Title: Just An Experiment (v2)
Author: Tsutsuji
Fandom: Slayers
Pairing: Xelloss/Zelgadis
Rating/warning: Mature - yaoi, semi-public sex (sort of)
Word count: around 5300.
Standard disclaimer: I don't own Zelgadis, Xelloss, or anything else Slayers, but the Mala and his library are mine all mine.
Another "Birth Rite" side story, (and a sequel to "Just Because" which is not posted here.) AKA The Library-Lust Story. May contain mild spoilers for Birth Rite beyond chapter 17. Many thanks to Rosethorne, once again! XD
---
Zelgadis jumped, squawked, and scrambled to catch the cup of coffee he'd knocked over when Xelloss had appeared out of nowhere, hovering in mid-air over the library table in front of him. He was so busy doing all of that, it took a few seconds for the growl and the shaft of anger Xelloss had been expecting to actually show up and hit him. Somehow, he managed not to giggle when it finally did.
"My, my, Zel-san," he said, crossing his legs and sitting there, a foot above the books and papers spread out in front of Zelgadis. "You're here so early this morning! Already hard at work, I see. I thought you might sleep in; I was going to have breakfast delivered, but you were already gone when I got back from my morning stroll!"
Zelgadis grunted, smoothing out the paper that had been lightly spattered with coffee. No great damage done, Xelloss noted. Yet.
"I didn't drink as much as some people did last night," Zelgadis grumbled, then he winced just as if he had. He covered his face with his hand, as if trying to block the memory of the evening before."Don't make me think of it again, please. I can't believe I got up and sang in front of all those people!"
"But you sang so well! Even better after you had a few drinks so you weren't as nervous. Unfortunately, Melly-san doesn't sing any better when he's drunk than he did when he was sober."
Zelgadis winced again. "I'm never touching another drop," he muttered. "I can't wait until Melly gets over this particular obsession, and moves on to something ... quieter."
Xelloss did giggle at that. "Like painting?" He leaned forward, grinning, eyes open so he could let his gaze travel meaningfully over Zel's body. "You know, he really does need to study anatomy, so don't you think..."
"Stop!" Zelgadis cried, throwing up his hands. "Don't even think of suggesting that I should pose nude for him!"
Xelloss laughed, but he really had no intention of suggesting any such thing. As much fun as it was to tease Zelgadis into a frenzy about it, he was not about to sit by while Melianthus ogled his chimera, even in the name of art. He put his finger to his chin and tipped his head to the side, reconsidering.
"Well, I could take up painting myself, instead, but I suppose it wouldn't be good manners to show up the Mala like that, would it?"
"Are you saying you can paint any better?" Zelgadis said skeptically, then waved his hand. "Never mind, don't even answer. I expect you paint much the same way you make soup!"
"Aw, Zel-san," Xelloss pouted. "Do you really think so little of my talents as that?"
He shifted around in the air, meaning to trap Zelgadis in his chair so he could start making up for having missed "breakfast" in bed, but Zelgadis anticipated this and slipped out of the chair before he could catch him. Frustrated, Xelloss darted around and landed on the floor, and quickly pinned him back against the table instead.
Zelgadis did not seem the least bit surprised to find himself trapped. He crossed his arms and regarded Xelloss calmly.
"Your domestic talents, yes," he said. "Only because I know you only bother with things like that if you've got a very good reason!"
"Hm, that's probably true," Xelloss said agreeably.
He leaned against Zelgadis with his hands on the table on either side of him. The chimera raised his hands, pressing his fists back against Xelloss' chest - but not nearly hard enough to push him off.
"But what about my other talents?" Xelloss said. He got close enough to catch Zelgadis' lower lip between his for a second before letting it go again. "You know, I can tie a cherry stem with my tongue! And I can untie other things..."
Zelgadis' face was already a little flushed. When Xelloss lowered his head to tug at the laces of Zel's shirt with his teeth, he felt the stone skin radiate even more heat.
"Xelloss," Zelgadis growled. A nice little shiver of nervous anticipation ran through him. "Someone might come in here, you know..."
"Mmm, I doubt it," Xelloss said, although he checked the area for the presence of any others, just in case. He would hardly have known if Melianthus had been standing right beside them, of course, but considering how much sake Melly had to drink the night before, Xelloss was quite certain he was going to be hiding under the pillows with the drapes closed for a good part of the day.
As he slowly dropped lower, Zelgadis tried again to push him off, but with the heat from Xelloss' tongue sending shivers through his stone skin, it was a pretty feeble attempt.
"At least, let me ... ahh... shut the door...first!" Zelgadis panted.
Xelloss waved a hand over his shoulder; the doors thudded closed. He felt the chimera relax, marginally.
"This still isn't a very good idea, you know," Zelgadis said. One hand twisted in Xelloss' hair, holding on, while the other clamped onto his shoulder trying to push him away. "We really shouldn't be doing this... oh damn!... in the Mala's library."
The exclamation came out when Xelloss demonstrated the dexterity of his tongue by unfastening Zel's trousers. He let out a puff of hot breath over Zel's slowly growing erection, and then nibbled with sharp (though mostly harmless) teeth on the inside of the chimera's thigh.
"Ah," he said. He reached over with one hand to get Zel's clothing out of his way, firmly pinning his hip against the table with the other. "But you love libraries so much! I thought this would be exciting for you."
Zelgadis shuddered and didn't answer. Really, he didn't have to; his rapidly increasing arousal was clear enough to Xelloss' senses. It was possible that the fear of discovery actually heightened the excitement for him, for all his modesty - but Xelloss had a feeling that merely being in the library was a thrill for Zelgadis. In fact, he'd been waiting for an opportunity to test this theory ever since Zelgadis had first set foot in the Mala's family library, all those weeks ago.
Xelloss had seen and felt that same greedy anticipation when Zelgadis had been in a room full of books before, and had even indulged him in it (unknown to Zelgadis at the time) by enticing him to plunder temple libraries in the Outer World while waiting for Valgaav to make his appearance. It wasn't the familiar desperate, fanatical surge of emotion the chimera felt with a Claire Bible manuscript in his hands. If anything, it was more like Lina-san's reaction to the gleam and jingle of gold. In fact, he sometimes detected the same thrill in Zelgadis during their astral magic lessons: the scholar's never-sated lust for knowledge.
After his rather successful experiment with a new position a few weeks ago, he'd started to think of more ways he could recapture the chimera's attention away from his studies. Of course, he wanted Zelgadis to find the information he sought, but they were obviously stuck in this village for the rest of the winter, so there was plenty of time for that. That meant there was also time to discover whether Zelgadis' lust for learning could be used to enhance a more visceral experience - like this.
In that other experiment, he'd managed to take Zelgadis in two ways at the same time, happily blowing his senses into a very satisfying state of oblivion. That was a little strenuous for both of them, though, so this time, he only planned to do one after the other. He was counting on the library itself to accomplish the rest.
It seemed to be working so far, he noted happily, after he took the unprotesting chimera's erection into his mouth. A few whimpers, a tasty little tang of worry among the familiar emotions, the briefest flash of distraction now and then when Zelgadis suddenly remembered where they were for a moment; all of those together were certainly not enough to convince Xelloss to stop what he was doing. Not when Zel's cock swelled so hot and firm in his mouth, and when his fingers twisted in Xelloss' hair, curling against the side of his head possessively.
Zelgadis wasn't so far gone that he couldn't remember to be angry, however.
"Xelloss," he growled, when he could catch his breath a little. "I know you're just trying to distract me again!"
Xelloss laughed a little. The vibration made Zel's fingers tighten in his hair, and brought another growl from deep in his chest. Another nice blast of fury hit him. It was all very arousing, but he thought he could make it even better. He let Zelgadis slip from his lips with a soft, sucking "plop" and leaned back to look up at him. Zelgadis swore out loud and glared down at him.
"Exactly!" Xelloss crowed happily. "And it looks like it's working!"
Before Zelgadis could draw another breath, he sucked the whole length back into his mouth.
Zelgadis' whole body jerked, banging against the table with a loud thud. He nearly fell over backwards, scrabbling behind himself on the table to catch himself, scattering papers and books. Rather than let him steady himself, though, Xelloss hooked an arm under one of Zel's legs and lifted it up over his shoulder.
Perched on the edge of the table, leaning back with one hand holding himself up, papers crumpling beneath his fingers, Zelgadis held onto him with his other hand and let him do just as he liked. His hard body arched, his breath coming out in groans. Xelloss didn't give him much more time to think or worry; he was so close already that he couldn't resist bringing him right up to the brink of climax, and quickly dragged him over the edge. He hummed happily as he swallowed every drop he could; hardly any spattered onto the floor or on the papers Zelgadis had knocked off the table in his struggles.
Afterward, Zelgadis sat there, barely on the edge of the table, still moaning as he tried to catch his breath. He suddenly seemed to focus again, and tensed up, eyes darting toward the door.
"Damn it, Xelloss," he growled, trying to extricate his leg from Xelloss' shoulder without falling over sideways. "What if someone heard all that!"
"Hm, such strange sounds coming from the library; maybe they'd think the Asmalath mansion was haunted!" Xelloss said, and grinned up at him.
He dropped the chimera's trapped leg and stood up quickly, which let Zelgadis slip off the table to land on his feet, but still pinned between Xelloss' arms with his trousers pooled around one ankle and his shirt hanging open. Xelloss looked down at his exposed body with delight. He certainly wasn't done yet.
Zelgadis supposed he should have gotten used to having Xelloss look at him so openly like this, but he still blushed when he felt Xelloss staring at him, and tried to push him away so he could cover himself up.
"Are you going to let me get back to work now, or..." he muttered, turning aside to avoid Xelloss' gaze and pulling his shirt into place.
Xelloss waited just until he started to bend over to grab his pants, and then he pounced. The next thing Zelgadis knew, he was bent forward over the table, his arms pinned up by his head and his cheek pressed against an old, leather-bound book of magic. Xelloss leaned down over his back, with his clothed erection tucked in nicely against Zelgadis' bare ass.
"Ah, now this is perfect, isn't it, Zel-san?" he cooed. "Since you love your books so much..."
Zelgadis struggled, or at least, wiggled, underneath him, and sputtered furiously.
"Damn Mazoku!" he growled. "You can't be serious! We can't do this here!"
"Oh? Why not?" Xelloss asked, all innocence. "I think it seems like the perfect place to do this!"
He rolled his hips, wedging his body more tightly against Zel's naked ass. Holding him flat against the table, he caught the tip of one long, pointed ear between his lips and sucked.
Face down on the books and papers he'd been trying to read through bleary eyes when Xelloss had arrived, Zelgadis gasped in a lungful of the scent of old leather bindings, old ink and paper. The rocky patches on his ribs scraped the wooden table as he squirmed under Xelloss.
Xelloss pushed his hips - and his unabated erection - in between Zel's thighs, fingers digging into his hips to pull his ass up and back.
"Xelloss," Zel choked out. He scrabbled at the loose papers spread out under him, and knocked another book to the floor. "What do you think you're..."
He broke off. It was a foolish question, anyway, since it was perfectly clear what Xelloss thought he was doing.
The mazoku leaned forward and pressed him down, and flexed his hips again so that his erection prodded roughly between Zel's ass cheeks. Automatically, in spite of himself, Zelgadis wriggled back, trying to move so that it hit the right spot.
Xelloss chuckled. The vibration of his laughter rippled through Zel's back, and he went still, panting, every breath full of the scent of books and the distinctive, not-quite-human scent of Xelloss' physical body. His naked body. He wasn't even sure when the clothes had vanished.
The mazoku's spirit reached for his, caressing and coaxing. Zelgadis stubbornly tried to resist it, held back from it as long as he could. And just when he was about to give up and surge into Xelloss, he reminded himself where they were and panicked instead.
"Xelloss!" he gasped, trying - quite ineffectively - to twist out from under the mazoku. "Someone could... "
"See you like this?" Xelloss finished for him playfully.
He released on arm and ran his hand along Zel's ribs, down his thigh, up over the curve of his ass, his heated touch like warm air hitting bare, stone-covered skin, emphasizing his nakedness.
Zelgadis shuddered, his face growing hot at the thought of anyone looking at him like this, bent over the table with his bare butt in the air. But struggling to throw Xelloss off wouldn't do much good now, he knew; the more shame he felt at the mere idea of being seen like this, the more excited and determined Xelloss would be. And it would only leave him more exposed if he succeeded, anyway, he reminded himself, with yet another burning blush of shame. Not that he really wanted anyone else staring at Xelloss' naked ass, which was currently all that was keeping his naked ass out of sight of anyone who might walk in the door.
Xelloss laughed again. He released one hip in order to spread Zel's ass and guide himself in, slick and hard and insistent. For a moment, the sensations drowned almost all thought out of Zel's mind. There was only the pressure and heat pressing deep inside him, the hot weight of Xelloss pressing down against his back. His rough skin scraped the table, rattling a few papers still trapped underneath him, and the mysterious scent of Xelloss' skin mingled with that of calf leather and parchment. He forgot to worry about being discovered, or about anything else at all, for that matter, except that he desperately needed more. He thrust and twisted back against Xelloss impatiently, and heard a growl of pleasure in his ear.
"Xel...loss! Damn... it," he panted, the hot humidity of his breath leaving a damp spot on the book under his face. He scrabbled backwards, trying to get some purchase on the table's surface, some leverage to lift himself forward onto it, because the way Xelloss held his hips up in the air meant that nothing was touching him where he most wanted to be touched.
"Hm??" Xelloss cooed, sounding far more happy than it should ever be safe for a Mazoku to be. "Is there something you want, Zel-san?"
All the while he was moving in and out in long, deep thrusts that shook Zelgadis to his soul. He scrambled to get a grip on the astral side as well, his concentration wavering in and out of focus. Xelloss' spirit twisted all around his, teasing him with darting touches that made his bodiless form shiver in frustration.
"Will you... just... garrrr!" he snarled, and then gasped and banged his face into the table as Xelloss suddenly did exactly what he wanted. The mazoku's surprisingly soft hand closed around his shaft, squeezing lightly on each stroke. It felt so good Zelgadis sobbed into the book under his cheek.
He had to force himself to remember where they were, and to remember to panic over it. He reminded himself to struggle and growl at the Mazoku, furious when he thought of the absolute impropriety of doing this in the Mala's library.
Xelloss jerked, inside him and around him, and groaned out loud, sharply. Zelgadis knew him well enough by now to know that he was close to the strange sort of orgasmic release he reached. Relief mingled with a little regret, but they really couldn't risk keeping this up much longer. He pumped his hips, thrusting as hard into Xelloss' hand as his position would allow, and with another effort, he summoned all the fury and frustration he could throw at the Mazoku.
"Oh! My! Zelgadis!" Xelloss gasped, mashing his face against Zel's stoney shoulder. Zelgadis felt him shudder, felt the heat of the mazoku's orgasm burst inside him, and felt the dark spirit convulse around his.
That alone was almost enough. Xelloss' hand clenched around him, and he pumped his hips as hard and fast as he could into the hot embrace, and finally let himself go with one final, grateful groan.
He felt as if the whole world had spun and tumbled sideways. A second later he opened his eyes to find that it was he himself who had fallen over to the side, or rather, that he had been rolled over onto his back on the table by Xelloss, while he was too limp and dazed to protest.
He flailed, scrambling with arms and legs, trying to sit up, but papers slid out from under his hands, and Xelloss stood between his spread legs and leaned over him, hands planted on the table on either side of his hips. He was still naked, his too-perfect body gleaming in the light that filtered down from the high windows, the dark curtain of his hair swinging across his face as he leered down at Zelgadis trapped beneath him.
As mortified as he was to find himself spread out like this, as if on display, Zelgadis paused, momentarily breathless from the way Xelloss was looking at him, as if he was drinking in the sight the same way he feasted on emotions.
"Oh, Zel-san," Xelloss said, his voice a soft whisper that trembled all across Zelgadis' stone skin. He raised one hand to the strands of Zelgadis' hair, his cheek, and down his throat to his chest, not quite touching his skin, but Zelgadis felt the heat of it and shivered from it anyway. "This is how I would want to paint you, my splendid chimera, to remember you like this always..."
Zelgadis stared up at him, flushed as much with astonishment as with shame. But a second later, Xelloss grinned cheekily. "And of course, I would have you surrounded so lasciviously by your beloved books and papers like this, in such a perfect setting - why, it would be quite pornographic, wouldn't it?"
And to prove his point, he held up a suspiciously limp, damp sheet of paper, one of the notes Zelgadis had been writing before Xelloss had shown up. It had ended up on the floor in front of him, along with several other papers and a small leather-bound notebook, all of which were now spattered and wet. Most of it was not from his spilled cup of coffee.
With a snarl, Zelgadis pushed himself up from the table and snatched the cum-spattered page from him. Xelloss stepped back with a giggle.
"You perverted monster!" Zelgadis grumbled. He yanked his pants back on, and then deliberately turned his back on Xelloss and began to gather up the crumpled papers and the books he'd rolled around on, stepped on, or ejaculated on.
Xelloss stood behind him, humming happily. Zelgadis breathed a small sigh of relief, again with a twinge of regret that it was over so soon. Both the mazoku's lust and his twisted sense of humor were satisfied for the moment, and with no harm done to the Mala's library after all, which meant that half of his experiment had been a success. As far as he could tell, the rest had been successful as well, but to be sure, he needed to get them both out of the library, before Xelloss got any more ideas for mischief.
---
Xelloss watched Zelgadis curiously as he gathered up most of the papers and books that had just fallen victim to their forbidden tryst in the sacred grounds of the Asmalath family library. Almost as matter-of-factly as if he had not been sprawled out naked and nearly senseless on the table moments before, Zelgadis pulled his shirt on, then picked up his cloak and the bag he carried when he came here to study, and started shoving the dampest papers into it.
"You're taking the evidence away with you?" Xelloss asked with a raised eyebrow. Most items were not allowed to leave the library, as they both knew well by now.
But a quick glance as Zelgadis sorted through them revealed that they were nothing valuable. The papers were only marked with Zelgadis' half-awake scribblings, nearly as illegible as the ancient diary of Melly's ancestor, and the leather-bound notebook was one he recognized that Zelgadis always carried with him. Zelgadis had only drooled a little on one of old calf skin covered books, which, on closer inspection, turned out to be one of Melly's great-grandmother's cookbooks of magical rememedies for common ailments. The wet spot was hardly noticeable among the old kitchen stains on the worn binding.
Zelgadis set that aside, along with a couple other books and a few papers that had escaped their activity unharmed. He stuffed the rest into his bag and slung it over his shoulder, ignoring Xelloss' curious gaze.
"Since you're obviously not going to let me get any studying done this morning," he said grumpily, "we might as well go back and have breakfast after all!"
"Oh?" Xelloss said, surprised but pleased. He followed Zelgadis to the door. "We're leaving already? I rather thought ... "
He broke off as something tugged at his senses, a brief flicker of magic, as if a spell had been cast - or broken? He glanced around the library again, wondering if they had somehow activated some lingering curse left by one of Melly's ancestors, but he didn't feel anything more than the usual hum of the old, latent sorcery within the library. If there had been a spell cast earlier that had just come undone, he must have been too distracted by Zelgadis to have noticed it.
Zelgadis threw the doors open and stepped out into the hallway. Xelloss followed, and then they both stopped short as someone spun around to face them, just a few feet away from the door.
"Oh! There you are!" Marcus exclaimed, jumping backwards. Then he leaned forward and peered past them. "Or rather, there it is. The library, I mean! I knew it was around here somewhere. I thought I must have got into the wrong corridor, but I was sure I remembered these two being right outside it." He jerked his head back toward the portraits of Melly's parents. "I have a perfect sense of direction, except, I get a little turned around indoors, you know," Marcus rambled on.
"Oh, dear, Marcus-san," Xelloss said, "have you been wandering around out here in the corridor for long, searching for the library?" Long enough to hear anything that was going on behind the library doors, perhaps, he thought, with a sly glance at Zelgadis.
The chimera's emotion as that idea sank in was not quite what he expected. Zelgadis blushed a little, but he was grinning, even though it looked rather like he was trying not to. The grin widened when Marcus nodded and held up a book as evidence.
"Just returning this for Kervan," he said, a little defensively. "He's, ah, resting this morning, from all the singing last night, you know."
"I don't remember Kervan doing any of the singing," Zelgadis said, startled.
"Oh, good heavens, no!" Marcus said. "Kervan singing? Can't even imagine it! But he says listening to all of it gave him a headache."
"Of course, the singing would do that," Xelloss agreed, and Zelgadis smirked. He didn't remember Kervan having much to drink, either, but apparently he was even less of a drinker than Melly was. The last he'd seen of Marcus, on the other hand, he'd been virtually barricaded behind a small fortress of sake jugs. The man had no business being up and moving, say nothing of cheerful, after all he'd consumed.
"At any rate, I'll just be returning this now," Marcus said, slipping past them. "Don't let me keep you!"
He ducked into the library. Zelgadis watched after him for a second, amused, and then shook his head and turned away.
"You don't suppose he'll try to 'borrow' another book for Kervan, do you?" Xelloss said thoughtfully.
Zelgadis shook his head, grinning. "No. He's not quite the idiot that I thought he was, after all!"
"That may be true," Xelloss said. "But he certainly does seem to get lost easily." The Mala's house was something of a maze, but the path to the library was actually fairly direct, even if it had taken Melly half the day to lead them to it the first time.
"Yes," Zelgadis murmured, smiling strangely. "So I suppose he wasn't the best test subject, but still, I think we can call the experiment a success!"
"What on earth do you mean, Zel-san?" Xelloss asked. He watched suspiciously as the chimera's grin spilled across his face.
It occurred to him that Zelgadis was surprisingly smug, considering he'd just been coerced into wild sex on a library table, and under the constant threat of public exposure, no less. And, all things considered, he realized, it was rather a nice coincidence that their messy activity had not actually messed up anything of value in the library. Why had there been a cookbook, of all things, so conveniently placed for Zelgadis to use as a pillow? Unless he had somehow expected Xelloss to show up and do this, and had planned accordingly.
"Oh dear," he murmured to himself as they reached the front hall. "Have I been terribly predictable again?"
Zelgadis chuckled. He opened the front door, and they stepped outside into the chill, sea-damp air.
"You can think of it as helping me with my magical research, if that makes you feel better," he said in a low voice as they walked away from the mansion.
"How on earth?" Xelloss began to ask, but then he remembered the flicker of a spell that he'd felt being cast or released just before they'd left the library. "What kind of research were you conducting, Zel-san, that required having sex in the Mala's library? Not that I mind being part of such an experiment! Are you sure you have all the information you need? I'd be quite happy to give you more input!"
Zelgadis managed to blush and grin smugly at the same time.
"You really didn't notice? Even better!" he said. "Marcus may lose his sense of direction indoors (assuming he actually has one to begin with), but from the time you closed the library door until we were ready to leave, no one could have found that room, even with a map and an orihalcon compass attuned to the location. At least, that's the theory! In this case, at least, it seems to have worked."
"Oh-ho!" Xelloss said, delighted. "You made the whole library untraceable! And even the spell itself is undetectable, unlike a more drastic measure such as taking it into alternate space. Very subtle! And very handy, I should think. I know how much you value your privacy, Zel-san! Now you can have it wherever you go!"
"Yes, well," Zelgadis said, ducking his head modestly at all the praise. "It's a rather subtle spell to work, so it won't be as easy to use on a spur of the moment. And there's a time limit, but it's a free-standing spell once it's cast, so the sorcerer is free to use other magic while it remains in effect. It could definitely come in handy."
"But," Xelloss went on as another implication occurred to him, "does that mean you knew all along that we wouldn't be discovered? All your anxiety about being caught in the act - oh, Zel-san, was that all for me?"
"I was counting on not being discovered!" Zelgadis said, blushing even more furiously. "Do you really think I would have let you do that in there otherwise? I couldn't be certain, though."
Xelloss stepped in front of him and stopped, standing face to face with Zelgadis on the path along the top of the cliff. Well, they were fully exposed to view now, he supposed, but there was no one around to see them anyway, so Zelgadis didn't flinch, much, when he pulled him close and snuggled him, giggling madly.
"I think this new spell of yours needs a great deal more experimentation and practice! Wouldn't you say, Zel-san?"
"Actually," Zelgadis murmured, allowing himself to be snuggled, "I was rather counting on that, too!"
...
The Mala's library made Marcus nervous. This was not unusual, since more things made Marcus nervous than didn't, but he had certain personal reasons to enter the place cautiously and to make sure he put the borrowed book back exactly where it had been borrowed from. He only stood looking around for a minute or two after that, caution doing battle with the temptation of being surrounded by so many small but valuable objects.
It should have been so simple to pick up a few and forget to set them down again before leaving, and there were so many books here, in such a jumbled, disorganized mess, that surely no one would notice if there were a few less tomorrow than there had been yesterday. But Marcus already knew better, so he only looked around and let his mind, automatically, configure what would be easiest to remove undetected, if it were really possible to remove anything undetected at all.
It wasn't, though, so after running through the mental exercise, he tore himself away and turned to leave. He had to pick up a few things in the village on the way back, and then maybe by the time he got back to the cottage, Kervan's headache would be better enough that he'd be coherent and civil, but not so much better that he'd be up and out of bed yet.
"Nothing like a warm bed on a cold winter afternoon," he said thoughtfully, "and especially a warm bed shared!"
He nodded, agreeing with himself (since there was no around to argue the point, after all), and with that pleasant thought, he pulled himself away from the small, valuable, tempting objects and wended his way back among the tables toward the door.
He hardly glanced at the books and papers scattered on the tables as he passed between them, but he had to wonder what could have left such deep scrapes and gouges in the surface of one of them. Was it possible, as his nervous imagination suggested, that some creature had leapt out of one of the spell books and clawed at the table? Or, rather, at the unlucky person who might have tried to unofficially "borrow" a book of magic from the sorcerer's library?
Closing the library doors firmly behind him, Marcus decided - wisely - that he'd rather not know.
~~ the end ~~