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Lysithea squinted at the text, trying to make out the faded handwriting. Her candle had burned low but she wasn’t sure it was worth finding another one for only another hour or so of studying. Still, the yellowing pages and faded ink were not helped by low lighting, even if the text in front of her had made any sense. And at the moment, it did not. She had hoped some original manuscripts discussing fourth century theories of reason would give her a leg up for her upcoming exams, but the theories were inconsistent and contradictory, often within the same manuscript. She sighed and made a note of the page number she was on. Perhaps she could loop around to it once she was through the rest of the fourth century, and it would make more sense in context.
“Hey, Lysithea? Um. Miss Ordelia?”
Lysithea looked up, a flash of annoyance running through her. People were always interrupting her, and it was so difficult to get back into the swing of things once you left the fourth century and had to go back. Her anger faded when she saw Cyril standing next to her, looking down with an expression that might have been worry or might have been his own brand of annoyance. Lysithea liked Cyril; he was a nice enough boy and he left her alone. He must have needed something pretty urgently if he was going out of his way to talk to her.
“Yes, Cyril?” she said, straightening up and pushing her notes away. “Is there something I can help you with?”
“Not really,” Cyril said. “But I gotta lock up the library, so maybe you could finish that up in your room? Or tomorrow? It looks pretty long.”
“You have to lock up the library?” Lysithea repeated. She looked around, and realized that not only was she the only person left in the library, hers was the only candle still lit. No wonder the page seemed illegible. She’d never been kicked out of the library before. “Is that a new policy?”
Cyril shrugged. “Seteth’s been worried ever since we got that letter about Lady Rhea. I’m suppose to lock it up at midnight.”
“Goddess alive, is it midnight already?” Lysithea mumbled, more to herself than Cyril, as she shuffled her notes together and looked around for her bag.
“No,” Cyril said. “It’s one-thirty. I went and locked up everything else; I was kind of hoping you’d be gone by the time I got back.”
“Right,” said Lysithea, frowning. She didn’t relish the walk back to her room that evening, in the dark and the cold. It wasn’t that she was scared, that would be childish. But the shadows on the wall made her flinch when she walked by them, and there was a decent chance her candle would burn out entirely before she made it back to her room. She should have stopped studying hours before, but barring that, she really wished she could just curl up in a library chair and take a long enough nap to get her through the next day.
Cyril didn’t look like he’d approve of that idea, though. He stood staring at her, keyring in one hand, waiting for her to leave.
“Well, I hope you don’t have a lot of work after this tonight, Cyril,” she said finally, shoving her notes into her bag and slinging it over her shoulder. “I’ll get out of your hair now if you want to lock up.” She reached for her candle holder, wincing at the weak flame. It might be easier to just cast a fire spell of some sort than to try to wrangle the final flickering death throes of the light that had seen her through that evening.
Cyril was also skeptical. “Is that gonna get you back to your room?” he asked as the flame wobbled in front of his face. “I can lend you mine, if you want.”
Lysithea wrinkled her nose. “Well, if you did that, how would you be able to see?” she asked. Cyril was nice, but he wasn’t very logical sometimes.
He merely shrugged, unbothered by logic. “I don’t really have anywhere else to be after this; this was my last thing to do tonight,” he said. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Well, it would be a big deal to me ,” Lysithea protested. She meant that it would be a big deal if he had to walk without a candle, but as she said it she realized it sounded like she was admitting to being afraid of walking in the dark. Cyril clearly took the second meaning, his eyes focusing on her pathetic candle once more.
“Tell you what, Lysithea,” he said, taking the candle without her permission and setting it back on the desk. The flame spluttered and flickered out from his quick motion. “I’ll just walk with you back to your room. You can even hold the candle, if you want. If that makes you feel safer.”
“N-no, I don’t – the monastery is perfectly safe, Cyril! I can take care of myself,” Lysithea stumbled, and then snapped, and both reactions made her feel foolish under Cyril’s quiet, watchful stare. “That’s a good idea about sharing a candle, though,” she added quickly. “I’m sure that will be much more convenient for everyone involved.”
“I guess,” said Cyril, and Lysithea was already hurrying to the door of the library, eager for the conversation to be over.
The light from his candle still cast strange shadows on the wall, but if Lysithea took a step closer to him as the shadows jeered at her, he was too busy finding the right key for the lock to notice.
*
Lysithea stopped staying late in the libraries after that. If she couldn't pull an all-nighter, it was much more efficient to just retreat back to her room whenever Linhardt or Annette packed up their books and headed in that direction, and to spend the rest of her night at her tiny desk, falling asleep whenever she could no longer focus on the words in front of her any more. She’d contemplated hiding amidst the back shelves when Cyril came to lock up, but she quickly dismissed the idea as immature – and besides, she didn’t relish being locked in the library any more than she relished walking back to her room after dark. And she didn’t trust fate that Cyril would just so happen to be willing to walk with her in the same direction, or that they would just so happen to need to share a candle. There were easier colleagues to walk back with – fellow mages who didn’t have to-do lists a mile long that could take them to any corner of the monastery, and who didn’t calmly see through all her excuses when she explained why it was very important that she head back to her room now, in this moment, with them to accompany her.
It was a good strategy, even if her room was somehow both too cramped and too comfortable to be particularly productive. Her bed always seemed to call to her right when she was at the cusp of an intellectual breakthrough, and she could never find the right notes in the stacks and stacks pushed together on her tiny desk. But she’d sacrifice a little productivity if it meant she didn’t have to wander the halls alone after dark. And if she got up a few hours earlier to start studying before the sun rose, she could make up for the lost productivity that Seteth had so foolishly imposed with the library’s new limited hours.
It worked until it didn’t, and then it didn’t work at all.
“Miss Ordelia? Miss Ordelia! I gotta lock up, I’m sorry.”
The fingers tapping on Lyithea’s wrist were calloused and rough, but the voice and the touch were so far away and so gentle that they intermingled with Lysithea’s dream before she could register them as a different reality. Lysithea flinched at the realization, coming away from dreams of dungeons and rats with a sudden thrash, as if she had broken the surface of water and was only now able to draw breath. Too late for composure, she realized she was in the library, and safe, and grasping Cyril’s wrist so tightly that even his unchanging, unimpressed eyes widened in surprise.
“Oh, Cyril, yes,” she said quickly. She dropped his hand and smoothed her skirt, her hair, her nerves. “Midnight already? You certainly are punctual, aren’t you!”
Cyril frowned at this, and his fingers seemed to flex, slightly. “I could’ve made the longer loop to lock things up, I guess, but it didn’t seem like you were getting much done. You’ll sleep better in a bed, don’t you think? You might as well head that way if you’re nodding off into your books.”
Lysithea’s heart sank. So he still had more to do that night. Little chance of cajoling him into acting as personal escort to Garreg Mach’s own sleeping princess. (He’d called her a princess, once. She couldn’t stand the implication compared to him, someone who was actually useful, who actually did things with his hands and his life.)
“Sometimes five minutes of rest is all you need to recharge you for the night, Cyril,” she said primly, hoping that he hadn’t checked on her earlier in the evening to catch her in the lie. The last time she’d checked the time it had been scarcely nine o’clock; she had no idea how long she’d actually slept. “Still,” she added. “I won’t make you come back to lock up later. That would be extremely inefficient, and I can just finish up these theorems in my room.”
Cyril followed after her silently as they left the library. Lysithea never knew how he managed to walk so quietly; he wore the clunkiest boots she had ever seen in her life; she suspected they were hand-me-downs, possibly from Seteth or even Catherine, and they seemed to be held onto his feet by overtightened laces and prayers. But she barely heard him in the dead quiet of the library that night, and she looked over her shoulder as she held the door behind her. A small part of her wouldn’t have been surprised if no one had been there at all, just another dream and another ghost.
“As you can see, I’ve brought a much better candle this time,” she told him as he flipped through his keyring and locked the doors. She held up her bright, new candle as if it were a trophy. “No chance of walking back in the dark tonight!”
“That’s great, Lysithea,” Cyril said. He looked over at her, finally, sliding the keys back into his pocket. “Looks like a great candle.”
Lysithea gave him a bright smile at this, to assure him that he was right, it was a great candle, and she certainly would have no problems walking back alone, since she had such a great candle, as they had both agreed.
She started down the hallway, leaving Cyril behind to lock up whatever was left in this corner of the monastery. She made it to the first corner when she froze; the circle of light from her candle casting an overly bright circle on the walls around her. It was only her hand casting the shadow, she knew that, she knew that. What had she been dreaming about, before Cyril’s voice called her back? There had been shadows in the dream, she remembered. There had been screaming.
“Lysithea?”
She whirled around so fast she could feel her hair swing, but of course it was only Cyril – there was only one way out of this hallway in the first place, she knew that.
“What?” she snapped, feeling her face flush for no good reason.
“Nothing. You just looked a little nervous, is all,” Cyril said.
Lysithea forced a laugh. “Nervous? Me? What do I have to be nervous of; there’s nowhere safer than the monastery! Even at night,” she babbled, and when he didn’t fill the space, she continued. “I’m not a child, Cyril, I’m older than you and you walk around like you own the place.”
“I’m just locking up like Seteth asked me to,” Cyril said, quietly. Lysithea blushed again and turned away. That hadn’t been what she meant. She wished she’d left the library at 8:00 like everyone else.
“I’m going to go lock up the meeting room,” Cyril said, starting past her, his candle casting a strange overlapping light with her own. He stopped and looked over his shoulder for a moment. “I’ve got the greenhouse after that. That’s the same way you’re going. If you want to come lock up the meeting room with me, first.”
He started walking away before Lysithea could reply. She stared after him for a moment. It wasn’t a lot of work for him to lock up a meeting room, and anyway, she wasn’t an errand girl; she didn’t need to add a bunch of extra tasks to her already overwhelming to-do list.
But no one ever seemed to help Cyril with anything, and at the very least, he might like the company. It was lonely at midnight, and he was often alone.
She hurried after him, her own shoes clacking much louder as they echoed through the monastery hallway.
*
Lysithea had an idea.
She got the idea watching Cyril flip through his comically oversized keyring one night, as she tried to count the keys to avoid focusing on the way he bit his lip when he was concentrating.
Technically, part of her brain had registered the idea earlier that week, when she’d watched him on the training grounds out the corner of her eye as Annette informed her that her spells weren’t hitting the targets with the precision that they needed to. Cyril and Shamir didn’t take up much space beyond the far corner for their sparring practice, as he never seemed to be able to dodge more than once or twice before she brought the axe down on him and demanded he try again. And again. And again. Lysithea didn’t even understand why she was using axes; every time he’d joined them on a mission he’d been on the back lines, scarcely ahead of her, relying primarily on bows and hitting with an accuracy that she envied as Annette reminded her for the fourth time that hour that the target was the bare minimum but the bullseye was the ideal. It was a particularly harsh hit, when he landed on his shoulder with a sickening crack and she could make out a flash of pain across his features, that gave her the idea. It was the way that he pulled himself to his feet without a word that made her certain it was a good one.
And if she was being honest, she’d been toying with the idea even before then, when she’d headed to her early morning class and passed him chopping wood outside the student classrooms. The pile behind him was large enough that he must have been there at least an hour before her, and she knew for a fact he hadn’t gone to bed until after midnight the night before, as he had left her at her door at a quarter to one. He didn’t seem tired; he didn’t seem any different at all, and his shirt shifted around his biceps as he brought the axe down to split yet another log. That was really probably where she got the idea, because it was so early, and she was hiding a yawn, and he’d been there for an hour at least, and it must have taken so much strength to swing that axe over and over again, that must have been why is muscles flexed with every slight movement. And then Claude was calling her and she didn’t like the way he was grinning at her when she looked over to him, and so she forgot all about her excellent idea as she hurried into the classroom.
But she remembered it now, as Cyril found the right key and turned it in the lock and looked over at her expectantly, ready to follow her back to the dorms so he could lock up the greenhouse.
“You know, Cyril,” she said while they walked, tossing her hair over her shoulder as she looked over to him. “I could lock up the library at night for you, if you want.”
Cyril narrowed his eyes at this, mulling the idea over. “I don’t see why you would do that,” he said slowly. “Seteth asked me to, and it’s already on my route.”
“I’m sure Seteth doesn’t mind who locks up as long as it gets locked up, right?” Lysithea prodded. “ I’m certainly not going to ransack Garreg Mach’s library under the cover of darkness. For one thing, our book selection isn’t nearly good enough. And I'm always the last one to leave, anyway, so I could just lock the door behind me when I go.”
“I don’t think Lady Rhea wants students in charge of stuff like that,” Cyril said, and he didn’t mean it to sting, which made it sting even worse. “And I’m already up here locking up the meeting room, so it’s not that far out of my way.”
“I can do that,” Lysithea said quickly, even though it would mean an extra ten minutes of walking in Garreg Mach after dark. “I could just do both. That’s so easy. And it would save you so much time; you wouldn’t have to worry about this corner of the monastery at all.”
“I don’t mind worrying about this corner of the monastery,” Cyril said, frowning. “It’s not bad. Someone’s gotta do it.”
“But that someone doesn't have to be you ,” Lysithea insisted. “I just think you’re doing enough for Seteth and Rhea without some extra chore than any old person can do being added to the list, don’t you think? I don’t mind, either. I want to help.”
They were at the dorms now, and this was usually where Cyril left her with a brief good night and without a glance back. But he stopped tonight, looking at her thoughtfully, shadows flickering in time with his candle.
“But if I did that, I wouldn’t get to see you as often,” he said slowly. “Not sure that’s worth the extra twenty minutes. You’re usually so busy I hate to bother you.”
Lysithea didn’t have a reply for that, and she’d spent two weeks coming up with replies for all his reasons this plan wouldn’t work. Instead, she gaped at him wordlessly, feeling stupider by the moment, especially as Cyril wasn’t inclined to fill in the silence.
She finally felt she had to say something , so she blurted out the first string of words that came to mind. “Cyril, it’s not a bother – you can always just – I would like it if you –”
She’d spend the next two weeks deciding if Mercedes’s timing was a blessing or a curse from the goddess. The door next to hers opened, and her classmate stepped out, wearing a frilly nightgown and a sensible, floor-length robe.
“Oh! Hello Cyril, hello Lysithea!” she said brightly, and her smile was more beautiful than the moon and Lysithea kind of hated her in the moment. “You two are certainly out late!”
“Hi, Mercedes,” Cyril said. “I hope we weren’t keeping you awake.”
“Not at all!” the girl beamed. “I was just on my way to the kitchens to get a cup of tea. Would anyone like to join me?”
“I can walk you that way if you want,” said Cyril. “It’s awful late to be getting tea by yourself.”
Lysithea bit her tongue to keep from reminding him, as she had dozens of times over the last couple of months, that the monastery was perfectly safe no matter what time you walked around. When she was defending herself she sounded brave. Now, she was pretty sure she would just sound petty.
“Wonderful!” Mercedes sang with another dazzling smile. “Lysithea, would you like to come with us?”
“I would not,” Lysithea replied, hugging her books closer to her chest and glaring harder at Cyril than at Mercedes. “It’s late. I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”
The first thing she remembered when she closed the door behind her was that the greenhouse was in the opposite direction, and Cyril hadn’t locked it yet. The second thing she remembered was that he didn’t even like tea; had told her himself that he thought it was a silly tradition.
She didn’t offer to lock up the library after that.
*
Lysithea sighed and straightened her salvaged stack of the most important Reason tomes. She looked around the ruins of the Garreg Mach library. Someone had broken the upper back windows and so the second story books were waterlogged after five years of summer thunderstorms, and if bandits hadn’t outright stolen the most valuable texts (how would they know what was valuable, Lysithea thought bitterly), they had certainly ransacked books for fire kindling, leaving priceless history half-torn and ruined on the floor. She noted several shelves that she’d never be able to lift back into place and wondered if she could convince Raphael that it was good training for an afternoon to help her rearrange. There was nothing in this library that she didn’t already know, but she mourned the loss of knowledge all the same. She mourned the loss of home, most of all.
She heard the door creak open and shifted towards the sound, magic at the edge of her fingertips, ready to cast at a moment’s notice. She knew to be on her guard right now. Everyone knew to be on their guard right now. Any bandit foolish enough to wander into the library tonight would have a lot more to deal with than some ruined volumes and broken window panes.
It wasn’t a bandit, however, and Lysithea dropped her magic with a gasp. Cyril, however, looked as unsurprised and unimpressed as ever.
“I thought you might be here,” he said stepping into the library and closing the door behind him. “They said you were back, you know, and you always liked it here.”
He was taller, after five years, of course he was, but Lysithea was certain that Cyril, of all people, wouldn’t lord his height over her as he walked across the library to where she sat atop a wobbly desk. She still felt suddenly, annoyingly small as she looked up at him. His shoulders were broader, too, which also made logical sense. She doubted Shamir had ever let up on the practice sessions, and she wondered if he’d ever gotten a full night’s sleep, over five years. They’d at least found him clothes that fit, finally. He was wearing enough armor to keep him safe even as he moved silently as ever through the ruined library. He looked impossibly older, enough that Lysithea had to remind herself firmly that she still had eight months on him. But everyone looked older now. They had been so young, at the officer’s academy. They had been too young.
“Are you a knight, now?” she asked, and the question felt thick and stupid on her tongue. She wanted to hug him, but she never had before so it seemed strange to start now.
He shook his head. “No, we haven’t had time for that kind of thing. But I’m not an apprentice anymore, either. I guess I’m just a soldier these days.”
“Don’t tell me they’re still making you lock up the library,” Lysithea said with an attempt at a laugh, but her forced giggle died in her throat when she saw him sheepishly pocketing that same ridiculous keyring. “Wait, you are ?” she asked indignantly. “There’s only Claude’s army here, now, and you knights – and I assure you I’m not going to steal any books, Cyril.”
“It’s not that,” Cyril said quietly. “It’s just safer for the monastery as a whole if we can lock it down at night. This place was a bandit den until you got here, is what they told me.”
“Well it can’t be midnight already,” Lysithea protested, because she knew he was right and didn’t want to argue a losing case. “I really did just get here.”
“No, it’s not that late,” Cyril admitted. “I just thought – well,” he paused and frowned. “I just thought you were probably going to be here. I could walk you back to your room, if you wanted.”
Lysithea gave a more sincere snort of laughter this time. “I’m not afraid of ghosts anymore, Cyril,” she said kindly. “That was a long time ago.”
Cyril glanced around the library, his eyes darting suspiciously across the ruined books and knocked over shelves and general disorder of the place. “I didn’t think you were,” he said. “I’d just like to walk you back, is all.”
Lysithea pursed her lips together at this. Any thief or bandit stupid enough to cross her path would instantly regret every life decision that brought them to that moment. Still, Cyril told her himself he wasn’t a proper knight yet. If he was wandering the monastery grounds right now, he could probably use some backup. And it was depressing, sitting here among the ruins and rubble. She could get Raphael to help her later this week, and then she’d put in longer hours in the library. One early night wouldn’t hurt anyone.
The sound of Cyril’s keyring jangling as he found the right key and clicked it in the library door felt comforting in a way she hadn’t realized she’d missed.
“I wish you’d written to me, you know,” she said as they stepped into the chilly night air, the wind whipping through her hair despite her pins and her veil holding it in place. “I wondered how you were doing.”
“Aww, you wouldn’t have wanted a letter from me,” Cyril said, shoving his hands in his pockets. “You had better things to do, I’m sure.”
“I’d have liked nothing better,” Lysithea huffed, and she realized as she said it how much she meant it. She’d tried not to think of Cyril very much over the last five years. She’d become an expert in pushing anything that wasn’t useful to the corners of her mind until she could no longer see it and it disappeared entirely. But seeing Cyril again made it impossible to push him to the corners any longer. She’d missed him. That was all there was to it. She realized she was blushing, for no reason, it was very normal to miss your friends, and she hurried to change the topic. “Will the knights be joining us on the front lines, or are you busy with your search for the Archbishop?” she asked, still feeling her cheeks grow warm as she snuck a glance over at him.
Cyril shrugged, his gaze fixed straight ahead as they walked. “I don’t know the details,” he admitted. “But I think Shamir said we’ll be going with you guys, at least at first. As long as we find Lady Rhea it kind of doesn’t matter to me.”
“I see,” said Lysithea, slowly. “So we’ll be fighting together, then.”
“Looks like it,” Cyril replied. He looked over at her. “Can you still tear apart paladins just by blinking at them?” he asked, and Lysithea could have sworn he was smiling at her.
She smiled back. “Only when they annoy me,” she said. “Which is pretty often.”
“I’ll try not to annoy you, then,” he said, and she couldn’t tell if he was teasing, but she kind of hoped she was, which was a strange reaction given how much it truly did annoy her when Claude teased her.
They were at her room at this point. She’d taken the same room as she’d had at the academy; everyone had. It seemed silly to try to rearrange amidst such chaos. But Lysithea was suddenly reluctant to say goodbye. She turned to Cyril, leaning her head to the side, her hair spilling down across her shoulder.
“I really do wish you’d written to me, you know,” she said, trying not to sound too reproachful. “I . . . I did miss you. And I didn’t know where you were.”
Cyril shifted his weight between his feet, and Lysithea couldn’t quite get him to meet her eyes. “That’s nice of you to say,” he mumbled. “But I didn’t think you’d want to get letters from guys like me, even if – you just had better people to talk to, I know.”
Lysithea felt her cheek flush again, but with a righteous indignation, a state she was much more comfortable with. She grabbed Cyril’s arm and he flinched, looking down at her in surprise. “You shouldn’t say things like that, okay?” she demanded, giving his arm a useless shake. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about!”
“Hey! Woah! It’s okay, I didn’t mean –” If Lysithea had had her wits about her in the moment, she might have realized more clearly that this was the first time she’d ever seen Cyril flustered, that for once in his life he didn’t seem to know how to finish a sentence.
“Do you know how lucky we are to see each other again?” Lysithea continued, and she wasn’t even sure what she was saying, at this point. “I don’t want – I missed you so much , Cyril. You can’t say things like that. I don’t have time for you to not realize how much –”
The door behind them flew open with a bang. Lysithea wasn’t entirely sure what happened, but one moment she was shaking Cyril’s arm with reckless abandon, and the next she was behind him as he drew a dagger and threw his other arm out protectively.
Leonie, for her part, had already drawn her blade as she rushed out the door, but she dropped her arm as she blinked at them both in surprise.
“Lysithea! Is everything okay – oh! Cyril, is that you?”
Leonie gave a delighted laugh and flung her arms around Cyril, her own dagger waving dangerously close to Lysithea’s face. Lysithea stepped out of the way and crossed her arms, waiting for Leonie to remember she was there – for her own personal safety, if for nothing else.
“Heya, Leonie,” Cyril said evenly, sounding neither excited nor unhappy to see her.
“I heard that Alois and Catherine had returned – I should have known that you would be – sorry about the dagger, I heard voices and just assumed – well, how lovely is this!” Leonie said, stepping back from him. She said all these things so rapidly she was practically interrupting herself.
“Sure is,” Cyril said. “I’m gonna go lock up the greenhouse, I guess. You two have a good night.”
He left, heedless of Leonie’s beaming smile and Lysithea’s sullen glare. Leonie turned her smile on to Lysithea.
“I am glad you’re okay,” she said cheerfully. “I know you’ve got magic and everything, but I’m happy to walk with you if you insist on going places at night, you know.”
“I’m not a child , Leonie,” Lysithea said, and she knew it came out as a whine and that made her even more annoyed. “I don’t need people walking me places.”
“Oh! I guess Cyril’s just the exception, then?” Leonie said with a sharp glance after him. Lysithea was tired of blushing. She’d been back for less than two weeks and her memories of the Deer were already significantly less golden.
“Cyril can do what he wants,” she said. “I’m going to bed.”
She didn’t care for Leonie’s smile as she slammed the door behind her.
*
“What do you think you’ll do after the war?”
Cyril looked surprised at the question, and Lysithea realized with a pang of guilt that she didn’t ask him about himself nearly as much as she ought to. He pushed the door at the bottom of the stairs open for her, and then stuffed his hands in his pockets as he followed along after her.
“Haven’t really thought about it,” he said. He quickly overtook her, and Lysithea hurried to keep pace with him. “If I’m good enough, maybe I can join the knights of Seiros. I know my way around the monastery pretty well by now, I figure. I could probably be useful.”
“I think it’s awful they haven’t made you a knight already,” Lysithea grumbled. She’d watched Cyril take down four separate Empire soldiers from the back of his Wyvyrn last week alone, saving her and Ignatz and Shamir and goddess knows who else, and he’d flown off to the next skirmish as if it was nothing. “You’re twice as good as half the lunkheads they have leading the battalions these days.”
“I think they’ve been busy,” Cyril said with a shrug, somehow still managing to keep his hands in his pockets. “It’s a lot of work to knight someone. And anyway, I’d want Lady Rhea at my knighting ceremony. If she remembers me.”
“Of course she’ll remember you!” Lysithea exclaimed.
Cyril shrugged again. “It’s been a long time. And she knew a lot of people. Important people, like you, you know?”
“Well, if I’m important people, then I’m the expert, aren’t I?” Lysithea pointed out. “And if you aren’t the first person Rhea is begging to knight, then I don’t know anything about anything. No one’s been as valuable to the church as you, Cyril. You’re just so – well – you’re just awfully – you’re just a useful guy to have around, aren’t you?”
Lysithea felt, rather than saw, Cyril shrug for the third time that evening, and realized in horror that she had at some point grabbed his arm during her exclamations. She dropped it quickly and turned away, her hair swinging in front of her face enough that she hoped he couldn’t see her blushing. They walked in silence across the monastery grounds, and Lysithea didn’t have the nerve to look at him.
“Have you read anything good recently?” she asked, wanting to change the subject. Cyril hadn’t needed a reading lesson in weeks – he picked up the skill remarkably quickly – but Lysithea sometimes missed talking to him about words. She looked over and he was frowning, considering the question.
“Seteth gave me a grocery list last week,” he said finally. “It had some items I hadn’t seen before. ‘Paprika’ – I would’ve thought two e’s, but no.”
“No, I mean, like, you know,” Lysithea clarified helpfully. “Like books , Cyril. Have you read any good books or anything?”
“Oh,” Cyril said, frowning more. “I don’t really have time to read stuff like that, no. It was awful nice of you to teach me, but there’s not much that me reading about knights and what-have-you can do for the church.”
“No much? Why, Cyril, you’re going to be the greatest knight the church of Seiros has ever known! Of course you should have time to read about them if you want to,” Lysithea exclaimed. Cyril didn’t look convinced, so she added, “Besides, the only way you’ll keep up with your reading skills is if you practice. And everyone is entitled to an hour or two off. Maybe you can take off an hour early and come read in the library with me – you’d already be there to lock up! I’ll talk to Seteth about it, if you want.”
“No – no, you don’t have to do that, Lysithea,” Cyril said quickly, cutting off her suggestions. “You always look so busy when you’re working there. It’s enough to just get to walk home with you. You don’t have to waste more time on me.”
“Cyril, it wouldn’t be a waste ,” Lysithea said, stopping in her tracks in surprise. Cyril walked a few steps ahead of her before realizing she hadn’t followed him. He looked behind him, surprised, then swiveled to face her. Lysithe could see the row of dorm rooms over his shoulder, just a few steps away, but she stubbornly stayed in place. Putting her hands on her hips, she added, “I’m inviting you because I want to see you – and because you deserve to use that library just as much as I do. And there’s plenty of space, so why shouldn’t we use it together?”
Cyril took a few steps towards her, diverging from his typical loop around the monastery for once, and Lysithea craned her neck as he got closer, suddenly remembering how tall he was these days.
“That was nice of you to say,” he said, crossing his arms as he looked down on her. “About people not forgetting me, I mean.”
Lysithea’s voice sounded very small as she replied, “I meant it.”
“I thought that you’d forget me, you know,” Cyril said. “I wouldn’t have blamed you.”
“I could never,” Lysithea said, and she meant to sound indignant but she felt too dazed to sound much of anything. He was so much closer than she could remember him ever being, and she reached up and brushed her hand against his jaw, feeling the trace of stubble against her fingers. “No one was around to stop me from studying after midnight. I was a mess without you.”
“Lysithea . . .” Cyril started, but trailed off. Lysithea pulled her hand away, but too slowly, and she kept it hovering between them as if she couldn't decide what to do with it. Cyril leaned down towards it, just a little, and Lysithea wanted to grab his collar and pull him down to her and kiss him, just to see what would happen, because if she was being honest she hadn’t gone a day without thinking about him, let alone five whole years, and she thought he ought to know that.
Lysithea wasn’t sure if was the bushes rustling or a far off door-hinge squeaking or Leonie, window open, muttering nonsense in her sleep that made Cyril turn away, but he did straighten up and turn away, casting a nervous glance around the courtyard and dormitories. Lysithea remembered suddenly what a very public thoroughfare this was, and she wondered which disastrous goodnight Cyril was thinking of that evening. He certainly had his pick to choose from.
“I’d better lock up . . . the greenhouse,” Cyril said, stumbling back. Lysithea nodded at him wordlessly. “Have a good night,” he added. He shoved his hands back in his pockets and walked away before she could reply.
The last ten feet to her room felt colder than the entire walk from the library.
*
Cyril sounded words out to himself as he read, his lips silently moving as he painstakingly made his way through each page. With a language full of “paprikas,” Lysithea could hardly blame him. His eyes moved across the page slowly, narrowed, thinking. He was always thinking, lost in a world Lysithea never quite had access to, even when she was the one putting together the damn lessons. She drifted from his narrowed eyes to his softly moving lips to the book he was holding up with one arm, his sleeve pushed up past his elbow. Movement at the corner of her eye made Lysithea look back up, in time to find Cyril staring at her staring at him.
“How’s the book?” she asked quickly, maintaining eye contact. A normal thing to ask him; she was the one who’d insisted he join her this week.
Cyril made a face. “It’s fine, I guess. Not really sure why I should care about all the things this guy did. He’s dead now, isn’t he?”
“We can find a simpler one, if you want,” Lysithea suggested. The print in the book Cyril had chosen was very small. “I always thought Sir Dagonot’s adventures were very long and dull, myself.”
“It’s not too hard or anything,” Cyril said, dully flipping through the book. “I just don’t care that much about him, I guess.”
“Well, what sorts of things do you like reading about?” Lysithea asked. It hurt that Cyril was sitting there, across from her, so painfully and obviously uninterested. She told herself that her feelings were hurt on the books’ behalf. “Or, well,” she corrected herself, remembering that Cyril hadn’t done a lot of reading, on the whole. “What kinds of stories do you like hearing? What kind of things do you like learning about?”
Cyril shrugged. “I dunno. Sometimes Lady Rhea would tell me stories about Saint Seiros and all them, and that was pretty cool. I reckon most of it is made up, but it was neat to hear her talk about it.”
“You could always try tales of saints instead of tales of knights,” Lysithea said. She pointed to a back shelf. “We have a whole section. Maybe you’ll read it in Lady Rhea’s voice.”
“Oh, probably not,” Cyril said, looking towards her point, then standing up and stretching slightly. “I always hear everything in your voice, when I read. That’s the nice part of it, even if the stuff isn’t very good.”
He walked away before she could reply, and Lysithea stared after him. It took her a good half a minute to realize her mouth was hanging open, and she quickly closed it and hid behind her tome on seventh century dark magic techniques. But she didn’t get through more than three sentences before her eyes drifted back up to watch Cyril at the bookshelf. His head was turned so far to the side it was almost comical as he scanned the titles on the spines, slowly running his hands over the books at eye level. He looked up a shelf higher and his hand stretched upwards, his arm flexing slightly the way it did when he was chopping wood or carrying supplies or fixing doors, strong and steady and secure –
Lysithea buried her nose back in the tome and did not move her eyes away from the dull and faded script until she heard Cyril walking back to their desk.
“Got a good one?” she asked, and her voice was a little too bright, a little too interested.
“Yeah, maybe. I can read it tomorrow,” Cyril said, setting it on top of the stack. They didn’t have to put their books away these days; no one else frequented the library. “We actually should probably get going; it’s getting close to midnight.”
Lysithea, if she was being honest, was relieved to not have to turn to this particular tome, which she hadn’t been able to concentrate on all evening. She was also grateful at the implication that Cyril would be coming back tomorrow, even if he’d already given her the week he promised.
She was less cheerful when she thought about the inevitable goodbye at her door, the awkward, stilted pause that had plagued them every night that week while she tried to figure out a way to convince Cyril to stay, just a moment longer, even if the whole world was watching.
She followed after Cyril, leaving her own books behind, as he rustled in his pockets for the same oversized key ring that always jangled after them as he walked her home.
She wasn’t sure what made her do it – the shrugging or the jangling or the desperate, inevitable knowledge that eventually he would stop walking with her – but as Cyril reached to open the library door, Lysithea darted in front of him and pushed it closed.
“Tell me something, Cyril,” she said slowly. “Does that key ring work to lock the library on both sides?”
Cyril blinked down at her as if she’d lost her mind. And maybe she had. “I’ve never tried it, Lysithea,” he said. “Don't see much point in that.”
“Let me see it for a second?” Lysithea asked, taking the key from him. “I want to try something.”
It turned out the door did lock from both sides, but when Lysithea pushed Cyril up against the door there wasn’t much chance of someone barging in, regardless.
She dropped the keys when he leaned down to kiss her, and the clatter echoed through the empty, dusty library. But there was no one around to mind.