“Don’t say please.”Pleasemade Tiiran want to give Nikoly things. “Is it so dangerous? It’s just what is.”
Orin growled. “You have seen for yourself what nobles will do if they don’t like ‘what is.’”
Tiiran’s eyes unexpectedly began to sting. He took a sip of tea to hide his face.
“Did he eat today?” Orin asked—about Tiiran as though Tiiran wasn’t in front of him. “Besides that biscuit, I mean.”
“Breakfast at least.” Apparently seeing nothing wrong with Orin’s manner, Nikoly answered him, then picked up Tiiran’s abandoned biscuit to hand it to him.
Tiiran took it but spitefully chose not to eat it. “Does your wrist ache?” He refused to glance over to Nikoly. “You shouldn’t do any more writing today, and probably do something else tomorrow as well. Binding books for the others, or cleaning. Anyway,” he continued loudly over Nikoly’s low, “Yes, Tiiran,” “I was surprised to learn the Outguard and the Great Library were so closely linked. But I suppose, they’d have to exist alongside each other, if rulers wanted access to information that didn’t come from nobles they couldn’t trust. It’s interesting the library has never been overrun with nobles. They probably don’t like working. But you’d think some would try to influence the information here. Maybe some had. Or had tried to. Maybe that’s why Lanth was so insistent on…oh.”
“There is a biscuit in your hand. Eat it, please.”Pleasefrom Orin was different from apleasefrom Nikoly. It wasn’t asking. “And take a moment to actually taste it.”
“Yes, Orin.” Tiiran took a bite, letting the texture soften and the oats-and-honey flavor grow and fade before he swallowed and looked up. He belatedly considered that Nikoly was seeing him take orders from Orin, and flushed hot as he looked over.
Nikoly stared back at him, gaze golden.
“What I was going to say,” Tiiran had to look away so he peeked toward the entrance again, “was that Lanth thought it was worth dying for. To her, knowing the history, the library was truth and some notion about justice. That was equal to her life as far as she was concerned. Not me—I mean, not the others here. She valued the library more.”
Nikoly touched Tiiran’s knee. “Tiiran?”
“I suppose anyone would choose that over m—over life. I mean, anyone who grew up knowing about those things and believing in them. You don’t learn or care about high-minded ideals scrubbing toilets and hauling firewood.” Tiiran thought vaguely that at least this finally explained why Tye had been so focused on the library. To her, the library was a tool for the rulers, there to be used for any reason, even to legitimize her reign.
He had some tea, which was unpleasantly cool. “We should really tell assistants this when they are brought in. But then, it’s just a job, isn’t it?”
“Not to you, honeybee.”
Tiiran raised his head and looked to Nikoly.
“Honey Bee?” Orin echoed, a certain hoarseness in his voice. “Like the song?”
“Bee,” Tiiran insisted, unaware of any song. “Po calls me that and now the others do sometimes. Only Nikoly says honeybee.”
Nikoly lifted his chin.
“Because he’s more than the sting?” Orin had his attention on Nikoly too.
“Tiiran is also sweet.” Nikoly was quietly defiant.
Orin agreed on a sigh. “Yes, he is.”
“You would think people would be afraid of me,” Tiiran said too loudly, watching them watch each other. “He admits I sting and yet here he is anyway.”
Nikoly glanced at him. “New to the capital and the palace, I arrived at the library with a letter of introduction from my mentor, and walked in to find Tiiran humiliating some scholar or noble—I don’t know which one; I haven’t seen him since. Po stepped in to lead me away, and then later, properly introduced me to Tiiran, who looked me up and down, and said,” Nikoly paused, “‘Hewants to be here?’ Then Po tried to ruffle his hair. And when he was done snarling about that—or actually, he kept snarling, but he took over the task of showing me around. I thought… well, I thought that look and that remark meant something. But he didn’t flirt. He told me that we had no Master Keepers because a past ruler killed one, and that we had fewer assistants too, which meant more work and not much time to train. And when I told him I was already fairly educated….” Nikoly was smiling broadly now. “He said, ‘Oh. Well. No working in dim light no matter how much you want to finish.’ A rule I notice that you ignore, Tiiran.” Nikoly carried on reminiscing over Tiiran’s embarrassed noises. “Then he swooped in, quite ferociously, to add, ‘And take no shit from nobles. We take requests, not orders. If someone gives you trouble and there’s no Master Keeper nearby, because there never is, those worthless cockalorums, come to me. I’ll step in for you.’”
“So of course you stayed,” Orin remarked.
Nikoly shrugged, still smiling. Tiiran grumbled around the biscuit, too distracted not to bite into it.
Orin spared him a look, probably happy to see Tiiran eating. “When I met him, that is, when I really noticed him among the other assistants, he came up to boot me from the library, all full of detached fury over anyone disrespecting library rules. Then he saw that I’d lit the lamp myself and gave me an earful about that, and told me to call him the next time I came in. Which I thought was an invitation to… well, you understand.” Nikoly snorted quietly. Tiiran glared at them both. Orin gave Tiiran another approving look before returning to his story. “He really meant it about the lamp, even though, and I’m sorry, kitten, but you can’t reach the taller ones, even with a stool. Then he looked me over, crossed his arms, and declared, ‘I suppose you can stay. At least until the last of us leave.’ Which prompted me to ask whytheywere there that late. I’d forgotten the hour, but surely the library was too dark by then, even with lamps and fires, to do much copying. He gave me such a look.” Orin sighed fondly. “As if it had never occurred to him to go home earlier.” He met Tiiran’s annoyed and embarrassed stare and his gaze was dark. “I had yet to realize how true that was. But once I did…”
“You made it your mission to change it?” Nikoly finished for him.
“And I haven’t regretted it, although it’s caused an ache or two.”
“It has?” Tiiran asked, feeling foolish and small when they both looked at him. “I don’t mean to be difficult. Not to you, anyway. Not when you’re trying to be nice to me.”
“Nice?” Nikoly echoed.
