Chapter 10 - Roan

Chapter 10 Roan

This bed was cozier than the ones in the inns I usually stayed at, soft and warm. There wasn’t anyone talking in other rooms or the sounds of a busy dining room downstairs either. It was way better than roughing it outside too.

I shifted, my fingers brushing against Nyssa’s arm resting on my chest. Her body felt nice and warm and her deep, even breathing almost made me doze off again. I hadn’t woken up next to anyone in a while and it reminded me how much I craved it. I started to pull Nyssa closer—

Wait. My eyes snapped open, my heart beating frantically. The pillows she’d built into a nice respectful wall were strewn all over the bed and Nyssa was snuggled up against me like I was her pillow.

Her hair had fallen over her face in delicate strands, her eyelids fluttering like she was still deep in a dream. My mouth went dry. She was breathtaking, but this was the exact situation I hadn’t wanted to happen. Getting close to her was just going to make leaving harder.

She nuzzled her head against my shoulder, letting out a soft mmmm noise that made my arms twitch with the desire to pull her even closer. My body seemed to have a will of its own, but it felt so good I almost didn’t want to fight it. We were just cuddling, was that really so bad?

Man, she really destroyed that pillow wall. I smiled, spotting a few of them on the floor. She must be a restless sleeper, tossing and turning, but right now she looked so peaceful I didn’t have the heart to move. She’d been working hard. The least I could do was lie here with her for a bit longer while she slept.

Her fingers curled into my chest like they were digging into the fabric of my heart. My skin tingled everywhere it touched hers. I took a deep breath to relax.

This was exactly why I shouldn’t have shared a bed with her in the first place. She was too comfortable, lulling me into a false sense of security. I should get up now, go get ready for the day while she slept.

“G’morning,” Nyssa mumbled, sleep making her voice raspy.

I froze. What was I supposed to say in this situation? Everything in me wanted to stay in bed with her all day, but I knew I had to move. Had to get away before these feelings started growing.

Flirt. That’s what I’d do. She always snapped back when I did that.

“Good morning, gorgeous,” I said in a low voice.

Her body tensed as her eyes slowly opened. “Why are you...” Her eyes widened and she jerked away from me. “I am so sorry! I didn’t mean to do that.”

“It’s fine, we both needed the sleep.” I forced a grin, already missing the warmth of her next to me. “I’d let you use me as a pillow any day.”

She groaned, putting her head in her hands. “Never again. We’re never talking about this again.”

“Ouch, you wound me. But I can agree to that.” I propped myself up on my elbow, leaning toward her. “But I can’t promise I won’t think about it.”

A faint smile brushed her lips before she pushed me away. “Just get ready, will you? We’ve got a job to do.”

“What’s on the list today?” I asked, happy to have something else besides her adorable sleepy smile to focus on.

“Finishing up the patches, making the golem a garden, and”—she tilted her head at me—”fixing up the lending libraries?”

I’d almost forgotten about those little boxes that had followed us up here with their rickety doors and faded paint. She’d joked about me fixing them, but that meant interacting with the wild magic creatures one on one, helping them. What would the guild have to say about that?

That was a problem for future me. Right now, I was just a volunteer at a little library on a mountain.

“For you, I’ll do that whole list and more,” I said with a smile.

“Just the lending libraries is fine,” she said as she went to get ready. “Oren will probably help you too.”

Right. The other librarian who was researching the creatures for Nyssa. I could use that time to get more details on the creatures and how safe he really thought they were. Was he why we didn’t wake up to an audience again?

I rustled through my pack, grabbing my last change of clothes.

“You ready?” Nyssa asked, poking her head outside the bathroom.

“Give me just a few more minutes.”

After I finished up, we headed downstairs to see Oren having tea with the red panda in a circle of creatures all chatting animatedly. When the red panda saw us, it placed two more mugs on the table followed by rice balls and fresh fruit. If my stomach wasn’t growling, I’d have asked where it kept getting all the food from.

It hadn’t hurt us yet, so I was just going with it for now, but what was with the magic here? It felt wild, but it seemed stable. That was good enough for now.

“Thank you, Mochi,” Nyssa said as she accepted a steaming mug of tea. “This is just what I needed.”

The red panda chittered happily at her as it moved back and forth on its chair. Oren rubbed his eyes, looking like he might fall asleep right there if the creature librarian, Lisa, wasn’t keeping his attention.

She sipped her tea, glancing at us. “So, how did you sleep?”

“Fine.” I was not about to talk about my sleeping arrangements with a wild magic creature, no matter how human-like she acted. “Hey Oren, want to help me fix up the lending libraries outside?”

Nyssa’s eyes widened. “You don’t need to start right now. You can eat.”

I could, but then I’d be having breakfast with a bunch of story spirits. No. Creatures. I had to keep calling them that otherwise I’d start treating them like normal people. One of us needed to stay objective just in case this all went sideways.

“It’s fine,” Oren said with a yawn. “The lending libraries showed me the way here, so I should thank them anyway.”

Great. The tension in my shoulders eased as we made our way outside, but something tugged at my clothes. I glanced down to see the red panda holding out sandwiches.

“Mochi doesn’t want you to be hungry,” Lisa said, her kind eyes studying me. “He wants you to feel comfortable here.”

The red panda was standing tall on two legs, holding out the food to me like an offering. It tilted its head this way and that, chittering as if asking me why I wasn’t taking it. It was honestly too sweet to ignore.

I broke down and took the sandwiches. “Thank you.”

Mochi spun in a circle, tail swishing back and forth as he raced back to Nyssa. She bent down to pet him, whispering something soothing to him that I couldn’t quite make out.

I felt myself walking back toward them, but stopped. Nyssa had already proven to be too cozy and distracting, not to mention the whole warm vibe of this place and everyone eating together. Every time I’d given into something like that, my world had fallen apart.

It was better to keep my distance for now.

Eventually, I’d find a place I could settle down with people who genuinely cared about me, but for now, I had work to do and wild magic to investigate.

“So,” Oren said, pausing as he held the door open for me, “I’m guessing you didn’t just invite me out here to fix lending libraries.”

“Why do you think that?”

His eyebrows raised skeptically. “Because you barely know me, you don’t seem to like the story spirits, and Nyssa obviously wanted you to stay and eat with her. All of that points to you having a reason for asking me to talk alone.”

“I’m really that easy to read, huh?” I said with a laugh, walking outside to find the lending libraries. They were slowly hopping around the empty book cart, their roofs drooping and their doors hanging open. “Hold on a minute.”

I ducked back inside the library to grab a few books, remembering how the lending libraries got excited when Nyssa gave them each one. It would be much easier to talk to Oren if the lending libraries weren’t depressed and causing problems. I’d just give them some books and ask them to sit still while we repaired them.

When I walked outside, they turned to me, racing over in big leaps like they were dogs who’d caught the scent of meat.

“Calm down,” I said, holding a book in the air. “If I give you these books, will you sit still while we repair you? We’ve got new latches and paint to freshen you up.”

Oren frowned as the lending libraries stood stock still. “Huh, I didn’t expect that. You’re really good with them.”

“Just doing what Nyssa did.”

If I treated them like puppies, it was much easier to ignore the fact that they were inanimate objects moving with a wild-magic fueled life of their own. Oren ushered them over to a picnic table while I grabbed the sandpaper, paint, hinges, and latches from the cart. This cart was starting to feel like one of those magical bags that never ran out of space and you could find anything in.

“So about these...story spirits,” I said. “Do you think they’re dangerous?”

I grabbed a piece of sandpaper and started sanding down the old rough paint on the lending libraries. They stayed true to their unspoken word and didn’t move very much, which was nice. I could almost pretend they were normal.

Oren took a piece of sandpaper and joined me. “Well, I’ve only been here a day, but I don’t think so. They seem like they’re connected to the library somehow, none of them willing to leave it or do anything that might damage it. The way they talk about this place feels like they’re talking about their best friend.”

“And that means...?”

“That they wouldn’t do anything that would risk harming the library,” he said, moving to the next lending library. “If that’s true, then they probably wouldn’t do anything to hurt people inside it either.”

“Probably?” I paused, sanding an extra rough spot smooth. “How can we be sure though? Nyssa is determined to stay here and get patrons back. I can’t let that happen if it means putting people at risk.”

I hadn’t said that to anyone yet, but it was the truth. Sure, I’d turned a blind eye to the wild magic here for now, but I had to know if it was dangerous before anyone else got involved. The guild would knock me down to E-rank if I let a library full of people get attacked.

“What does Nyssa think about that?” Oren asked as he opened a bucket of paint. When I didn’t answer, he looked up at me. “Wait, you did tell her, didn’t you?”

“Not exactly, but I will.”

Oren shook his head. “I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but she seems happy. Don’t screw it up by keeping secrets.”

“I think you’ve got the wrong idea about us,” I said, brushing sawdust off one of the lending libraries. “She’s happy because she’s back in the library she loves and I’m just here helping out for a bit. I’ll be gone once I’m sure this place isn’t a danger to anyone.”

“Okay.” Oren raised an eyebrow. “I’ll do more research. See if we can find a solid answer for you.”

We worked in silence for a bit after that, sanding and eventually painting once the sawdust blew away. Oren was supposedly a great researcher, so if I let him handle the wild magic research, then I could keep focusing on the physical repairs. But my mind kept drifting back to Nyssa, wishing she’d walk out here and check on us or wondering what she was doing inside.

That woman was always doing something unexpected...

“So, how well do you know Nyssa?” I asked.

“Pretty well,” Oren said, spreading a not so perfect line of paint across a lending library. “I was kind of a mess when I first joined the guild, always dropping things and miscategorizing books, so she ended up helping me out a lot. She’s always been kind like that, helping anyone who needed it. We became friends after that, helping each other become the best librarians we could be.” He smiled softly. “I’m glad she finally found her way back here. It was all she talked about for years. I had thought she was going through a breakup when she called me one night devastated, but she’d just heard how rundown this place was.”

“Sounds like her,” I said, remembering how excited she was on her way up the mountain the first day. “I really want to trust these creatures for her sake, but I also don’t want anything to happen to her. You didn’t see how the golem reacted when she tore down its patchwork. It was furious.”

Or how the bubbles pinned me down in the bathtub, but I wasn’t about to admit that one.

“If there’s one thing I know about Nyssa.” Oren raised his paintbrush. “It’s that if she says she can do something, she’s going to do it. She’s not a foolish risk-taker. If she thought she couldn’t handle the story spirits, she wouldn’t be doing this. Give her a little faith.”

That was true. She certainly didn’t back down from a challenge.

I’d have asked more, but a chivalry of knights appeared at my feet. “How can we help, Sir Roan?”

“We’re good here.” I tried to ignore them, but they climbed up the picnic table. “Really, we’ve got this, but thank you.”

“But sir, this is our library too,” the commander said. “We must help in the restoration efforts!”

Oren grinned. “You can help me, if you want.”

The knights whispered amongst themselves, glancing between Oren and me. I got the strange feeling that they wanted something from me by how they kept staring, but I continued painting as if they weren’t there. Once that dried, I could add the new latches to keep the books in and we’d be done.

“We are warriors here to help another warrior,” the commander said, bowing politely at Oren. “Sorry good sir, but we must decline.”

“Well then, I guess I’ll leave you to it,” Oren said, lips pressed together to stop from laughing.

I rubbed my forehead. “Thank you, but I really don’t need your help.”

That seemed to encourage them even more as they hauled a latch up one of the lending libraries, stabbing into the wood with their swords.

“Hey, you’re going to damage them even more.” I picked up the knight commander. “Just go back inside and play with the dragons or something.”

The tiny man’s eyes widened. “Play? With dragons? You must have no idea what a dragon’s capable of. They burn villages, kidnap princesses, and destroy whole fields of crops just for fun. We do not play with dragons here. We fight them!”

The rest of his men cheered, clanking their swords against their armored chests and scurrying up the other lending libraries, getting paint everywhere. A headache pounded behind my eyes.

I couldn’t handle dealing with the lending libraries and these knights. Especially not when I saw the telltale signs of dragon fire out of the corner of my eye. The last thing we needed was a dragon fight scorching the lending libraries.

“Sorry, but this is for your own good,” I said as I picked the knights up one by one, putting them inside the libraries where the books would go. I attached the new latches and locked them in. “There, peace and quiet. Now what were we talking about, Oren?”

His mouth dropped open. “Are you sure that’s okay?”

“They’ve got air holes.”

And they were wild magic creations, not real knights. They came from a book and were just figments of that story. Wild magic playing tricks on people.

Right?

The knights pounded on the glass like they were in jail, but they were perfectly safe, the dragons weren’t coming over here, and the lending libraries were happily bouncing after their new paint jobs. All in all, it was the best I could hope for.