The study smelled of ink and the dust that accumulated in rooms where books outnumbered people by several hundred to one.
Ambrose kept it that way on purpose.
Order in the ledgers, chosen disorder everywhere else, the visible mark of a man who’d picked scholarship over the family business and wanted the difference to show.
He was younger than most of the senior instructors, dark-haired, built more like the soldier his father’s house had once expected him to become than the academic he’d actually turned into, a contradiction he’d stopped explaining to people years ago.
Ambrose Sutter had known Mykel Grey long enough to recognize the difference between an ordinary visit and something heavier, and this had been the heavier kind from the moment Mykel let himself into the study without knocking.
“You could try the door like everyone else,” Ambrose said, not looking up from the ledger he was correcting.
Third-years’ handwriting, this term’s crop, uniformly terrible.
“I did try the door.
It was unlocked, which in this district is an invitation.” “It’s an invitation to my study, not a philosophical position on property.” Ambrose set down his pen and finally gave the man his full attention, which Mykel had a talent for eventually extracting from a room whether he asked for it or not.
Same plain coat he always wore off duty, same unhurried way of taking up space like the furniture would rearrange itself around him if it had to.
Ambrose’s shoulders tightened before he caught them, the old reflex of bracing for whatever Mykel had walked in carrying.
“What do you want.” Mykel took the chair across the desk without being offered it, which was also typical.
“You’re not resigning your post here.
Whenever your father asks you to take the ministry seat, whenever that is, however he asks it.
You’re staying.” Ambrose blinked.
“My father is fifty-one and has shown no interest in stepping down from anything in his life, including the argument we had at dinner four years ago about the correct way to serve river trout.” “Noted.
Stay anyway.” “You’ve come into my study at an hour you know I’m marking papers, to tell me not to accept a job no one has offered me.” “Yes.” “That’s an odd use of an evening, even for you.” Mykel didn’t answer that directly, which was also typical, though Ambrose had learned over the years to take the silences as answers in their own right.
He studied his friend the way he studied a column that didn’t balance, patiently, certain the error was close if he kept looking.
Four years of shared quarters during officer training had taught him to see past the version of Mykel that everyone else got, and the version sitting across the desk right now looked like a man carrying something heavier than an opinion about a hypothetical career change.
“This isn’t about the ministry,” Ambrose said.
“Not really.” “It’s about the ministry.
It’s also about something else.
I’m not going to tell you what.” “That’s an excellent way to ask a friend for a favor.” “I know.” Mykel didn’t apologize for it, which Ambrose had also learned to expect from him somewhere around their second year of knowing each other.
“I need you to keep an eye on someone.
The youngest Hawthorne.” “The general’s daughter?
The one who put Dorian Cass on the ground in front of half the junior hall?” “That one.” “Keep an eye on her doing what, exactly.” “Alive.
Safe.
Whatever that takes, within reason, and tell me the moment it stops being within reason.” Ambrose set his pen down again, this time with the care of a man deciding whether the conversation had gotten more serious than the room currently reflected.
His hand stayed on the pen a beat longer than necessary.
Outside the window, the last of the afternoon classes were letting out, students crossing the courtyard in loose knots of noise that didn’t reach the second floor.
He let the sound wash over him, steadying.
“You’re going to have to give me more than that.
I can’t protect someone from a threat you won’t name, for a reason you’re keeping to yourself, without at least telling me why it’s worth the trouble.” “I know.” “That’s not an answer.” “It’s the only one I have that doesn’t put you in more danger than the favor is worth.” Mykel stood.
“Since when do you decide how much danger I can carry?” “Since I’ve watched you carry it wrong once already.” It landed somewhere Ambrose recognized without needing the details spelled out.
A bad winter three years into their friendship.
A fever that had nearly finished what a border skirmish started.
He remembered the heat of it, the way his own hands had shaken when he couldn’t hold a cup steady, the way Mykel had sat at his bedside with an expression Ambrose had thought was pity.
He’d been wrong.
He knew that now.
Mykel’s face that winter hadn’t been pity.
It had been the same thing he was seeing now, whatever name it carried.
He’d carried that danger badly.
For two nights running, he’d nearly not carried it at all.
Mykel said the line plainly, without weight, the way another man might mention the weather, and was already at the door before Ambrose worked out that it had cost him something to say.
Ambrose’s jaw went tight.
“I’ll owe you an explanation eventually.
Today isn’t eventually.” Ambrose opened his mouth to point out that eventually was doing a great deal of work in that sentence.
His mouth stayed open.
Nothing came out.
The study door eased shut on a man who had never once, in the whole of their friendship, waited around to be argued with.
He sat there for a while with the ledger open and the third-years’ terrible handwriting waiting to be corrected, turning over the particular quality of Mykel’s silence just now.
Not evasive, the way a man hid something he was ashamed of.
Careful, the way a man hid something he was afraid of losing the moment he said it out loud.
Whatever was riding on the Hawthorne girl’s survival, it wasn’t only politics.
Ambrose had watched Mykel through two other kinds of danger in his life and recognized a third one walking in without knocking.
He picked his pen back up.
His hand was steady again.
He’d start watching the girl tomorrow.
He’d start wondering why tonight, over considerably more wine than the occasion strictly called for.