Page 53 of A Suitable Stray


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“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.”