“Orin?” Nikoly asked sharply. “The outguard?” He glanced down to the book and frowned. “Oh.” Apparently, it was his turn to say it. “Are you waiting to talk to him?” He met Tiiran’s probably very confused stare. “You may tell him I like cats too.”
Tiiran scoffed but it was reflex more than doubt. He had seen Nikoly out in the tiny garden a few times, usually chatting with someone, but the mousers would appear as if from nowhere to sun themselves near him as they did for Po.
Po also liked cats. And Tiiran, for some reason.
“Even when they scratch?” Tiiran asked at last, his voice small.
Nikoly considered him, not a hint of amusement to be seen. “Do you think that’s strange?”
Tiiran had no idea how the conversation had gotten to this point. “It’s strange to want to be friends with me,” he admitted, although he didn’t think Orin would like it. “Most don’t.”
“But some do,” Nikoly argued, exactly as Orin would have.
Tiiran narrowed his eyes. “It’s annoying how calm you always are.”
Orin was also calm and controlled and yet Tiiran didn’t dislike it. It was only when Nikoly answered him smoothly that Tiiran wanted to snarl and huff about it and make Nikoly benotcalm.
“It took a great deal of training, believe me,” Nikoly said with a smile much softer than the dazzling one. “I was wild as a boy.”
Tiiran wanted to ask whattrainingmeant, but didn’t even get to open his mouth before Nikoly tapped a page of the book to draw Tiiran’s eyes down to it.
“Will you read the poem to us while we work?”
“Why?” Tiiran wondered immediately, even more confused than before.
Xenia’s interjection brought his head up. “Because he likes your voice,honeybee.”
When Tiiran looked at Nikoly, he got another soft smile and a hum.
“Maybe the proper way to appreciate some poems is not to read them but to hear them,” Nikoly suggested. He dipped his chin down to look up through his lashes when he said it.
Tiiran gaped like a fish out of water and knew he did. No one who looked like Nikoly, who got attention from most of the assistants as well as a great many of the library visitors, who left the palace semi-regularly, presumably to visit pubs or a lover, or lovers, would bother pretending to flirt with Tiiran. The others teased each other all the time. To them, it was friendly, even when Tiiran thought it seemed mean. This was probably meant in that way, since Nikoly had claimed to want to be his friend.
A voice of someone unknown to him whispered into Tiiran’s ear that Tiiran, despite all his insistence otherwise, wished that ithadbeen flirting.
Some said never to eventhinkwishes because the fae could be anywhere, but the fae avoided Tiiran, always had. Anyway, he had not wished it, no matter what the strange voice said. But if he had, this was the sort of response he would have expected.
“I should really get this done,” Tiiran said, a scowl on his face, his shoulders nearly at his ears. He pretended he didn’t hear Nikoly’s long sigh, and didn’t as much as twitch when Nikoly rose to his feet with a movement so fluid his bones could have been made of water. He took his cup of bliss with him.
But Nikoly didn’t step away. “There are a lot of storms where you pass into the mountains to reach my family’s lands”
Tiiran tipped his head back to look up. “What?”
“To get to my home,” Nikoly explained again. “You see many beautiful storms, some even terrifying. But they bring rain, and they fill the sky with such colors it puts palace gardens to shame.”
“Flowery talk,” Tiiran said faintly.
“Lightning makes me homesick.” Nikoly regarded Tiiran almost solemnly. “It reminds me of what I love about my family and my home.”
“Enough to leave?” Tiiran wondered. He’d never felt homesick in his life, but he’d heard others speak of the feeling. “To return there?”
“Don’t worry about that too, honeybee.” Tiiran was bathed in the light of another of Nikoly’s smiles, and then Nikoly stepped back over to Xenia.
“Sorry, Ly,” Xenia was quiet, “but I do need to get this done today.”
“It’s all right. My lesson masters would be delighted to see me learn more patience. And it’s worth it.” Nikoly was equally quiet. He must have glanced back toward Tiiran, because he called over, “You’re frowning again. Is something bothering you?”
Tiiran found them both studying them. “What? Oh, is something bothering me? No. I… I was trying to imagine it,” he admitted, then felt like an idiot for saying it in front of them. But he already had, so he grimaced, then explained, “a home to miss.”
