Page 28 of A Suitable Stray

Nikoly narrowed his eyes. “Ask anyone here and they would say they believe you can do it. Some would even say you’re already doing it.”

Tiiran’s heart kicked against his ribs.

“It’s dangerous to reach for things,” he managed. Orin would be so pleased to find him cautious.

Nikoly glanced to the side, possibly to Mattin, studiously working or ignoring any rash statements. He set his shoulders before turning back. “Only in these times.”

Rulers didn’t care that much about the goings on in the library. But Tiiran had a feeling that breaking with tradition now, when it was all some rulers had to try to keep their thrones—and heads—would not be excused.

“In any times,” Tiiran informed him softly, realizing only once he’d said it that he was grasping the front of Nikoly’s robe. “With many Master Keepers within these walls, there would be politics here too, and traditions to be followed.”

Nikoly looked ready to argue. A strange experience; Tiiran was usually the one with forceful words on his tongue.

“But thank you,” he added, warmth moving through him at the realization that Nikoly’s anger was on his behalf. “It’s a pretty dream, isn’t it? I try not to have those. But I might keep that one, just for myself. You won’t speak of it to the others? For your own safety, you won’t? There are eyes-and-ears in the library too. Orin is always reminding me.”

Nikoly pulled back, then raised his head. He did not look pleased, but he nodded once jerkily, before taking another step away. He returned to frowning at his work a moment later. Or at least, he returned to frowning. Tiiran couldn’t say for certain where his mind was.

Perhaps that was why, although he knew it was foolish, Tiiran took several copies of beat-of-four histories to his room with him that night, and why he spent the next day frowning over words in the Old Tongue that were used everywhere without anyone knowing their meanings. Some scholars claimed to, but Tiiran wondered. After all, if anyone truly knew the origin of the names of the noble families, would they have cut them up into bits and pieces and glued them back together into names of four beats? Those names were gibberish.

Which said a lot about nobles. Not that everyone else was any better. Nearly everyone had names that had their origins in the Old Tongue, supposedly to honor dead loved ones or history. Yet for all anyone knew,Piyameant chair. Or snake. Or cowardly do-nothing—which at least was appropriate.Mattinmight mean daisy the way Po would insist it did. The infamous Arden of the Canamorra might have a name that meant nothing more thansharp.Tiirancould have been the word for spoon which was far more likely than his name meaning something poetic likewhirlwind.

For two nights, Tiiran carried on in such a way. To be a Master Keeper meant a working knowledge of the noble histories, and he had a great deal to learn.

The third night, he startled awake to Nikoly holding a lamp and glaring furiously down at him. The lamp above the table had gone out while Tiiran had been reading… sleeping, his head pillowed on the opened book on top of several other volumes all marked with slips with paper covered in Mattin’s bright inks that Tiiran had borrowed.

“Um,” Tiiran mumbled, swallowing to wet his dry mouth, “why are you still here?”

“Why areyoustill here?” Nikoly was not pleased. “Po caught me as I was heading to my room and mentioned she’d locked up but hadn’t seen you.”

“So you came to get me?” Tiiran asked muzzily, sure Po should not have given her key to an assistant who had been there less than a year. “Why?”

“The kitchens are closed.” Nikoly was so stern, Tiiran nearly apologized before he remembered he didn’t have anything to apologize for.

“Many librarians have wound up spending a night in here,” Tiiran argued. “Or forgetting a meal. It’s not a crime.”

“I suspect if I mention the damage this does to you, you wouldn’t care.” Nikoly didn’t lessen his glare. “So I will mention what might get through to you: what would your outguard say if he found you like this?”

“He’s not my—” Tiiran sat all the way up, more of his joints protesting, which said his posture before he’d fallen asleep had been truly horrible. “He would threaten to put me over his knee,” Tiiran muttered, then sucked in a breath and shot to his feet so fast his head swam.

Nikoly caught his arm to steady him, or so Tiiran thought until Nikoly had already urged him out from behind the table and out toward the stairs. Nikoly must not have heard Tiiran’s remark, or maybe had but hadn’t understood it. Tiiran clung to that hope all the way down from the dark third level to the even darker first, and when Nikoly led him into the rest area and let him go just to inform him that he had writing on his face again.

“The will to claim the length of the land,” Nikoly read aloud, the lamp nearly blinding between them.

“Someone speaking of the first ruler,” Tiiran explained.

Nikoly studied him solemnly, which was when Tiiran finally took a good look at him. Nikoly was not in a robe or clothes meant for the library. He had been out of the palace again most likely. Emerald green suited him.

Tiiran dropped his gaze the moment their eyes met, although he didn’t think Nikoly could see his eye color in this light.

“I can get that for you,” Nikoly offered, already putting down the lamp and turning toward the cabinet for a washing rag.

Tiiran’s tongue was suddenly thick. “Really, Nikoly.” Nikoly’s sigh wasn’t called for. “No, no, you don’t need to heat water. Cold water and a scrub will do. If not, I can use solvents in the morning.”

Nikoly stood tall in front of him, then cupped Tiiran’s jaw in one hand before bending to examine the ink. He exhaled, his breath warm and smelling faintly of cider.

“Did you have fun in the capital?” Tiiran was quiet, his voice growing even lighter at the first slow pass of the wet rag over his cheek.

“Would you like to join me there?” Nikoly asked, eyes on his work, which was good, since he was so close that Tiiran had to shut his eyes or grow dizzy watching him.

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