Whenever Nicholas felt his brain start to go numb or another long, unhelpful read peaked his frustration, he put whatever book he was reading down.

Most of the time, he breathed for a minute and picked it right back up.

Mariam visited once, somehow bringing dessert in the middle of the afternoon, and forced him to leave it down. She lectured with her mouth full about taking breaks. But he was taking breaks! Once a day – she rolled her eyes – he let himself roam. 

By now, he had wandered every floor of the castle except the fourth. It seemed risky to skirt too close to the Royal Wing. Risky because of all the guards, not risky because Nicholas would do something impulsive.

But, damn, did he want to do something impulsive.

Rayan had kept to his word; he didn't come onto Nicholas when they were in the archive. Nicholas didn't try to tempt him. And that was fine, that was good – they read so many books.

He had never wanted to touch someone so badly. Not even close.

He kept his hands to himself, and his eyes on the page. He wished Rayan would get the memo; Nicholas would feel that stare on him and read extra hard, but none of the words would process, so he'd scan the same line over and over like a busted printer. The king had no shame about looking.

And Nicholas didn't really want him to stop.

He wasn't brave enough to invite himself to Rayan's quarters a second time, but he thought about it every night after Rayan left. It made it hard to sleep, wanting like this. After three nights of it, and yet another morning of waking up hot, he got it into his head to check out the back garden. He needed to breathe some fresh air. Touch some grass. He thought maybe he should start up running again, just to work out some of that pent up energy. Even if there were other ways he'd much rather work it out–

God, he couldn't turn it off. Nicholas was in distress.

There were guards at the big garden doors, and though they didn't object to his leaving, the feeling that had hung over his shoulder in the courtyard the other night returned. They were watching him more than they let on. He thought better of running. He didn't really feel like getting tackled to the garden path for starting up a slow jog.

Instead, he settled for a patch of grass beneath a big flowering tree and started to draw.

He had found Rayan's study two nights before. Or, at least, the study where he had stumbled upon Rayan all those weeks ago, when he had snuck through the halls of al-Narin looking for his journal. Rayan wasn't there on the couch this time, but Nicholas had left the room with a stack of paper and a fountain pen.

He'd only ever drawn the main gardens in his journal, the rows of neat flower bushes and ivy hedges leading to al-Narin's entrance. Back here, tall grassy flowers swayed with the breeze, and wide vine leaves waved from tree trunks and skeletal arbors, asking, how could you forget me?

It was probably for the best that he had. Nicholas would have never done such a good job.

The flowers were at once overgrown and deeply cared for, and they behaved accordingly, freethinking but cooperative. The strongest smell in the air was lavender; it was in full bloom for summer, clumped in splayed-out bushels. He wouldn't have guessed organized wild as the king's taste, but it fit right in with the jagged, asymmetrical outline of the castle, like a bite mark. It was sinister, too. Dark. The colors reminded Nicholas of the sunset, of Rayan's bedroom. Nicholas chanced a glance around for that poisonous red flower, Charlatan's Oleander, but there wasn't any. Somehow, it found its way into his drawing, anyway.

The next time he looked up, he found a butterfly with purple wings resting on his bent knee, poking out its proboscis like it had mistaken him for a flower. How long had it sat with him, unnoticed? Nicholas went very still, hoping for a little while longer, but it flapped its wings and left him.

A moment later, there was another, black and orange, fluttering near his drawing. Nicholas raised his hand slowly, an offering. He laughed in disbelief as it lowered itself onto his finger–

The butterfly vanished.

Nicholas straightened. He heard a melody. It was a tune he'd heard before.

He looked and found Cairo strolling toward him, wearing too many layers for such a warm day, humming that song he always hummed. He waved his hand as if in greeting, and five– ten– fifteen more butterflies appeared around Nicholas. Tomite glowed indigo on his hand.

Particle manipulation. Few could master it, and most who did – like Rayan and Yasmin – used it to control air at a molecular level, to raise a shield or throw an impact. Cairo used it to manipulate light.

Nicholas swiped his hand through the illusions, taking out a solid half of them.

"Spoil-sport!" accused Cairo. The stragglers swarmed Nicholas' face. They disappeared when they touched him. "And here I was starting to think you might be fun."

He dropped heavily down beside Nicholas. His momentum rolled him onto his back.

"Stopping?" he said. "Perhaps even smelling the roses?"

"Something like that."

Cairo tipped his head up into the sunlight. He had such boyish cheeks for his age. "The sky is sweet today."

Nicholas nodded. "I thought about running."

Cairo peeked at him with one eye and gave him a second to amend.

"Going for a run."

"You should try it," Cairo said with a wicked grin that told Nicholas not to try it. "See how far you get."

Nicholas hummed, like, maybe tomorrow.

"Yaz runs to the lake every morning. She starts here, leaves at first light. You could accompany her."

Nicholas would be better off getting tackled by the guards.

"Play a game with me," said Cairo. Another awful idea. "I am giving you another chance to be fun, Nico Nico. Ask me a question."

"Um. How's your day been?"

Cairo touched a hand to his chest. "Oh, Nico. You're kind of precious."

"Oh. Thank–"

"Boring, but precious."

"Okay."

"Since you asked," Cairo said, kicking his legs a little. "I woke up just after sunrise with the most insatiable lust for sweet bread – any sweet bread, which you would think is reasonable, but..."

It was only afternoon, but Cairo stretched and laid out his morning in such painstaking detail, Nicholas forgot how the conversation had started until Cairo said, "My turn!"

Then he asked, "Are you in love with His Majesty?"

Nicholas dropped the pen onto his drawing. It left a nasty line through the marigolds. 

"You've been sleeping together for, what is it now? A week, roughly?"

His tongue felt too big for his mouth, like he'd swallowed one of the worker bees buzzing around the flowers.

"He told you?"

"He didn't have to. I am very good at my job, though I should thank you for your confirmation." Cairo frowned. "I won't, though, because you're not playing the game, and I'm not having fun."

"No!" Nicholas shouted, startling a finch out of the birdbath. "I mean, I'm not– it isn't like that."

"There is a punishment if you lie. That's how the game works."

Nicholas didn't want to learn Cairo's idea of playful punishment. "Seriously. It's all, you know. Physical."

He wondered too late if that had been the wrong answer, but Cairo only nodded. He was still frowning, but it was pensive, now, eyes focused somewhere past Nicholas. So when they snapped back to him, piercing quietly, Nicholas felt it like a physical thing.

"I cannot control the king's behavior. I should hope it goes without saying that any harm brought to him shall come back down onto your head." A stone rose into the air. Nicholas thought it was another illusion until it dropped onto a budding sapling with a pathetic crunch. "The force of a nation, versus your little candy head."

"Wasn't planning on it," Nicholas managed around his fat tongue. "Not like I could hurt him if I wanted. Which I don't."

"Even the king is not infallible."

Nicholas saw Rayan's scarred hands. Had they really been that bad, or was his memory exaggerating? Rayan had said Cairo was the one to find him that night. Nicholas tried to picture Cairo, sixteen years old and for once completely humorless.

"Ah, so he has shown you."

Cairo was watching his face. Nicholas kept falling right into his traps.

He thought he had gotten used to the feeling of being watched and read, but this wormed up his spine and left a slimy trail. Nicholas turned his face away so he couldn't be seen.

"When His Majesty tested me for magic that one time. He touched me."

"Why do you think I bathed you right before?"

"You did not–" Nicholas decided not to bother. "Is that why you tried to boil me alive, too?"

Cairo giggled and sighed like it was a fond memory. "No, that was a threat! But I suppose there was more than one advantage."

"I don't get it. Why couldn't you just test me instead?"

"His magic is strong. I would not have been able to detect fainter traces, had there been any."

Something wasn't adding up.

"We forgot our game," said Cairo. "It's your turn."

"How did they get sick? His parents."

"An audience with the subjects. It was a monthly affair. Representatives came to petition for the citizens."

"Do you still have those?"

Cairo raised an eyebrow. "His Majesty hardly leaves the castle, let alone invites anyone in. He is...emotional. Many members of his court still doubt his sanity." He flexed his fingers as he said it. Nicholas thought he might've been imagining them around some nobleman's neck. "I don't feel like playing anymore."

He stood. A bluebird hopped in the branches of the tree. Another one with diluted coloring, a female, fluttered onto a nearby branch. The male began to flap its wings in a mating ritual, then shrieked when the female transformed into a cat.

Cairo chuckled, and seemed to have lifted his own spirits as he left.

Nicholas knew better than to take a word of Cairo's advice. He knew, but he poked his head into the gardens at dawn anyway, like a fool. As promised, Yasmin was there, stretching her legs.

She didn't throw her weapons at him when he approached her, or immediately shut down his request, or force him into handcuffs. She hardly even glared at him as she huffed that he could come along, and only threatened him once. She would cut him down if he strayed far. Nicholas couldn't believe his luck.

Until he could.

A run to the lake hadn't sounded so hard. The castle was right on the lake. That was his bad, his mistake; how silly of him not to guess that "to the lake" meant around nearly the entire perimeter of the castle grounds, to the spot with the lowest elevation, and from there to the lake. Uphill.

Yasmin set a strong pace from the jump and never slowed. Nicholas asked for a break once and she barked back a firm negative, and he began to see the gravity of her one threat: he couldn't even lag behind, on pain of death.

Nicholas collapsed onto his knees as soon as she stopped. They were on a cliff overlooking the water. Probably a stunning view, but he had too much sweat in his eyes and not enough oxygen to his brain to see it.

"Saints, you're dramatic."

Nicholas wheezed.

Something bumped his knee. He felt around, realized it was a water flask, and thrust it to his mouth. He still couldn't see that well when he offered it back, but he could somehow feel the disgust on Yasmin's face, so he kept it.

She wasn't rushing to leave, at least. Nicholas gradually curled out of his hunch, and Lake Charlatan revealed itself to him bit by bit. The long dry grasses around him, tapering into gray dirt, then the drop to the water, a much deeper blue than the sky, and then the yellow cliffs on the other side. Growing in the patches of green at their base were twiggy clumps of red.

There they were, the flowers in Nicholas' dream and Adrian's fortune. They had appeared in the vines on Dalisay's dais as she told him: dig through the sands of Lake Charlatan for the poison you seek. Pull it up by the root and possess it, or else cut it at the stem and watch it bloom even brighter.

These were the oleanders that had poisoned Interran livestock. These were reckonings of war. But they were so charming from here, red spots surrounding dark blue. How could they even grow around the brackish water? Nicholas wished he had his pen and paper, and some colored pencils. He wondered if he could get Rayan to give him watercolors.

"We are leaving," said Yasmin.

Nicholas lingered too long, and one of her projectiles appeared between his eyes.

"No need to point your thingy at me, I'm coming."

He thought he heard a snort. When he looked up, Yasmin had a very forced frown.

"Thingy?" she echoed. Her frown wobbled. "You created them, and you do not know their name?"

Nicholas looked forlornly at his design, the lance-head shape, the conical tip he had drawn and erased and drawn again, and felt shamed.

"Cruxes," she said. Nicholas reached out to feel along the rhombic edge. Of course, it fell. "You didn't think that through."

"Can I ask you a question?"

"No."

Nicholas asked anyway. It was bold, but he could be bold; he had the king's protection. "If His Majesty hates going outside so much, why did he come with you to see me in jail that first night?"

"Cairo was away, handling a land dispute."

"But..." It still didn't add up. "There's got to be others who could've come along, right? And why did he have to be the one to test me for magic? You have a whole military of people with strong magic, surely someone else could have detected it, even if you had to use a whole group of people– I mean, isn't that the kind of thing you do for the king's comfort? And, you know what, why were his closest men tending my wounds and bringing me meals like servants–"

"Quiet." Yasmin rubbed her temples. "Aside from Cairo, His Majesty and I, nobody else knew you were here."

"But why–?"

"Because the king would rather not see his people dragged into a war!"

Nicholas shut his mouth so hard his teeth clicked.

"There are men in his court who have been clamoring for a fight ever since–" She cut herself off. "They distrust his judgment already as is. If they had known of a potential spy..."

"It's different now, though. Everyone knows I'm here."

"There wasn't much use trying to hide you after your prince stormed the castle. If you are not aware, my king has paid for that stunt every day since you've been here."

She looked exhausted. Nicholas imagined her at Rayan's side in all the meetings he couldn't see, watching him get berated by old established nobles. His head spun.

Rayan was trying to prevent a war.

"We are leaving," she said again, harder. Nicholas followed her downhill.

♛ ♛ ♛

A great pounding sounded down from heaven, and Nicholas thought for a second he was dying. He opened his eyes and couldn't see a thing. He brought his hands to his face but it was weirdly solid, and square. Panicked, he sat up.

An open book tumbled from his face to his lap. He could see just fine. The pounding from heaven was a knock on his door upstairs, and he wasn't dying, just waking up.

He hadn't meant to fall asleep. He was supposed to be working, but he could probably blame Yasmin for this one. He took the stairs out of the archive, wondering if Mariam had come to see him. Mariam never knocked. She just appeared, like a ghost.

At his door was a tall, plump woman with brown skin and long gray hair beneath a sheer scarf.

"Good evening. You are Nicholas?"

"Uh..."

She narrowed her eyes, not unkindly. "Are you alright?"

"Yes. To both."

When she smiled, the age lines on her mouth smoothed out, and the ones by her eyes crinkled deep. She bowed her head. "My name is Salma. Come with me, please."

Nicholas didn't question it because he was still waking up, and because this woman smelled amazing, like amber and cardamom. She brought him to a room he knew well, the private bath on the first floor.

"Oh, I just bathed, actually–"

"I'll leave while you get situated," she said, smiling in a way that let him know she'd heard. "I hope the oils are to your liking."

She was gone in a wave of green skirts. Nicholas frowned at the door. He had been so gross after his run with Yasmin, he had finally braved revisiting the public bath, since it was always full and always warm. He'd assumed, now that his door was unlocked, that he wouldn't be escorted to the bath anymore.

He leaned over the tub. It smelled of lavender, like the garden. That was new. And Salma definitely wasn't like the shurta who had gruffly led him here and waited outside the door. Nicholas couldn't really let all of this nice, oiled bathwater go to waste.

It was freshly heated, too. He submerged himself until he had to breathe, then lay against the tub with his eyes closed. He got so comfy he could've dozed off again, and was roused for the second time by Salma's knock. It was all the warning he got before she entered. He sank down to his chin with a yelp and hoped the steam protected his decency. Salma held a maroon bundle which she set on the corner stand. Then, to Nicholas' horror, she took a washcloth and a bar of soap and knelt on a cushion directly behind him.

"Hello?" he squealed, sinking further until his nostrils touched the water. He had cut off his own mode of protest, so he stuck out a hand and waved it frantically, No thanks.

Apparently his gesture was misconstrued, because she caught his hand and stretched his arm out of the water to drag the cloth over his wrist.

"That's okay!" he tried to say, but he was underwater, so he just choked instead. Salma rubbed his bare back.

"Poor boy," she cooed. "Settle now, alright? Mouth and nose above the water."

"You don't...need...to wash me," he said between coughs. "I'm..."

"A big man, I am sure," said Salma. "But you are allowed to be taken care of."

The gentle firmness of her voice, the hand on his back, the warm hug of the water...Nicholas' arm went slack.

"There we are, don't be shy. I have done this for my king since the morning he was born."

Nicholas mouthed, Salma. Rayan had said her name. Nicholas tried to recall his tone. When she said his title, her king, the whole room smelled a little sweeter.

Or maybe that was the soap she had begun to lather up Nicholas' arm, almost without his notice.

"You really don't have to."

"Would you like me to stop?"

Nicholas didn't confirm or deny, which was childish. Salma laughed and squeezed her washcloth over his head, as if to say, okay, you can be a child.

She drew the cloth over his shoulders, his back, his chest. She was mostly quiet, though she did ask about his day, and prompted him to say more when his answers were short. She laughed when he talked about his run.

"That must have been hard. Good on you for trying. Do you think you'll try again?"

"Should I?"

Salma laughed once more. "Who am I to say?"

Nicholas insisted on taking the rag when it was time to start on his legs. Salma gracefully didn't comment on his red eyes, or even look twice. He asked about her day in turn, and the way she spoke about Rayan made him sound like a petulant little kid.

"You two must be close," he said.

"That boy is an ocean," she said. When Nicholas set aside the washcloth, she wet a clean one.

"Your arms again, please."

Nicholas didn't question this, either.

He should have.

This washcloth was coarser, almost rough. Salma scrubbed it into his hands like she wanted to strip back every layer of skin. Not even the foamy soap smoothed the glide. Nicholas grit his teeth until it was over, and Salma was smiling at him all lovely again, as if she hadn't just rubbed his flesh raw with the rage and strength of a demon.

"Thanks," he croaked. His palms were shiny pink. She folded a towel over the tub, set a jar of some nut-colored cream beside it, and told him she would wait in the hallway. The water had cooled, so Nicholas didn't linger. He stuck a finger into the cream. Lotion. Even that didn't soothe his poor hands. When he was dry and smooth to the touch, he looked for his clothes, but they were gone. He eyed the maroon bundle.

A lightweight muslin shirt and pants. And matching slippers.

"I knew it would suit you," Salma said when he joined her. "Would you like to come upstairs?"

"Upstairs?" Then, "Oh."

Nicholas counted a few seconds in his head to save face. Salma waited patiently.

"Sure," he said, very nonchalant.

The guards at the Royal Wing barely glanced at him now that he was with Salma. Her last words to him, as the guard at Rayan's bedroom announced a visitor, were,

"My king loves the color red."

Rayan opened his door. He went to lean against the frame, then looked at Nicholas and missed just enough to stumble.

"Do you want to come in?" He didn't step aside, so Nicholas actually had to answer.

Flustered, Nicholas said, "Isn't that the point?"

"Is that a 'yes'?"

"...Yes."

Rayan stepped aside. "What are you wearing?"

Nicholas self-consciously tugged at the shoulder of the shirt. It was slightly big and kept slipping down his collar. "Miss Salma gave it to me."

He turned when Rayan didn't move past the door. "Uh, are you goo–"

"Is that jasmine?" said Rayan. He looked a little worried. "And...vanilla?"

"Miss Salma also gave me lotion."

He muttered, "Wicked woman."

And he crowded into Nicholas' space and pushed his face into his neck, and kissed there without teeth, almost chaste, breathing Nicholas in. He slipped his fingers beneath one shoulder of Nicholas' shirt to kiss down to his collar, where he sucked a fresh red mark over a fading bruise. It was all too much too soon; Nicholas hadn't even figured out where to put his hands yet, and his blood was rushing south fast enough to be medically concerning.

He scurried back at the same moment that Rayan pushed his pants past his hips. Nicholas stumbled as they caught around his ankles, and instead of doing something helpful, like catching him, Rayan just steered him with light pushes against his chest as he tripped. When gravity finally won and Nicholas toppled backward, it was onto Rayan's bed.

Rayan chuckled while Nicholas sputtered, kicking off the pants.

"Very sexy," said Rayan.

"You were no help!" Nicholas scrambled to sit up and hoped Rayan would think he was flushing out of anger, and not because Rayan's maneuvering had been kind of smooth, in a weird way. Rayan bent down, and the kiss felt like an apology, if Nicholas ignored the smirk he could feel against his lips. It gave way soon enough anyway, to the light, seeking press of Rayan's tongue.

Rayan straightened. Began unbuttoning his shirt. Made a show of it, too, fingers working deliberately. After days of forcing himself not to look, Nicholas soaked up the sight.

"I want you to touch me," said Rayan.

Nicholas loosened his grip on the sheets and nodded with too much enthusiasm. "Pass me some gloves, then." Maybe Rayan had a red pair that would match his outfit.

Rayan tapped his chin, steering his eyes away from the dresser. His shirt hung open.

"Come on, Nico."

Nicholas' mouth went dry.

"But..." His hands were still tingling a little from the harsh scrubbing. "You planned this."

"How astute."

"She damn near took my hands off, you know." He glanced at the planes of skin before him. "I guess I can let it slide."

He started to lift his hands, but dropped them as he imagined Rayan freezing up, going green like he had when that bandit touched him on the way to Pondtam.

"Don't," said Rayan. His face was set defiantly. "I am not broken."

"I know," Nicholas said right away. "I know you're not."

Rayan's shoulders lowered some.

Nicholas moved slowly until his fingertips brushed the skin right above Rayan's waistband. Rayan gasped. His abdomen tensed, then relaxed. So Nicholas let his fingers press more firmly, drawing upward until he could flatten his palms over Rayan's stomach. He watched Rayan's face for any bad signs, and only saw the way his pupils dilated.

Nicholas slid his hands outward, around Rayan's waist and back to the front, over lines that drew tight beneath his touch. He stilled as Rayan knelt before him; the movement dragged his hands from Rayan's stomach to his chest, which was hot to the touch. Nicholas had to stare. The contrast made his hands look even darker and warmer, and something about that, he didn't know, he just– he liked the color that Rayan brought out of him.

He finally got to trace that sharp collar. He pushed under the shirt to Rayan's upper arms, felt the goosebumps rise on his skin, then settled his palms in the curve between shoulder and neck.

"Okay?" he asked. Now Rayan was the one clutching the sheets. But he nodded, and started to get that defiant look again, so Nicholas moved both hands to his cheeks. He slid back into that long hair and had to swallow a noise.

"Take off your shirt."

Nicholas stammered out, "I– should admit. I haven't gotten a lot of work done today. I fell asleep."

"Better than dying. Yasmin said she thought you might."

"Rude."

"Do you feel rested?"

"Yeah."

"That's good. You'll need it."

Nicholas huffed a startled laugh. "You're," he said, disbelieving. "You're a goddamn siren."

"I don't...know what that means."

Nicholas mustered the nerve to strip his shirt. It left him naked while Rayan was mostly dressed, but he didn't feel embarrassed like he'd expected. He had the most powerful man in the country on his knees. What did that make him?

As soon as his hands were free he put them back in Rayan's hair. He tugged, and Rayan groaned, eyes fluttering as Nicholas guided him to his chest. Rayan kissed his way down, and down.

Nicholas never had the same knack for poetry as fiction, but he thought he could write a sonnet about Rayan's mouth. Multiple sonnets. He tried to start, just to give himself something to think about before this was over embarrassingly fast. He was searching for a word to rhyme with "tongue" when Rayan did something sinful with said tongue and Nicholas forgot most of the words he knew. That didn't stop the filthy nonsense spilling from his mouth.

"Do that again, God, you're perfect..."

He wasn't paying any attention to what he was saying, but he absolutely noticed the way Rayan shuddered just then. Before Nicholas could think too hard about that, Rayan kicked it up a notch, as if in retaliation, and Nicholas went mostly nonverbal. Probably for the best.

Rayan had meant it when he said Nicholas would need his energy. He wrung everything out of him (there's the rhyme), then barely gave him time to recover before he was on him again, pushing him back into the sheets, and Nicholas felt– spoiled. Taken care of.

He tried to give as good as he got, but Rayan was single-minded in his focus, content to wait his turn as long as Nicholas didn't stop touching him. When they finally settled into the pillows, Nicholas couldn't even think about standing up, so Rayan wiped him clean with a damp cloth. He had the urge to reach out, and in his fuzzy state of mind he didn't fight it. Rayan obliged him, kissed him slow.

Nicholas didn't have any right to be sleepy after napping half the day. They needed to go to the archive, they needed to work. He definitely didn't have any right to get too comfortable in the king's bed. But Rayan's lips moved drowsily over his, and his weight was a warm blanket. And he wasn't moving like he was in any rush. And if they just kept kissing like this, if they didn't stop long enough to talk about it...

Nicholas drew his hands up and down Rayan's back beneath his shirt, happy whenever he felt a sigh against his cheek. Rayan touched every bare inch of him he could reach, leisurely like they had all the time in the world. They stayed like that, movements growing slower as sleep crept close.