“You aren’t angry with me anymore?”
When Tiiran raised his head from his examination, Nikoly was still watching him.
Tiiran glanced around, but the others had vanished, a fact which did nothing for his burning face. He looked down, saw Nikoly’s hand in his, and pulled in a breath. “I only hold grudges against the intentionally malicious or the powerful-but-incompetent. Now answer my questions.”
“Yes, Tiiran.” Nikoly turned his palm up. Tiiran traced the lines on it without thought. When he realized, he nearly jumped. But Nikoly said not a word, so Tiiran cleared his throat and resumed his examination. He used his thumb to run over the mound at the base and push where he felt tension. Nikoly let him do it without complaint, only sighing as he answered, “I have not felt any tingling. Sometimes my wrist and fingers ache if I’ve written all day. Leydo trained me. And no, your touch now doesn’t hurt.”
Tiiran met his gaze again, trying to catch and understand Nikoly’s emotions but finding only the same golden interest.
“I’m glad you’re no longer angry with me. I didn’t mean to wound you.”
“I know.” Tiiran moved his attention back to Nikoly’s forearm, stronger than he would have expected from any other librarian, the muscle firm and solid, especially at the wrist, as if Nikoly was accustomed to holding something far heavier than a quill. His palm was not entirely soft, not as Tiiran’s was, used to books now instead of scrubbing. But he had calluses, a writer’s callus and a few others. “Thereissome tension here.” Tiiran massaged the base of Nikoly’s thumb and heard his voice go lighter, but there was nothing to be done about it.
He gentled his touch to get each finger, glancing up a few times to make sure Nikoly wasn’t hiding any pain.
“I can show you the exercises later if you like,” Tiiran murmured, his hand sliding to Nikoly’s wrist before it occurred to him that he really ought to let go.
“What about my other hand?” Nikoly asked.
Tiiran was on Nikoly’s other side almost immediately, pushing Nikoly’s sleeve out of the way to find the warmth of his skin.
“This is all right?” Tiiran’s voice continued to grow softer. He turned Nikoly’s hand over to inspect the markings, the similar calluses, the cord holding his rowan tree charm in place. “I know our rules can seem ridiculous, but think of it as like the things the guards do before sparring so they don’t injure themselves further. You should do the stretches, and also, probably, get someone to do this for you if you do feel an ache. A massage, that is. It helps, though I’m not the best at it. I haven’t even done it for anyone in… in years, actually.”
“You’re taking wonderful care of me, honeybee.” Nikoly spoke just as softly. “But who does this for you?”
Tiiran glanced up again but couldn’t hold still under all that warmth—more thanwarmth, but Tiiran didn’t know what else to call it. “No one. It doesn’t matter.” Nikoly made a pained sound. “What?” Tiiran stopped. “What is it?”
“You didn’t hurt me.” Nikoly wiggled his fingers as if to prove it.
Tension left Tiiran immediately, enough that he scoffed as he resumed his slow massage, even though Nikoly didn’t use this hand to write. “Would you notice the pain? I doubt it would register compared to what those must have felt like.” He tapped one of the ink markings. “They must have hurt a great deal. Did you sit just as still for those as you do for this?”
Hesawthe shiver wrack Nikoly and the dark of his eyes grow wider. “Are you asking me to?”
Tiiran’s fingers fell away, slipping down to Nikoly’s wrist and catching on the bracelet.
“You sound as if you’d like that,” Tiiran said, but couldn’t put laughter in his voice the way the others did. Maybe if he were handsome and good with people like Nikoly, or friendly and knowing like Po, he would have known how. If he were as confident and controlled as Orin, he might have said, “Youwillbe still for me,” and Nikoly would have shivered again and responded how people like that normally responded.
“You’d be good, I imagine,” Tiiran went on, every inch a fool for admitting to imagining it. “You’re always good.” He stared down at the silver tree and silently cursed the fae it was meant to invoke for nearly luring him into a wish. “I’m not, and I’m sorry I wasn’t better to you.”
“Tiiran,” Nikoly’s voice was hoarse. “Tiiran.”
Tiiran was distantly aware of the throb of Nikoly’s pulse under his fingertips, and the feeling that he ought to do something about it. That, for the moment, Nikoly was in his care, and Tiiran was responsible for that pulse and the shaken note in his voice because Nikoly had allowed him to be.
Then the library’s entrance doors opened and Tiiran looked up out of ingrained habit. He identified the dusty, well-traveled clothing of the Outguard on the two figures and the sling around the arm of one of them, the bruises on their faces a moment later. His heart was racing even before he recognized the larger figure entering the library behind them, half turned to peer out into the corridor as the doors closed.
Tiiran darted forward without thought.
“Orin!”
In the second before Orin saw Tiiran, his expression was so coldly furious that Tiiran skidded to a stop halfway to him. Then Orin’s whole body relaxed, a long sigh of relief pulling away his tension, and Tiiran stuttered back into motion.
He nearly tumbled to the ground again with the force of his second stop, close enough to Orin to touch him only to recall himselfjustbefore he stepped into Orin’s arms. His toes collided with Orin’s boots, his palms with Orin’s chest. He spent a heartbeat flustered over it, then looked up and noticed that Orin’s face, like those of the outguards with him, was also marked from some sort of violence: a small cut held together with two stitches, surrounded by bruising.
“Now, kitten,” Orin began the moment he realized Tiiran had noticed, “don’t frown. It’s nothing to fuss over.”
“Nothing to fuss over?” Tiiran demanded indignantly, barely aware of the other two outguards chuckling as they continued forward to the front desk. Tiiran glanced distractedly in their direction, grateful Po had returned to deal with them. Then his attention stuck on Nikoly at the table.
Their eyes met.
