Benedict’s voice rang from behind her. “Perhaps time in King Oberon’s dungeon changed him.”
Beatrice bit down on her yelp, but she couldn’t stop her jump. She whirled to face Benedict.
He had his arms crossed over his gray librarian coat and blue shirt. Today, he had pulled his blond hair into a queue at the nape of his neck, though strands of his hair still fell across his forehead.
Her heart hammered harder in her chest. Anger, most likely. Or she was still recovering from her run. Certainly nothing else.
“The time in those dungeons changed us all.” Benedict’s jaw worked, something flinty in his blue eyes.
Beatrice swallowed, looking away. She didn’t want to think about Benedict locked in a dungeon. Not when he had that hard and deep look to his eyes. Far easier to think of him as the smirking, annoying Benedict who totally deserved to sit in a dungeon for a while.
The next patron in line cleared his throat as he stepped up to the table. “Excuse me. I’m looking for a book on the birds native to the Harvest Court.”
“Apprentice Librarian Beatrice, please show this gentleman to the right section and assist him with picking out a book.” Basil waved from the patron to her. “I would suggest starting withHogglesnoot’s Complete Avian Compendium.”
Beatrice plastered a smile on her face as she turned back to the patron and her duty as a librarian. “Please come this way, sir.”
Puzzling out Benedict could wait.
As evening fellaround the Great Library, Beatrice propped herself against Basil’s desk. Her feet ached, her leg muscles quivered and spasmed from all the running, and all she wanted to do was collapse on the nearest comfy chair. But at last, the number of patrons had faded to a trickle, and most of them were heading for the easy desks at the front of the Tree rather than working around the atrium to Basil’s desk.
Basil sagged in his chair, his hair slightly mussed and his coat rumpled. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes. “That was the busiest day I can remember.”
Beatrice managed a nod before she heaved a sigh and gestured to several massive stacks of books sitting on the corner of his desk. “I suppose these need to be reshelved.”
Basil flapped one hand at them. “They do. But you can take a moment. They aren’t going anywhere.”
Maybe. But she wasn’t going to get less tired standing there. She hefted the first stack. “I might as well just get it done.”
“I’ll help.” Benedict was at her side, picking up one of the other stacks.
It was so strangely courteous of him that she found herself saying, “Thanks,” in a normal tone of voice.
Benedict’s smile held more genuine warmth and less of the annoying teasing than usual. Perhaps he, too, was too tired for their usual animosity.
The two of them meandered between the shelves, occasionally pausing to hold up a book for a Library branch to pluck from their hands and shelve in its spot.
“So.” Benedict adjusted his grip on his pile of books. “How many patrons did you help today?”
“Forty-two.” Beatrice had somehow managed to keep track, even during the craziness of the day. She shifted her grip on her books so that she could ease one of the middle books from the pile. “What about you?”
“Forty-one.” He grinned at her. “You beat me by one.”
For a moment, she just grinned back. But then she met his gaze, and she swatted his arm. It was his grin that gave him away. Too warm and not teasing enough. “You’re lying. Tell the truth. What’s the real number?”
“Forty-five.” Benedict’s gaze swung away from hers. “But I had a whole group that came together and all wanted books. That really should count as one.”
“No, no. If they all wanted books, then they should count as separate patrons.” Beatrice wasn’t sure why she was arguing, considering it was giving him the win. She held a book up to the nearest shelf. The Library detached a branch from the shelf, tookthe book from her, and tucked it onto one of the top shelves. “It’s only fair.”
Benedict sent her another one of those warm, genuine smiles before he dug another book out of his stack.
That smile shouldn’t send such flutters through her chest. Yet it wasn’t just the empty flutters of before. This was something deeper. A strange sense of connection as the two of them strolled between the shelves and returned books.
She and Benedict took two more trips to Basil’s desk before they had all the books distributed to the various Library shelves. With the Library so inaccessible because of the war for the past year, overdue books had really piled up.
When she and Benedict trudged back to the desk, Basil was still there, looking over two pieces of paper on the desk before him.
“Do you need anything else?” Beatrice propped herself against the desk. She’d thought herself dead on her feet before. Now she could barely stand, aching from her shoulders to her back and all the way down to the soles of her feet.
