Chapter Text
Zelda stormed down the hallway, her sleeves and dress billowing behind her, the rage on her face keeping everyone at bay. Maids ducked into side rooms and guards suddenly heard someone calling for them. Good. Let them hide. At least if they were elsewhere, she wouldn’t have to hear them whisper about her inadequacies.
She wouldn’t have to hear them compare her to him.
Everyone thought he was so great. Well, she’d had enough of that. She was going to barge into his room, protocol be damned, and demand that–that–that he feign some inadequacy. That he go away forever. That he reveal all his deepest darkest secrets to her so she would have something. Anything.
Maybe even knowing that his room was a mess would make her feel better. Guards left their stinking socks on the floor all the time, right? Crashing into a boy’s bedroom unannounced was sure to reveal some sort of moral failing–not that she’d hold it over him. She’d just let the thought warm her that he was not–in fact–perfect.
But no. When she slammed open his door so loudly that it bounced against the wall behind it, the place was immaculate. Almost as if no one lived there.
And Link was nowhere to be seen, which took some wind out of her sails, as she would very much like to glare at him.
The bed was neatly made. There were weapons placed neatly on a rack on the wall and the armor he no longer wore was neatly arrayed on a dress form in the corner. The desk looked as if it were never used, which did not surprise her. Maybe that was his fatal flaw…And yet everyone would prefer if her desk looked the same. He had a chest tucked against the foot of his bed, and in a fit of pique, she stomped up and opened it, irritated to find that his clothes were neatly folded and completely uninteresting.
She really shouldn’t dig through his clothes. She knew there was nothing there that would make her feel better. But she’d come this far, and her momentum carried her, flipping through tunics and undershirts, whose uninteresting state mocked her for being petty and cruel and invasive.
And then her fingers brushed something hard. She paused, then lifted the whole stack of shirts to reveal a row of books. Rows of books.
She gaped. Link was an avid reader?! That was her thing! Link was not allowed to be smart. And how dare he hide this part away deep under a pile of clothes. To think, the characteristic they surprisingly shared was for him a deeply held secret! That was just insulting. Goddess, she hated him.
She pulled out one of the books, which was thin and small and poorly bound, the edges of the pages soft and curled as if it had been read repeatedly. She flipped it open randomly and skimmed a few sentences.
Then blinked. And re-read them.
Her brow furrowing deeper and deeper, she realized several things in a stumbling order. First, she was reading an explicit sex scene, which when she flipped forward and backward appeared to go on for quite some time. She turned to a completely different part of the book only to find more of it. Secondly, she realized that it was a novel. At least, the characters had names. Whether they had conflicts was yet to be determined. Then she realized that Link had a trashy novel hidden in his trunk. No! Link had many trashy novels hidden in his trunk.
Finally, she realized that she was sitting on the floor of Link’s room, having dug through his belongings, and was now reading a trashy novel with the door open.
Her face was bright red. She needed to get out of there. She needed to…oh no! Someone could find her here.
She hurriedly put the stack of shirts back, making sure they looked as if they hadn’t been touched. Then she rushed from the room, peeking out to check the hallway in both directions that no one would spot her. She closed the door silently behind her, wincing as she realized what a scene she’d made upon entering.
She made it half way to her room before realizing she still had the novel in her hand! Her eyes widened and her heart pounded in her ears. She tucked it into her sleeve, swallowed hard, and tried to not look so flustered.
#
Zelda hid herself away in an absurd spot on the floor beside her bed, snuggled on the far side close to the wall so no one could see her if they came into the room, which was absurd because no one was going to come into her room. She stretched her neck to peek out the window before her, which was also absurd because the window was forty feet in the air with no walkway outside. She was still a bit wary of it as she sat back against the side of the bed and carefully removed the book she’d stolen.
She’d stolen his book. He was going to notice it was missing. He was going to know it was her and then he would know that she knew his secret, which would make her feel powerful if it also didn’t mean that he would know that she had read it, which was beyond embarrassing.
Curiously, she opened the book and started from the beginning. For the first ten pages there was the start of a story (not a good one, but an existent one) about a lady who was bored of her boring life. The only interesting part of her existence was the very expensive necklace that she owned, which seemed to Zelda to be not very interesting at all, until a daring cat burglar slipped into her room to steal it. Struck by the sudden entrance of adventure into her life, the lady was swept into the only course of action that made sense to her at the time: sexual relations with the cat burglar.
“Yes, like that,” he said, his hands pinning her wrists already thrown over her head. “Nice and slow.”
His thrusts turned deliberate, steady, all the way in until her breath caught from fullness, and tortuously slow all the way out until she moaned from emptiness and wanting. He made sure she felt every last inch of him, hard and purposeful—the way she squeezed around his girth, the way every movement was amplified with so much time to appreciate it.
With every movement, the need in her grew. She needed him to move faster, and yet his next thrust came just as slow. She gasped and squirmed, wanting him to go faster, harder, pin her hips and pound into her so forcefully that she screamed.
Someone knocked on her door, and she squeaked, slapping the book to her chest to hide the words. “Your Highness?”
It was a guard. Not Link. Even so, the thought of him, knowing he’d read what she’d just read, made her face so hot she felt dizzy.
The door opened, and she slipped backwards, silent and unseen to lie on her back, watching as the guard peeked into her room. Oh, her dress would be dusty. “Your Highness, the king requests your presence.”
She said nothing. The guard stepped into the room.
She silently slid under the bed tugging the end of her skirt behind her just as the guard circled the bed. He then headed out towards her study, and she sighed as he disappeared. She shifted slightly. Her heart beat too fast and her face was warm and her insides squirmed, thinking of the lady, her diamond necklace sparkling against her heaving chest, her lithe paramour breathing hotly against her ear as he pushed her, frustrated and delighted over the edge. His eyes would probably squeeze closed, a wrinkle on the bridge of his nose. His hands probably had callouses.
Her eyes snapped open as the guard reentered the room, his boots stomping against the floor. He muttered to himself as he shut the door behind him to look for her elsewhere. She was so very very lucky that he didn’t check under the bed. How would she ever explain that?
What was she doing?
It was hard to cover her face in her hands with the bottom of the bed so close to her nose.
#
Zelda finished the book.
So now she needed another.
Well, really what she needed to do was return the book she’d stolen from Link. If she could slip it back into his room, he’d never know it was missing. Or if he’d noticed it was missing, maybe he’d assume once he found it returned that he had been mistaken.
Yes. It was only polite that she go back and return it.
And since she wasn’t actually all that polite to her personal guard, she would of course borrow a second book while she was there.
It was the perfect plan.
She determined before sunrise to be the optimal time. Link would be down on the training grounds for his daily sword practice and then he would go to the mess hall to scarf down three dozen eggs in a disgusting display of gluttony and metabolism. Most of the people in that wing would still be asleep.
She eased open his door and peeked inside, finding it as empty and tidy as it was the last time. Checking the hallway in both directions, she hurried inside, closing the door silently behind her and rushing to the chest at the foot of his bed.
Replacing the book was easy. Picking a new one was hard. There were probably two dozen novels in the chest, and she couldn’t tell what any of them were from the outside. She knelt primly on the floor to investigate more thoroughly, removing the books and setting them in neat piles of “maybe” and “not now.”
One novel seemed to be about a shepherd girl and a soldier. One seemed to be about a gentleman and his governess. One was about pirates. Or perhaps both the leads were pirates? It was difficult to tell. One was about an adventurer who rescued a lady from monsters while she was traveling to an arranged marriage. That sounded intriguing. But maybe it wasn’t about the roles the characters fulfilled that piqued her interest.
But then what was she looking for?
What was she doing here?
Footsteps sounded in the hall, and she froze like a rabbit, then scrambled to place the books back in the chest just as she’d found them and then replace his neatly folded clothes on top. She had one book. It didn’t matter what it was about. It was time to leave.
The footsteps kept coming, growing louder. But they were at a leisurely pace with a familiarity that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Wat was he doing back already? He was supposed to go to stuff his face at breakfast!
She couldn’t slip out the door. Should she hide under the bed again? Absolutely not. She was not the kind of girl to hide under beds. She was the kind of girl to hide on high window sills and in alcoves in the library and under trees deep in the garden. More importantly, she was not the kind of girl to be caught hiding under a bed.
Out the window it was then!
She tucked the book into her belt, hopped up on the window sill and swung out her legs.
Link’s room was on the second floor, right above part of the river that fed the moat. Just below, there was a narrow ledge–more decorative than functional, but it would do in a pinch. She twisted and lowered herself, balancing on her toes on the ledge. The door opened just as she tiptoed to the side and out of sight, gripping the side of the window with one hand, her other hand clawing at the mortar crumbling under the roots of ivy, pulling herself flush against the wall.
She held her breath and listened as Link sighed. And then groaned. And then shuffled around.
Her toes started to ache.
What was taking him so long? She slowly and quietly leaned to the side, peeking in, just as he grabbed the back collar of his shirt and pulled it over his head. She hauled herself back, pressing her forehead tot he brick, her face flaming, her breath held so she wouldn’t squeak.
Her fingers started to cramp.
Okay. Okay. He was changing out of his sweaty practice clothes and into his presentable clothes, and then he would leave. It wouldn’t take that long. Then she could pull herself back inside and–
What was taking him so long? Had she put his clothes back incorrectly?
She peeked again into his room to find him standing in front of a bowl of water, wiping his neck with a dripping sponge and then lifting an arm and stretching his side to clean his armpit.
Zelda squeaked, and then fell, splashing into the river.
#
Zelda had to haul herself sopping wet from the river, wring out her hair, and then walk as primly as she could back to her room.
It was, of course, the talk of the castle within the hour.
And to top it all off, Link’s book was now wet. She spent several long hours locked in her study with the book opened up in the sunlight as she waved a fan to try to dry each individual page. Luckily it had been battered to begin with. Maybe he wouldn’t notice.
Several maids came to try to help her dress (they were dismissed) and then they left breakfast and then lunch for her. A courier arrived with a message that her father wished to speak with her, most likely about her behavior. She pretended to not be in her locked study. Then one of her father’s guards was sent to collect her, and–having learned nothing from her morning’s excursions, she slipped out her window and waited on the wide ledge outside for him to unlock the door, huff that she wasn’t there, and leave.
She read as she fanned, shifting from one desk to another as the sun moved. Until she came to a page that was dog eared. Dog Eared. The tactlessness! Even to abuse a book such as this was simply boorish. She moved to flatten the fold, but then stopped herself. Why had he marked this page? A chill tightened her shoulders as she nervously turned to the text.
His tongue was precise, teasing with the tip as he traced the shapes of flowers against her clit, swirling, swirling, looping to draw petals, and then marking the center like the dot of an i, sharp and sudden and delicious. Teasing her nearly beyond reason, he pressed the broad, flat of his tongue against her, rolling and thrusting and filling, until she held his hair tight and fucked herself on his face. He held his tongue taut for her to take her pleasure and moaned in a way that sent vibrations through her whole body, setting off a bone trembling orgasm.
He kissed her neck, waiting for her to catch her breath, waiting for her vision to return. Then he brushed her mussed hair from her face, tucking it behind her slender ear.
“Oh,” she moaned, even though she did not truly care. “I must look so disheveled.”
“It’s what makes you captivating.”
The words filled her with such delight that she pulled him down to lick her way into his mouth.
Zelda had a hand clapped over her mouth. She’d stopped fanning the book.
Why did he have this dogeared? Why did–
A soft, rhythmic knock sounded at her study door, cutting through her thoughts in sheer horror with its surety that she would hear him. Her muscles seized like a startled bunny.
He lifted his quiet voice just enough for her to hear him through the door. “The king is coming.”
And as much as Link’s presence was absolutely horrible, her father’s presence was another matter entirely.
She scrambled, stowing the book under her desk. She didn’t want to risk closing it and ruining all her work to dry it. She tossed a few extra books onto the floor to camouflage it, and then pulled the wide sheet of drafting paper half off her desk to obscure everything. She yanked open the door and immediately averted her eyes from his face. “Can I still get out?”
He nodded and led her back into her room and into the hall. From the other direction came the clanking of armored boots, the low growl of her father’s voice. But Link kept a quick pace in the opposite direction, not looking back at her as they headed out onto the grounds and then through a dark, downward sloping passage that became more and more humid until it let out under the main bridge into Castle Town. The sluggish water of the moat splashed at the bridge’s pylons. There he stopped, folded his hands at the small of his back, and waited for further instructions.
She was never going to be able to look at him again. And now they were just going to sit alone together for a period of time longer than it usually took for her father to give up on looking for her.
She huffed and crossed her arms and leaned back against the cliff wall. Maybe she could throw herself into the river again. But then he would jump in to rescue her. He’d drag her out of the water, and they’d both be wet and pressed together and panting, and what had she doooooonnnne?
“I would always accompany you to your devotions.”
She startled, not just from the fact that he’d spoken to her, which was rare and awful, but also because she had no idea what he was talking about.
He changed his grip on his hands, almost as if he were nervous. “You should have an escort. Especially when…you know your prayers will tire you.”
She blinked. Then her eyes widened. “Oh! Oh you think I fainted again while praying! That I fell into the spring. Because I tried to get in some late night devotions but they were ultimately unsuccessful just like all my prayers. Is that what people are saying? That’s actually not as bad as it could be.”
He turned his head then to frown at her over his shoulder.
Oh. Wait. She leaned forward hurriedly. “Because that is exactly what happened!”
His eyes narrowed, even more suspicious.
Her face grew bright red, and she looked away, rubbing her arms. He shifted, and she swallowed, holding very still as he slowly approached. He lifted a hand, almost as if he would cup her cheek and lift her chin and then press her back against the cliff wall, and her heat beat so loudly that he could certainly see it pounding.
His hand went to her hair.
Where he peeled a long piece of black seaweed from her hair.
She looked at it in horror.
He removed two more smaller strands. Once in front of her face, they smelled unpleasant. They stuck wetly to Link’s fingers, and he had to flick each one away.
She gaped at Link in mortification. Those had been there all day. Oh, just let the ground swallow her!
But he looked kind rather than appalled.
“It’s what makes you captivating.”
Zelda’s face flamed.
#
The next time Zelda snuck down to Link’s room—or as she had come to think of it: “the alternate library”—there was a lock on the chest at the foot of his bed.
She gaped at it, completely affronted. She was too aghast that he would keep the books from her that it barely occurred to her that he must know they were being stolen.
She stomped back out and headed to the real library, where she spent her free time learning to pick a lock. When Link arrived to accompany her to her devotions, she glared at him and he gave her a blank look, but that wasn’t anything out of the usual. The next morning, she had supplies. And knowledge. And she smirked as the chest opened with a thunk.
Laying on top of everything that was inside the chest was a handwritten note that shockingly said, “Fuck you, Arnst. Quit touching my clothes.”
She’d never heard such language from him before! Unnecessary!
But also, if she had her gossip correct, Arnst was one of the guards who was a bit of a prankster. So that meant Link didn’t know it was her. He thought it was one of his brothers in arms. And he’d complained about his clothes. Not the books.
Haha! Good.
She swapped out the book she’d finished (which looked fine if you asked her) with a new one. She now knew that she didn’t have much time, and therefore picked one at random. But she did take a moment to narrow her eyes at his note, dig through the drawers of his desk, then write under his message, “Go fuck yourself.”
She grinned as she surveyed her misbehavior. She’d never used that word before. She felt dangerous. And pleased with herself.
She replaced the lock so it would be a surprise when he opened the chest.
Two days later, the note had changed, and Zelda’s face flamed as she read, “Kind of hard when you keep taking my reading material.”
She dropped the book she was holding. She imagined this is what her ancestors must have felt when they experienced visions. She didn’t want to imagine it, but–he’d hold the book in one hand and stroke himself with the other. He’d set the book face down down to mark his place and close his eyes and imagine it, changing the details until his breath caught.
Zelda’s internal screaming drowned out all other thought.
Which was a problem, because she had to get out quickly, and she had to leave a rude response to his offensive note. Yes. Offensive. She was offended. Not only did he own trashy novels, but he made use of them. No. This was information she didn’t need about a person she didn’t like. She should just stop this nonsense. Find her own reading material that wasn’t sullied with Link’s presence. Or stop reading this trash all together. It was beneath her, after all.
So she wrote, “Is it really that hard? I wouldn’t expect the Hylian Champion to lack imagination and perseverance,” and then grabbed two books and ran.
#
With the first note, Link thought it was weird that Arnst had the same quick, slashed penmanship as all the Sheikah scientists. They never seemed to lift their pen when they wrote. He also wanted to know why the hell his book was returned wet. What had Arnst done to it?! Link did not want to know. He decided that he would put on gloves and then burn it and then burn his gloves and then buy a new copy. He hit Arnst upside the head in the mess and Arnst tried to punch him in the kidney. So maybe they were even.
The second note, he stared at in dawning, bone crushing horror.
Hylian Champion
Perseverance
Lack of imagination
Arnst didn’t write this.
No. The princess wrote this.
It was one thing to joke with Arnst about his masturbatory habits. But it was entirely different to throw those habits in the face of the crown princess and blood of the Goddess. He was so horrified that he though he might die. She’d seen his collection of smutty romance novels. She read parts of his collections of smutty romance novels.
What had she read, what had she–oh sweet goddess, help him. He collapsed onto his bed, staring wide eyed at his ceiling. His life was over. The king’s guard would burst in any moment and drag him to the dungeons.
Oh Goddess, she’d teased him back. She’d read his books and come back for more and snuck into his room and then teased him.
Had she…Had…
He pictured her, in her bed, the book face down on her stomach to mark her place as her hand worked between her legs. He imagined her soft gasps, the wet slapping noises as she pumped her hand. She gripped her own breast, visible through her thin nightgown, which in his imaginings was translucent. She’d squeeze her thighs together and squirm, sinking her teeth into her lower lip.
He covered his face in his hands.
She’d glower at him as he knelt before her, as he eased her legs apart and guided her hips up into his lap. She’d latch onto his wrist as his hand took the place of her own. His finger would slide in so easily. She’d be so wet. So warm. And she’d growl at him, gripping his hand to move it herself. Faster, harder. “More,” she’d snap, and he’d add another finger.
And she’d be on display in all her glory as he watched in awe as his fingers slid in and out of her, her night dress rucked up to show her smooth stomach, the perfect dip of her navel. Her thumb would roll round and round her peaked nipple. And she would glare at him, her body burning with waves of hatred and lust.
He palmed the front of his pants.
She’d been in his room. She’d walked right in. What if he’d been here? What if she walked in on him now?
She’d look surprised. Then her eyes would narrow dangerously, and she’d shut the door behind her, crossing her arms over her chest and popping out a hip. “Well? Get on with it then.”
He groaned and imagined sinking into her, how she’d be so ready he’d slide in in one stroke, how she’d be so tight his eyes would roll, how her nails would grip his back and she’d keen and demand through gritted teeth that he move faster.
Usually when he fantasized, he’d be slow and caring with her, and she’d be gentle and passionate, cupping his face and smiling as he learned every curve of her body. But now he imagined no tender kisses, just the heated puffs of her breath on his lips between taunts that he couldn’t make her come. It pulled out a snarl, his hips snapping, his hand moving faster as he glared right back at her.
He barely grabbed the shirt he was going to wear today in time to catch the mess.
He covered his face with his arm as he caught his breath.
So apparently now he was fantasizing about hate sex with the princess. Oh, he was doomed. Absolutely doomed. What was he thinking? There was no way this wouldn’t end badly.
Gah. He’d messed up his shirt too. He grimaced down at it and pushed himself up to get cleaned up and find something else to wear.
When he pulled on a new undershirt, he paused to look at the note, at her angry handwriting, demanding and sharp. He folded the note into fourths and tucked it into the little pocket inside his shirt, next to the heart, where most knights tucked tiny portraits of their wives or love letters.
Then he groaned again and flicked himself in the forehead a half dozen times. He was soooo doooomed.
#
When Zelda went to collect her next novel, there was a book waiting for her at the top of the chest. She gave it a suspicious look.
The attached note said, “You’ll like this one, asshole.”
She frowned. She did not want to read anything Link thought Arnst would like. She also had a suspicion that Link wouldn’t pick something he actually believed Arnst would enjoy. But then there was a noise in the hallway, and she grabbed the book and ran.
In this book, the leads were rival archeologists, both investigating underground ruins that sounded extremely interesting. Zelda was annoyed that the narrative clearly had no interest in scientific accuracy or in describing the ruins in any detail at all. Given the publication date, the author was most likely inspired by the excavation of the Divine Beasts, and for the first few pages, Zelda was excited to hear about love blossoming on a dig site. Maybe Arnst wasn’t such a terrible judge.
That was not what the book was about.
Her heart pounding, she darted out of the dark, catching the figure coming down the passageway with her knife against his throat. He caught her with a crowbar pressed tight across her shoulders, pinning her to the mossy wall. She gasped, and when her vision adjusted, she recognized Anton, a bitter smirk on his face, his eyes shaded even in the dark by the brim of a hat.
“Fancy meeting you here,” he said, his face far too close to hers, his leg braced against hers to hold her in place.
“Yes,” she huffed, shoving against him only for him to shove her back. “I can’t imagine how you caught up. I see the poisoned spikes didn’t get you.”
“No. The poisoned spikes that you set to kill me were unsuccessful.”
“Shame.”
She twisted her knife, and he caught her wrist. But this lifted the pressure from the crowbar across her chest and she shoved again, more successful this time until he caught her arm and pinned it over her head, his crowbar hitting the floor with a sharp, echoing clatter. She gave him her most haughty look, full of all the loathing she held for him. And he sneered down at her, his breath brushing her face, fluttering a stray hair that tickled against her cheek. His hips pressed firm against hers, and she held eye contact as she rolled them, daring him to back away. Daring him to come closer.
Instead he rolled with her, smirking at her, knowing her game. She arched her back to press her chest to his, and he released her wrist to pull her even closer, a hand between her shoulder blades, daring her to kill him now that her hand was free.
“I hate you,” she spat.
He tightened his hold on her arm.
She threw her knife, which embedded with a thunk in the wall,grabbed his hair ,and yanked him into a kiss that was all teeth and snarls.
Zelda pulled back from the book. This–Wait–
You can do this?!
The other books were full of deep longing and passionate caresses. They were fantasies of things that were so foreign to her that she could not conceive of them happening. If they survived the Calamity, she would enter a loveless marriage for political gain and maybe her husband would be handsome and maybe he would be companionable and maybe the sex would be alright, but she certainly wasn’t going to find love. But this…
Zelda felt as if she understood this. This was accessible. This was reasonable.
She curled into a tighter ball on her sofa, a hand pressed tight over her stomach.
She’d felt this kind of passion before–the burning of loathing, and a shortness of breath from dismay and frustration and–and–
Link pinning her to a wall, his lip curling into a sneer as she glared at him, his leg pressed to the inside of her thigh.
Her heart beat faster.
But he was usually so stoic. What did she have to do to get Link to glare at her like that?
What–No! What was she thinking?!
She pressed the open book against her face to muffle her scream.
#
“I’m keeping the book you recommended,” her next note said.
“You thief,” he wrote. “Is this the thanks I get for having a good recommendation? You steal my book? At least I was right. I knew you’d like it, because you’re spiteful and demanding.”
“Oh, yes. You know me so well. And yet you didn’t know that I would steal it.”
“I underestimated how many times you’d want to read that bit where they’re handcuffed together and do it on the table.”
“Wrong again. But it’s informative that you think that’s the set piece of the novel.”
“Of course, it’s the set piece of the novel. She used the handcuff to make him touch her how she wanted, and he used the handcuff to stretch her out on the table so all she could do is squirm when he flicked her nipple over and over with his tongue.”
“Ah. I bet you’d like a woman to show you how to touch her.”
“I would not turn that down, no.”
Zelda’s face heated. She stored that bit of information away.
“They barely remove their clothes! All he does is push down his pants and ruck up her skirts, and he ruins her blouse enough to pop out a single breast. Where were the descriptions of sweaty skin sliding on sweaty skin? Where was feeling the heat of their flesh? She couldn’t even grab his bare rear to pull him deeper.”
“What do you think is the highlight of the book then?”
“When they’re at the inn, and she shoves him to the bed and rides him, of course.”
“And what’s so special about that?”
“It’s two-fold, I believe. First, their banter adds a level of tension that I find intriguing. And secondly, I like how she’s uninhibited in her enjoyment. How she’s powerful and confident and puts on a whole show torturing him by dragging her hands all over her body. I like the image of her pulling up her hair.”
The page was missing the next morning. She dug around in the trunk a bit for it, but it was nowhere to be found. She frowned. Then narrowed her eyes. Well, if he thought he could end their pen-pal relationship and get her to go away, he was mistaken.
She pulled a new page from his desk.
“I notice that you are running low on novels. I recently discovered that the main library has a fiction section. It is very small and hidden away in a dark stack, and the volumes with sexual content are unmarked, but it seems I have a knack for finding books such as these. I stole this one for you. I think you may enjoy it.”
She was relieved to find a reply to her last note. Not that she was worried. Just…she would not pretend that her emotions made sense.
“Stealing from the library now? Why do you need me if you have your own source?”
“Because it pleases me to make you uncomfortable.”
“How could I deny such a selfish, boundary-stomping demand?”
She smirked. He couldn’t deny her. When she pulled aside his clothes, she uncovered a new row of novels. There was no room on the bottom layer of the chest, and they had to be stacked atop the first. A note stuck in the first book said, “Soot’s Used Books in town sells by the pound.”
She beamed.