He Stole My Life, So the Moon Gave Me Back novel · Chapter 9 of 27

Chapter 9: The Tea Idris Saves

The scriptorium door opened on the smell of wet stone and old paper.

Adrian walked Noah through it with a hand at his back, close enough that the cold off him reached Noah's collar first.

Idris sat at the long table with his rope-burned wrists bare on the wood.

He did not stand.

He slid a chipped cup across the table toward Noah, and the tea inside it shook but did not spill.

'They gave me the cups from the east kitchen,' Idris said. 'Every one of them chipped. A fortress full of men who have never been taught to hold anything gently.'

Adrian stayed at the door with his arms crossed.

Noah took the cup and wrapped both hands around it.

It was barely warm, and it was the first thing anyone in this stronghold had handed him without a price attached.

'You did well in the infirmary,' Idris said. 'The burned. The ones the court left to rot. I heard all of it from the guards, and guards lie about everything except fear.'

He looked past Noah, at Adrian.

'Do you know what you have there, prince? A man who heals what your court breaks. No throne owns that. No order commands it. You can lock him in the lowest cell you have and he will still be the best thing in this fortress.'

Adrian said nothing.

Noah watched his jaw work once and stop.

So Idris was not broken. Good. That was one thing the court had not managed.

'Let him keep the room,' Noah said.

Adrian looked at him.

'The tea and the books together,' Noah said. 'While the lower cells are being prepared. He is old, and the walk down will cost him. Let him have the hours he has left up here with his pages.'

Adrian studied him for a moment, and something in his face relaxed, and Noah let it.

Let the prince believe this was mercy asked for an old man.

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