“Hm.” Minos reclined in his seat and folded his arms over his chest, too, mimicking Nikator. “Well, how about this? You two can get to work. How about I take the princess out for a bit? I’m sure you’ve grown bored of being stuck in this musty room. What do you say?”
Biyu blinked at the earnest question and didn’t know how to react—leave somewhere? Where exactly? Did he intend to take her out of the palace? She didn’t see where they could gothat would be permitted. Although the idea of leaving did stir some unwanted feelings within her—most notably curiosity and longing—she did have a deadly spell to find.
She opened her mouth to tell him she’d rather get back to work, but Nikator beat her to it. His mouth twisted into a frown and he snapped, “You’re not taking her anywhere.”
“Oh?” Minos lifted a pretty brow. “Why not?”
“Because …” His sharp gaze flitted to her and she didn’t miss the feral gleam, the ferocity that told her he didn’t want to give her away to someone else. Her heart hammered in her chest, her cheeks warming up. He ripped his attention back to Minos. “I don’t trust you not to do something strange.”
“Oh?” That seemed to trigger mischief in the warrior, because a sly grin curved up his lips and he leaned forward on his arms. “Are you scared I’ll sweep her off her feet while you can’t even get a smile from her?”
Biyu’s blush intensified while Nikator narrowed his eyes at him.
“Are you kidding me?” he scoffed. “You’re not sweeping anybody off their feet with that shit-eating smile of yours.”
Minos’s smile only grew wider. “And neither are you with that perpetual sneer you’ve got on yours.”
What were they both saying? They couldn’t be arguing overher. No, it must have been an ego thing, showing how they were better than the other. Men liked to do things like that.
Nikator cursed at him—or at least it sounded like curse words, because he was speaking in his native tongue again and Minos was snapping back with the same amount of gusto, the words flowing so rapidly, so roughly, that she had a hard time focusing between the two.
Biyu didn’t do well in groups like this. She was too awkward and she didn’t know what to say most of the time. Like now. What was she supposed to say to them? Was she supposed tointerject with something witty or sarcastic or funny? She’d been raised to be a proper princess who only spoke when spoken to, so being in a setting like this made her more uncomfortable than the average person, she assumed.
“I’ll—” She jumped to her feet just as she gathered her scrolls and books into her arms. The three of them snapped their attention to her. She pointed her chin to the direction of one line of shelves. “I’ll put these away and grab some new ones.”
Nikator was beside her the next second, taking away the scrolls from her. “I’ll accompany you.”
“Why?”
He gave her a knowing look and she couldn’t help but scowl. Did he think she was going to try running when she had three Peccata members in close proximity? She wasn’tthatdense.
They both headed toward the bookshelves, leaving the other two behind. Minos grumbled something and poked his head back in his book, while Vita continued with her studies. They rounded a corner and continued down the neat rows of bookshelves. The occasional mage passed them by, but other than a nod of acknowledgement, they were left alone. It seemed like the mages expected Nikator and the rest. Or, perhaps, they were used to their presence and didn’t find it suspicious for them to be here with Biyu.
“I wasn’t going to run.” She folded her hands together in front of herself. They passed a shelf of thick tomes, their spines cracked and aged, and their weight making the shelves sag in the middle.
“You sure you weren’t going to steal these scrolls and tuck them away in your room?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, I was going to steal scrolls on how to fold excess laundry by the dozen. Oh, and how to leaven bread in minutes instead of hours. I’m sure that’ll be very useful for me. Not to mention the fact that I can’t even use magic.”
“I wouldn’t put it past you to figure out another way to use magic. You did it once before.”
“I only had that one magic stone ring.”
“I’m sure you did.”
Biyu gave him a dark look, but he only appeared amused by her. Huffing loudly, she pointed at the next shelf. “I found those over there. They weren’t in any particular order.”
Nikator slid the various scrolls into their allotted section and tucked the books beside the others. Biyu glanced over the spines of the books on the shelves behind them. More philosophy of magic, magicked baking, and rolled up parchment where it was hard to tell what they were about. They must have been in the practical magic section.
What was the point of discovering and creating spells for chores when the average person, or people who even did those chores, didn’t even have access to magic? When they didn’t even know how to wield the most basic of spells? It wasn’t that magic was barred from the common folk, it was just that there was no reason to teach the average person. Most mages chose to teach nobles and noble families who could actually pay them. And there wasn’t a government program or push to study magic.
“What are you looking at?” Nikator’s voice broke through her fog of thoughts.
Biyu waved at the books with dust settled around them. “These. Nobody reads them because nobody here needs them.”
“Spells for baking? I can see why no one is interested.” He scanned the rest of the book spines. “Mages need to know about combat and defense, since they’re an important part of our military. I hardly see why a mage would want to read about bread making.”
She nodded. “I understand, but these spells would actually help the common folk who need it, don’t you see? How much time would it save the average woman on laundering if she wasable to do it in an hour rather than several hours? And yet these spells will forever sit here and gather dust, rather than help anyone who might need it.”
