Page 6 of Her Orc Protector

She reached into the deep pocket of her coat and pulled out something folded—a square of plum-colored wool with reinforced edges and a looped strap sewn into one corner.

“Had this made for my cousin’s girl,” she said. “She never came back for it.”

She didn’t offer it to me, not directly. Just set it on the windowsill beside me. Then turned.

“If you don’t want it, leave it here.”

Then, with no further ceremony, she stepped back down the hall, braid swaying again like punctuation. I heard muttering—something about the general inconvenience of soft things—but it seemed to be good-natured.

I looked down. Ellie blinked up at me, then made a soft sound—something between a sigh and a question—and jammed her fist decisively into her mouth.

“Well,” I murmured. “Didn’t expect that, did you?”

She gummed her knuckles and let out a muffled string of babble. All vowels and spit.

“Me neither,” I said.

I slid the plum wrap into my bag and stood, wrapping Ellie back against my chest before returning to the shelves.

Another hour passed. I dusted, sorted, made quiet work of the alcove. When I circled back to Shelf Three, I paused.

There was a stack of scrolls I hadn’t reached yet—crowded, loose, half-unraveled the last time I’d passed. Now, they sat neatly rolled and tied with soft twine. The twine wasn’t the standard cord, either. It was blue, slightly frayed, with a tiny sprig of dried lavender tucked into the knot.

I frowned. Looked around.

The hall was still empty.

I crouched beside the stack. No footprints in the dust. No lingering scent of perfume or polish—just parchment, old ink, and the faintest trace of moss and woodsmoke.

Further down the row, a single book had been left open across a stool. I hadn’t opened any today—just dusted their covers. The page was an illustration. Diagrams of infant wraps from various regions, annotated in tight, loopy script. A mark in the margin pointed to one of them. A note beside it read: support for spine and hips—good for longer walks.

I turned toward the main hall. No one was there. Just bookshelves. Light dust dancing in the last threads of sunbeam. But as I squinted toward the nearest end of the stack, I thought I saw—a reflection? No. A glint. Like a thimble button slipping out of sight behind a shelf.

Ellie sighed against my chest. I looked down at her, then back at the tidy scrolls. The opened book. The sprig of lavender.

“Well,” I said softly. “All right, then.”

I didn’t close the book. I left it just as it was.

And moved on to Shelf Four.

Chapter 3

Aweek passed like water through cupped hands—not fast, exactly, but steady. Impossible to hold. The archives settled into my bones day by day, and the dust, quiet, and scratch of quills became as familiar as breath. Ellie grew used to the rhythm, too. She'd sleep through my morning cleaning, wake for a feed when the light hit the east windows, then doze again until lunch.

I learned the rules without being told. Which shelves hummed. Where not to touch. How to move around Edwin's scattered mess of papers without disturbing his system. Even Fira's scowl softened, though she'd never admit it.

The people I’d met were kind in ways I didn't know how to accept. Gruha slipped extra portions onto my plate at breakfast, watching with sharp eyes until I finished. A few days in, she handed me a brass key without comment and nodded toward the back stairwell. “Try not to set the mattress on fire,” was all she said. I’d been sleeping on a cot in the shared room, behinda folding screen near the hearth, but that night, I carried Ellie upstairs to a narrow room with a door that closed and a window that looked east. Small. Quiet. Ours.

Dora appeared one evening with a woolen hat for Ellie—far too big, but "she'll grow into it soon enough, won't she?"

Even Fira started leaving small things behind—never handed over, never explained. A rattle tucked beside the return basket. A folded scrap of flannel that somehow ended up in my satchel. Once, a little tin of salve for cracked knuckles, set neatly on the windowsill with no note. When I glanced up at her, she just muttered something about “clutter in the drawer” and walked off.

It scared me sometimes. How easy it would be to trust this. To believe we were safe.

The last bell had just rung when Edwin limped around the corner of Shelf Eight, a fresh ink stain blooming across his sleeve.

"Heading out?" he asked.

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