden and hot. “I’m not Orin. I’m not going to tell you to sit.”

Nikoly dared to seem stunned. “Honeybee…”

“I’m not your honeybee.” Tiiran couldn’t snarl or hiss effectively with watery eyes but he didn’t care. He stood up and dropped from the stool, wobbling noticeably. “I am not a cat, or a duckling, or anything else. I’m just Tiiran, who is trying to get work done.” He pulled in a breath and didn’t like the tickle it created in his throat or how he croaked when he spoke again. “It’s not your fault you’re handsome. Or that you studied to be learned and interesting, and probably also to be charming, unless that’s natural, which it might be. You work hard even though you’re noble, and I appreciate that. But I don’t want to see you right now.” Tiiran’s lower lip seemed to be wobbling along with the rest of him. Nikoly’s wide-eyed expression was too much to take. “Thank you for trying to help, but I’m fine by myself and always have been. You shouldn’t worry about me.”

He made it about ten steps from the desk before he realized he was too tired to keep going. Perhaps one meal and a bun the day before had not been enough, and perhaps Po and Amie and Orin and Nikoly were right. It didn’t make it less infuriating… except Tiiran was too exhausted to be infuriated.

He stopped, genuinely considering curling up on the floor, and then Nikoly was next to him, speaking quietly.

“May I?” he asked, but put his arm around Tiiran’s waist and took Tiiran’s weight without waiting for a reply. “Which office?”

Tiiran couldn’t smell him, no soaps or teas or special oils to make his hair always look wonderful. But he could feel Nikoly’s warmth and his care, and it made Tiiran’s eyes sting again.

“I’m sorry,” he managed through his sniffling.

“Which office, honeybee?” Nikoly repeated, gentler, leaning in almost as if he were Orin and wanted to nuzzle Tiiran’s hair.

Tiiran waved him vaguely ahead, in no condition to argue or question anything. At least not until he’d rested.

“I am fine,” he insisted in his awful croak the moment Nikoly settled him into the overly large chair in the office that had last been used when Tiiran had composed the letters that might lead to him being back in the street. Where he belonged, some might have said.

Nikoly eyed Tiiran’s robe as he straightened up, but turned away without remarking on the state it was in. He went to the window first, opening the curtains to let what sun there was shine in. It was a decent-sized office, now that Tiiran was really noticing it. From the early days when there had been fewer Master Keepers. That, or someone important must have had it before Aize. It had a fireplace and a large window with a seat, plus a desk, a chair for the desk, and another chair and table by the fireplace. The fireplace was cold and dark, with no logs stacked next to it because no Keeper had been here to demand any.

Nikoly clucked his tongue. “I’ll bring something for the fire and then your copying work for you. And a real breakfast.”

“I didn’t ask you to.” Tiiran scratched out the words, weakening his case almost certainly.

Nikoly flashed a smile. “It’s my honor.” He pulled a handkerchief from his robe and dropped it to the desk in front of Tiiran as he went out.

As if that had summoned them, Tiiran had a fit of sneezes before he could argue. It was probably the layers of dust stirred up by Nikoly moving around. He used the handkerchief while It’s my honor lingered in the air. Orin had said that to Nikoly, unless Tiiran had misheard him.

“What the fuck does that mean?” Tiiran glared at swirling dust motes in the light. “Is this what he was like yesterday?” he asked himself quietly a moment later. He could see why Po hadn’t bothered trying to fend him off today. Nikoly probably could have picked Po up and set her aside anyway. He was alarmingly strong for someone who sat and wrote lines in books all day.

Tiiran was trying to rub both the thought and the achy fog behind his eyes away when Nikoly returned. He went to the fireplace first, and once he had a fire going, put a basket filled with a copybook, quills, and an inkpot on the desk.

His stern expression made Tiiran close his mouth.

“I’ll bring tea and food shortly. Rest, Tiiran. If I find you’ve moved, I’ll tell Orin.”

He was out of the room before Tiiran had a chance to croak out a fuck off .

Mattin brought the food and tea, as well as a cup of tea for himself, and curled up on the window seat, out of range of any sneezes, to read through a history. He paused every so often to make notations in pencil in a notebook he’d bound himself—Master Keeper work.

Tiiran, who could barely focus on the tiny words in the book in front of him but refused to give in and admit that because Po would be smug and Nikoly might appear out of nowhere to be smug next to her, watched Mattin for a while.

“Doesn’t it bother you having all those things in your hair?” he heard himself asking, rasp and all.

Mattin looked up, large eyes sparkling over whatever history lesson he’d been reading. “When I forget to take them out at night.” He twisted his lips and glanced toward the door. “They help me feel attractive. I know I’m not,” he added, with a shrug that seemed embarrassed.

Tiiran would have goggled at him, but his stinging eyes couldn’t take it. “The other day, I thought you and Orin might have met in the stacks. To fuck,” he added because sometimes Mattin grasped things quickly and sometimes he missed even more than Tiiran did. “Because you’re smart and pretty. That’s what Orin likes.”

“Orin?” Mattin’s gaze briefly went distant while he bit his lip and turned pink. He finally hummed. “Well, if he asked. Do you think he would ask?” He shook his head before the question was even fully out. “But I never thought of it, even if he had talked to me like he talks to you. I’ve always liked how he speaks with you, and how he looks at you, like he only has eyes for….” Mattin closed his mouth and cleared his throat, clearly remembering what Tiiran and Po had talked about the other day. “Um.”

“It’s fine.” Tiiran returned to squinting at ancient handwriting, his hands clenched in his lap because his fingers were cold, no other reason. “Nikoly is smart and pretty too, so I wasn’t wrong there at least.” He coughed dryly to make sure his voice was smooth. “This room is dusty.”

“All the abandoned offices are. No one has time to clean them,” Mattin returned absently, about to fall into his book again.

Tiiran glanced over to the window as much as he could with the sunlight making his eyes sting. “If the Keepers don’t answer, or if they all answer how I think they will, these rooms will stay empty. Seems a waste.”

“Hmm,” Mattin agreed.

Tiiran unfurled one hand to rub his forehead. “Do you like this one?”

“Hmm,” Mattin said again, then jerked his head up to stare at Tiiran as if flabbergasted. Then he closed his mouth and grew serious. “This is not the office of a new Master Keeper.” He spoke very, very quietly, cautious as Tiiran was not.

“There’s the tiny one you used before,” Tiiran immediately suggested. “It’s been emptiest the longest, and that Keeper is definitely not coming back.”

Mattin fussed with his robe, then his hair. “ You should have a place to work, a regular place.”

“So should you,” Tiiran croaked mercilessly.

“But…”

“I’m being practical. That’s what I do.”

“Tiiran.” Mattin stopped fussing. “Are you really suggesting we take over their offices?”

“We’ve done everything else except take their pay—which we should, honestly, but there is a charge that might be mistaken for thievery, so I won’t.” Tiiran was moping and sick, and very tired, but he was also, as he had once heard an outguard say, “out of fucks to give.” “We are all the ones keeping the library going. That means we are the Master Keepers here—well, you are.”

Mattin made a little noise, the closed his book with one finger to mark his place. He watched Tiiran shift and rub his forehead and sniffle. Then he said, Mattin-delicate, “Did you and Nikoly fight over Orin? Oh—you don’t have to tell me.”

“Of course we didn’t.” Tiiran couldn’t growl it, but he did scowl. “Can you fight over a person? They want you or they don’t, I always thought.” And in his case, they didn’t. “Anyway, I would lose.”

“Nikoly is very good-looking,” Mattin told him, pinking up again. “But so is Orin. And so are you.” Tiiran coughed roughly, then took several beats to catch his breath. Mattin stared calmly back at him. “I thought Orin had courted you already.” He ignored or didn’t hear the confused squeak that left Tiiran’s raspy throat. “But I often miss things. I’m better with books, always have been.”

Tiiran took another moment to breathe and to decide if he had the strength to ask what the fuck Mattin was talking about. He decided he didn’t. “Did you grow up knowing the origin of the library?” He reached for his cup of tea, annoyed to find it empty.

“Naturally. It’s in my family’s histories. And my mother’s family histories on two sides. They were supporters of the first king... eventually. Dull-but-loyal seems to have always been a trait for us.”

That history was probably part of why Mattin had come to the palace. Tiiran had just been hired to work. But he was still here. That must mean something, even if it wasn’t how Lanth would have preferred him to be.

“The library is all I have,” he admitted, voice small. “Is that foolish, do you think?”

Being who he was, the one beat-of-four worth anything, Mattin paused to seriously consider the question and his answer. “It’s… not all I have, but it’s all I have that’s my own. If that helps you.”

Tiiran repaid him by thinking that over just as seriously. He finally nodded. “Then we will ensure it lasts, as much as we can. But we will be careful. Orin says… he worries. So we should be careful.”

“We’ll have to hang up the banner,” Mattin said on a dismayed sigh.

“A banner for the library.” Painful but acceptable.

Orin was out somewhere in the capital or beyond, if he wasn’t still within the palace, doing dangerous work, but worried over Tiiran. He was a good friend, better than Tiiran was, who had let Orin leave on bad terms. The knowledge tightened Tiiran’s chest until every beat of his heart hurt. It was a lot like how the look in Nikoly’s eyes made Tiiran feel, but with anxiety enough to make him shake.

Taking more care wasn’t enough to apologize to Orin, but it might at least make him feel better.

Eventually, Mattin drifted out of the room in search of something and never returned. He was hopefully off investigating possible offices for himself but he’d probably fallen into some new history.

Not long afterward, Nikoly swept in with food, water with lemon, and a stack of fine linen handkerchiefs. Tiiran didn’t want to ask where he’d gotten those. The answer might end up being that he’d run out to buy them for Tiiran, and Tiiran already felt awful.

Nikoly also brought lunch for himself, and dragged the chair by the fire over to the desk to eat opposite Tiiran. He narrowed his eyes until Tiiran reached for his spoon to have some stew he couldn’t taste. Tiiran’s throat hurt, but he swallowed as if it didn’t and sensed that Nikoly saw him wince anyway. At least eating kept Tiiran from asking Nikoly about Orin, where he was and if he was furious or disgusted with Tiiran. When he would be back, if he would want to talk with Tiiran again, as friends if not anything else.

“I’m feeling much better,” Tiiran tried after a while, stiff and polite. “I’ve rested enough that I can probably manage my own dinner.” The walk across the palace sounded daunting, but he would try. “I’m not really that sick.”

“Yes, you are.” Nikoly dropped a piece of buttered bread on top of Tiiran’s stew.

Tiiran would have thrown down his spoon if it wouldn’t have splattered all over his copybook. He was hot without shivering, so it wasn’t fever. He understood that friendship could be like this. Po and Amie had plopped him in a chair and put a blanket over him. Mattin brought him tea. But this wasn’t helping Tiiran think of Nikoly as purely a friend. Tiiran was a fool who had read friendship wrong. He didn’t need that shoved in his face.

He glared at Nikoly for a long, painful moment, then caught himself and turned away.

Tiiran wasn’t a child. His disappointment, and constant, low-grade embarrassment at not having Nikoly or Orin to himself anymore, at having ever thought that was possible, were not Nikoly’s fault.

But Nikoly didn’t have to watch Tiiran eat as if Tiiran really was a child.

Tiiran tore off a piece of bread. “I’m fine, pup ,” he said deliberately before taking a bite.

Nikoly stilled, then slowly put down his spoon.

“Tiiran.” Nikoly regarded Tiiran steadily, leaving Tiiran to flinch. “You need to talk to me.”

“What is there for us to talk about, Nikoly of the Astvan?” Tiiran demanded around a mouthful of bread and then a quick, pained swallow of water. “I don’t understand things as quickly as others do. That’s not your fault, but you could leave me to be humiliated in peace.”

“Humiliated?” Nikoly reached out. “I could help you, if you talked to me. I want to help. Not anger you or… embarrass you?” It held a question. “How did I do that? Please tell me.”

Tiiran looked away. “Orin says my temper isn’t temper.” A poetry-and-roses way of saying Tiiran lashed out like an animal when afraid. “I’m not mad at you,” he told the window. “I’m mad at myself. And I work better on my own. Always have.”

“Do you?”

Tiiran turned in astonishment at the challenging tone.

Nikoly sat back and raised his chin. “I’m here to help. I will be here, honey—Tiiran. You should get some rest. Tell me what else you need done today and I’ll do it while you sleep. That window seat should fit you.”

Tiiran barely kept from sputtering. “I don’t take orders from you.”

Nikoly regarded him evenly. “No, I take them from you… if you’d grace me with one, worthy Tiiran.”

A wheeze escaped from deep within Tiiran’s chest.

“And I’m not making fun of you,” Nikoly added, rising gracefully to his feet. Tiiran leaned back to look up at him. “Or out to humiliate you, a charge I still don’t understand.”

“You and Orin think you’re so clever,” Tiiran muttered at last. “Fine. The tiniest office, in the back, on this floor. I think it should be cleared for Mattin’s use. Which will take a while since it’s a mess and we don’t have time. But he’s our acting Master Keeper and he needs a space.”

Nikoly’s smile returned, as warm and bright as the rest of him. “What about you?”

“I can work wherever.” Tiiran went back to painful swallows of stew but caught how Nikoly closed his mouth hard and then worked his jaw before nodding.

“I won’t argue, for now.” Nikoly poured more water into Tiiran’s cup, a well-trained courtier and puffed-up puppy. “You’ll rest more after you finish eating?”

“Or what? You’ll tell Orin?” Tiiran snipped, but was helpless and fascinated in the face of Nikoly’s ever-warming stare.

“Or you’ll make me sad, which seems to bother you,” Nikoly murmured, then ducked his head before taking his tray and slipping from the room.

Tiiran sat stunned once he was gone, feeling vaguely as if he was playing another game where everyone else knew the rules.

Then he realized he knew at least one: don’t make Nikoly sad.

“Fucksticks,” he said out loud.

When Tiiran opened his eyes and realized he was curled up in the afternoon sun on the window seat because he must have fallen asleep at the desk, he sighed deeply but didn’t move. An embroidered robe of dark blue had been tucked around him like a blanket. He was warm, and did indeed fit on the window seat—snugly, but he fit.

Stubborn sunflower, giving Tiiran nicer treatment than he deserved after Tiiran clawing at him all day. Over my knee , he could hear Orin threaten, and imagined this was the Nikoly version. Of course, then he heard Orin praising Nikoly, saying Excellent work, pup , and wanted to hide under his blanket.

Which was Nikoly’s robe.

Tiiran sniffed it, but still couldn’t smell much of anything. Not a hint of what Nikoly might smell like. Tiiran was destined to always be close to what he wanted, but ultimately denied it.

He dropped the robe like it was on fire when Nikoly floated into the office, a book under his arm, a steaming cup in his hand. Nikoly smiled when he saw Tiiran was awake and gazed happily down at him, distractedly underdressed without his robe. Once again, the top of his shirt was unlaced, the markings that said he liked to be useful fully on display.

Tiiran sat up, Nikoly’s robe falling to his lap.

As if in reward, Nikoly handed him the cup. Then, once Tiiran had inhaled the steam and tried a sip of tea, handed him the book as well.

“Some more poems you might like.”

Tiiran ran his fingertips over the cover, then opened it to see some library assistant’s handwriting informing him the book was a copy of a series of poems attributed to a warrior in service of a queen from centuries ago.

“The poem was for Orin.” Tiiran noted the assistant’s signature before closing the book. “But you probably guessed all about that.” Something else Tiiran had noticed too late.

“Did you ever give it to him?” Nikoly watched Tiiran gently place the book aside, not quite frowning, but with a slight air of displeasure.

“Forgot to,” Tiiran admitted, and hoped Nikoly could guess the reason why so Tiiran didn’t have to say it. “Was embarrassed to,” he added, smaller, “as I should have been.”

Nikoly was apparently gentle with fools. “You were right to choose that poem for him. He’d like it.”

“You’re the expert on him now?” Tiiran muttered, taking a drink to drown his bitterness.

Nikoly sighed heavily. “Because it’s from you , Tiiran. He’s so fond of you. He calls you kitten . You didn’t realize that means he likes you?”

“I’m sure he has a name for all of his partn….” But Tiiran wasn’t a partner. “For the people he is friends with.” Which included Tiiran, but not at all how Tiiran meant it. “And I’m sure he’d be kind if I handed it to him. But I misjudge situations. It’s happened before, so I should’ve known. I know now, anyway, and I wouldn’t embarrass him with it.”

“Tiiran.” Nikoly sighed again, slower and sadder. “So what are you going to do with it? You said you don’t care for poetry.”

Tiiran shrugged. “Put it away as another copy.” Keeping it would be a painful reminder. “It isn’t as if I would read it for fun. That wasn’t the sort of education I received.”

“I could… well, no, I couldn’t teach you about poetry, but I could discuss it with you if you wanted.” Nikoly looked hopeful when Tiiran raised his head. “It’s not my favorite but I can listen. So could Mattin. And Orin when he returns.” So Orin was gone. Tiiran kept his questions to himself. Nikoly continued. “He told me he didn’t used to work this close to the capital, but that he was glad to when the need arose because there is something here he wants to return to.”

“When did you have the time to talk?” Tiiran wondered snidely, then gulped and glanced up. He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

Nikoly’s gaze was light, his eyes nearly crinkling at the corners with some secret pleasure.

Tiiran stiffened, his spine utterly straight. As if he needed more sleepless nights imagining what the two of them had done together. “Forget I said anything. I’m sorry.” He meant that. “I don’t want to know.” That was a lie. “Orin is always busy. I’m glad he found something worth coming home to.”

Nikoly was practically glowing. “Are you jealous again?”

“I was never…” Tiiran stopped mid-denial, a horrifying flush spreading through his face and neck. He grabbed the cup with both of his shaking hands. “Because it’s so funny. Because I’m forever a joke.”

The smile disappeared from Nikoly’s face. “What? No. Tiiran—”

“Sorry I’m not noble, or experienced, or handsome!” Tiiran shouted, or tried to shout, but a tickle cut off his last word. Instead of a sneeze, it was a cough, first one and then a series of them, leaving him hunched over and gasping.

Nikoly’s hand was warm and steadying at his back, the rest of him close enough for Tiiran to lean against in sudden exhaustion. “Take a sip when you can,” Nikoly instructed in a soothing voice. “That’s it. Then breathe. Another sip please. For me.”

Tiiran sipped and breathed and finally looked up at him, afraid to speak. Partly from fear of the tickle in his throat returning, and partly from wariness over the return of Nikoly’s stern expression.

“That is enough,” Nikoly declared when their eyes met. “This is it . No more, Tiiran. It turns out I do not have Orin’s patience. But I’m not going to ask forgiveness for that.”

Tiiran moved his lips but not a sound emerged.

“Enough.” Nikoly bent down to look Tiiran in the eye from much closer. “You won’t ask for anything for yourself?”

“There’s no one to ask,” Tiiran answered, tired and bewildered. “What does that even mean?”

Nikoly stood up again to frown at him, then the rest of the room. “You take over an office but don’t light a fire for yourself? You don’t even ask anyone for logs?”

“No one has time to fetch any.” That Nikoly had taken the time today was a side issue. “There are no logs in my bedroom either. It’s rarely a concern.”

“Even in winter?” Nikoly spun back to him on the furious question. “The housekeepers are supposed to attend to that. Have they forgotten you?”

Tiiran had no reason to feel guilty. “I suppose so. It been a while since I dealt with them. When there were others in the room with me, probably.”

“How long ago was that?” Nikoly didn’t let him answer. “Do they think your room unoccupied? Tiiran…”

“Don’t tell Orin,” Tiiran heard himself saying. “Please.”

Nikoly grew even more incredulous, and then, suddenly, calculating. “He won’t be pleased. But perhaps you need his disfavor.”

“Nikoly!” Tiiran gasped and then had to drink more tea to keep from coughing. Nikoly didn’t soften.

“In almost all matters, I would take your side over his, Tiiran.” He was so serious. “But in this, I would stand with him. You deserve better. Please let us help you achieve that.”

“By talking to the housekeeping staff?” Tiiran wondered between sips. He must be sicker than he thought because this was a nonsensical fever dream.

“If that’s what is needed, I’m happy to. But also anything you might ask for.” Nikoly stopped to stare down at Tiiran, still serious, but also expectant. As if he were waiting.

Tiiran stared back, slightly lost. More than slightly lost. “I can’t really taste the tea but I know there’s honey in it. Thank you.” That wasn’t what he’d meant to say, but his mind was still trying to catch up while struggling with the snuffles and the brilliance returning to Nikoly’s eyes.

He had assumed there was no point in talking to the housekeepers, but had not once considered that with all the others moving out, and no palace Head of House with their own staff to keep track, the housekeepers might have simply assumed his room was empty. In calmer times, Tiiran might have shown up to find someone else assigned to those quarters.

“It didn’t occur to me to ask,” he admitted next. “I can do it now that I know.”

“I know you can .” Nikoly said it with a Po-like tone, as if he doubted Tiiran would . “I’ll do it tomorrow morning. They’re understaffed, but you should at least have more blankets, if not new logs every day in the winter.”

“I’m barely there,” Tiiran insisted weakly. “That’s not really necessary. You’re confusing when you’re stern.” It wasn’t at all like when Orin was stern. Tiiran wasn’t flushed with nerves and arousal. Instead, it was like he’d wounded Nikoly by being too tired to get logs for his fireplace.

“I’m stern when it matters.” Nikoly raised a finger as if to tell Tiiran not to argue with him about that. “Warmth is a necessity. But what about what isn’t? I’m going outside the palace tonight. Would you like anything from the capital?”

His soft tones would have put Tiiran back to sleep if he hadn’t been so confused. “Like what?”

“Sweets? Flowers? A meat pie?” Nikoly suggested. “Anything you like.”

Tiiran scoffed lightly. “There’s no reason you should remember me while out meeting… while out having fun.”

Nikoly’s eyes were shining. “You could come with me. I’ve been inviting you.”

Tiiran startled, nearly fumbling the cup. “I already watch people flirt with you all day.”

The pleasure in Nikoly’s eyes was too much. Then Nikoly was too much, leaning down again to ensure he had Tiiran’s attention. “But who do I flirt with, Tiiran?”

Tiiran pulled in a strangled breath but thankfully didn’t cough.

“Orin,” he said after a moment, because the two of them had been flirting right in front of him and he hadn’t even realized until later. Maybe. Probably. Tiiran was fairly certain anyway. Orin had been saying things deliberately as he did, and Nikoly had responded.

Nikoly expelled a breath through his nose but inclined his head. “That was different,” he allowed, not denying it. “Who else?”

He was looking right at Tiiran.

“Don’t tease me.” Tiiran’s voice was hoarse.

Nikoly gave him the slightest frown. “Why do you always insist that’s what I’m doing?”

Tiiran blinked several times. Nikoly stared back, waiting.

“You really were?”

Nikoly pushed out another breath, hinting at frustrations he was too well-trained to let show. “For a while now.”

“Sorry.” Tiiran shook his head. “I thought…”

“That I must be making fun of you? I was starting to think you were more like Mattin than you realize and didn’t notice. But you did notice.” Nikoly should have made Tiiran feel like the idiot he was. Not warm like this. “I was waiting for you to respond.”

“I wanted to.” Tiiran looked away before he did something foolish. He wasn’t thinking straight at the moment. Maybe this was a dream.

“I know.” Nikoly had that look about him again when Tiiran turned to him in shock, as if something had delighted him. “You spend a lot of time staring at my mouth. And my hands. And when I removed my shirt, you…”

“Shut up!” Tiiran lowered his eyes, hot all over again. “Please.”

Nikoly didn’t. “But you never said yes to what I asked. Never touched me. Never kissed me when we were alone.”

Tiiran jolted and looked up. He was staring at Nikoly’s mouth again but couldn’t seem to stop himself. “Kiss you?”

“May I touch you?” Nikoly said it as if he hadn’t placed Tiiran on the window seat. He put his palm to Tiiran’s cheek, lightly, not how Orin did it. To ask, not to make Tiiran listen. Then he went down onto his knees in front of Tiiran to look up at him, ignoring Tiiran’s flustered wheezing. “Will you kiss me now?”

“You’ll get sick,” Tiiran said instantly, panic making him a loose-mouthed ninny. Nikoly seemed unconcerned with that excuse, perfectly valid though it was. “It won’t be good,” Tiiran added, more panic making the words loud and shaky. “It won’t be like with Ori—with your others.”

Nikoly frowned, but it didn’t seem angry. “I don’t know why you’re jealous now.” He kept his voice gentle and low. “You have no right to be upset about anything I or Orin did, or do, or didn’t do—but only because you have not asserted that right. I’ve been waiting, most worthy Tiiran. So has he.”

Tiiran didn’t breathe. His eyes watered. Nikoly pulled a handkerchief from a pocket and handed it to him. Tiiran clutched it mindlessly.

Nikoly got to his feet. “I’ll bring you back something, then?” When Tiiran still didn’t speak, Nikoly gave him a more cautious look. “And you may call me Ly, if you like. At least Ly. Like the others do.”

“I don’t understand,” Tiiran managed at last.

Nikoly took the cup from him as if perhaps Tiiran had been about to drop it.

“I’m realizing that more and more, and wondering how much more difficult this might have been without Orin having already cleared some of the thorns.”

“Roses again,” Tiiran complained.

“You like roses.” Nikoly said it with an air of satisfaction. “Tell me what else you like and I’ll get it for you. Please.”

He’d said please to Orin too. That mattered, but not in a way that was upsetting. At least, not in that moment.

“I don’t know what else I like.” The confession was dazed, but also unsatisfactory. Tiiran frowned. “The orange slices were nice.”

Nikoly was suddenly radiant. “Perhaps some feast day treats? We can start there. Or more fruit. For now, you’ll rest, and we’ll talk more when you’re ready. For your sake,” Nikoly continued as if Tiiran had been about to argue, which he possibly had. “And for his. He won’t like the fact that you wore yourself down and became ill. You know he won’t.” His palm briefly graced Tiiran’s cheek again. “Neither do I.”

“You’re leaving?” Tiiran absently wiped his nose. “After that ?”

He’d pleased Nikoly again. “I have to be at the desk to help run your library. Shall I come by with more food, or send someone, or walk you back to your room before I go?”

Tiiran scoffed, mostly because no one would have had a sensible answer to that, especially not someone in his condition.

“It’s just the snuffles,” he said despite his own thoughts. “You don’t have to lure me with treats. I’m not actually an alley cat.”

Nikoly smiled. “We can discuss all of that when you feel better.”

“Some pup,” Tiiran muttered, but fell back down onto the seat cushion as if that conversation had sapped his strength.

“A dog,” Nikoly answered, or seemed to, but Tiiran was likely already asleep, and he’d wake up in bed with no handkerchief of fine linen and no blue robe blanket and know he had dreamed all of it.