The next bowl of porridge came with a cup of water. Tiiran drank it all before considering the possibility of poison, but then didn’t think it would have stopped him. Nikoly would have been upset. Orin would have punished Tiiran for not thinking of himself.
The fantasy of their concern was pleasing, although Tiiran didn’t think he’d be too good of a duckling at the moment, even if he’d been clean. His braid was more or less a bird’s nest since he had no way to do anything with it. He had no stubble but was certain his face was filthy. He could crack his blackened eye now for all the good it did him in his dark cell. And some time during what he was going to call the night, he’d developed a faint cough. From the damp or the cold, he couldn’t say.
He got up with some effort to peer out the door, heard guards complaining and rats scuttling about, but nothing about Piya, or Pash, or anyone else being held in whatever ruin this building was a part of.
The guards should either question him or stop feeding him. That was only logical, though Tiiran shushed Orin’s growl before he could imagine it into existence. Tiiran was right and even Orin would have to admit it sooner or later.
Maybe they wanted Tiiran weakened even further before Pash asked for him. That was fair enough. By then, Orin and Nikoly should be long gone, and whatever they had been plotting would stay concealed, and they would both stay very much alive.
Tiiran wished they were with him, though. In the dark with his stomach knotted with hunger and his mouth dry and everything so cold, he wished he had Orin on one side of him and Nikoly on the other, warm and strong and calling him sweet names that didn’t suit him.
Tiiran’s wishes were never answered anyway, so he could dream of it without worrying about tinkling fae laughter. It would be nice to feel it again, being loved. Or, if he was being technical about it, what heimaginedbeing loved felt like.
They likely did not love him, although they might have cared for him. But it felt the same to Tiiran and that was all that mattered. Maybe if he’d had that feeling before, grown up with it, he would have understood the songs the bards sang, or told Po that he was fond of her, or played with Mattin’s hair in return. He might have known that Orin and Nikoly had not been offering real courtship and must have had another reason to spend time with him.
He banished that thought before it could fully return. He didn’t actually care why they had done it, even if ithadbeen for treasonous plots against Piya. Tiiran didn’t give a fig about treason, particularly against Piya, who committed treason just by having a royal librarian here, and locking up a child, and hiding captives instead of trying them publicly.
If a king did not act in a just manner, then he was not doing the duty of a king. Orin wasn’t here to keep Tiiran from explaining this to the rats and the air, so he did, once and then again between fits of coughing. If the fae were listening, they should take note.
Chapter Twenty-four
Thoughts began to slide away from Tiiran even when he tried to grasp them. He hadn’t slept well, too cold, his cough worsening. He should have eaten that morning when Nikoly had wanted him to, however many days ago that was now, and had the tea Nikoly made for him. He should have rested properly after the snuffles because he must not have been fully recovered, and should have told Orin to take him and Nikoly with him on his travels. Tiiran could learn to ride a horse. It couldn’t be that difficult, no matter how tall the beasts were.
No replacement porridge arrived. No water came again. He didn’t feel like stretching onto his toes to peer outside, but he didn’t hear much from where he was, only more muttering, as if the guards holding people captive felt they had a right to complain abouttheirtreatment. He slept a little.
He was too weak to not consider how easy he must have been to lie to, or all the times Nikoly had glanced away instead of answering simple questions. How he’d hesitated over giving Tiiran even his false name. His frowns when Tiiran had mentioned beat-of-fours.
All that time, Tiiran had thought Nikoly had been hurt by how Tiiran spoke of nobles, and Nikoly hadn’t just been some wealthy, well-bred thing but aRossick. All those times he had warned Tiiran about eyes-and-ears, because he knew about them. Because he was one.
Pash was a self-serving liar, but that did not feel like a lie. More like a very good guess.
Nikoly was ideal for the role. Tiiran didn’t know if Nikoly had been meant to gather information and gossip only, or if Nikoly was one of the kind of spiesto actas well, but Nikoly, educated, friendly, patient, more than capable of artifice, sitting right there in Tiiran’s library talking to outguards and scholars, was perfect.
He must have made his mentor proud. That would please him at least, keep him content until he could find someone he might really want to swear himself to.
That someone might be Orin. That thought returned as well, and Tiiran was too tired to push it away.
Tiiran didn’t think they’d known each other before, although they could have. But Orin, just as capable of being an eyes-and-ears under the guise of already being one—albeit an outguard and therefore serving the ruler—was everything Tiiran was not. He would have no problems transitioning from Master of Strays to Master of Hounds. The two of them could serve the Rossick, or the new ruler, or only each other once their work was done.
Whatever that work was. The questions remained: was Orin a spy and if so, who was he spying for? The Outguard? Was the ancient institution acting to protect its members? Or were they acting on behalf of a noble family they had decided to favor? Orin had spoken as if he believed in the purpose of the Outguard, but maybe he didn’t feel Piya believed the same.
Or maybe he was only trying to protect his friends. He’d spoken of danger. Was it truly about nobles who wanted to censor Outguard reports, or had the reports held other information?
If that was so, that meant someone in the library knew, and that Tiiran needed to question the assistants who copied the reports or find out who requested information from those reports. Orsomeoneshould, in Tiiran’s absence.
If any of that was true, there was even more danger around the library than Tiiran had thought. And yet, Orin and Nikoly had fretted overTiiran’sbig mouth whiletheyhad been bringing this risk to his door.
But they had. They had fretted. No spy would need to pretend to fuss over Tiiran in his patched robes in his cold room, or clean ink from his cheek. Or squeeze him tight while begging for him to control his temper. Bring him food without even staying to ensure he ate it. Order him to use a soap that would be kinder to his skin.
The pretty son of an infamous noble family most certainly did not. And Orin… might, if he actually were the kind of eyes-and-ears to act and plot, and he felt the heartbreak of one library assistant was worth the outcome he wanted. But Orin wasn’t the sort to plot. Orin preferred to unravel plots.
If Nikoly had been sent by the Rossick to merely observe and report, then Orin had been sent—or decided on his own—to investigate. Each of them had lied to Tiiran, but he wasn’t part of any scheme. He was a challenging bit of bed sport or perhaps they’d truly fancied him for a while. That wasn’t so bad. It didn’t change what he felt and it didn’t make him regret his choice—although he did want them to know it was a choice and not his temper.
“For the record,” he murmured, “Iwas not the danger, Elorin Vahti. You were. You and your—my—pup. You had better think fondly of me in the future. Both of you. Perhaps even be exasperated that I did this.”
He would accept that.
Chapter Twenty-five
