Chapter 2: Behind Closed Library Doors
The heavy mahogany doors of the private library clicked shut behind us, muttering the final echoes of the grand foyer away. The four guards in black suits remained stationed outside in the marble hallway, their dark silhouettes blurring slightly through the frosted glass panels set into the upper half of the doors. Inside, the room smelled of old paper, polished walnut, and the faint, bitter trace of imported pipe tobacco that Mr. Varric never seemed to smoke.
Nico stirred slightly against my collar, his small chest rising and falling in a rhythmic, shallow cadence. The blue cotton of his pajamas felt damp against my maroon uniform where he had wept just minutes earlier, but his breathing was deep and even now.
Mr. Varric stood beside the heavy oak writing desk, his white shirt unbuttoned at the collar, the sleeves rolled twice up his forearms. He didn't sit. He rested one hand flat on the green leather blotter, his fingers drumming a slow, steady rhythm that betrayed the tension rigid in his shoulders. His dark eyes remained fixed on the infant in my arms, searching my face with a cold, analytical scrutiny as if trying to solve a complicated mathematical proof that refused to balance.
"Explain it," Varric said. His voice was low, stripped of the frantic panic he had shown out in the foyer. It was the voice of a man accustomed to demanding answers and receiving them immediately. "He hasn't let anyone else touch him for forty-eight hours. Not the pediatrician, not the agency nurses, not even me without screaming until he choked. Yet the second you take him, he sleeps."
I kept my gaze lowered toward Nico's crown, watching the fine tufts of dark hair curling softly against his skin. "He's just tired, Mr. Varric."
"Don't patronize me," he snapped, taking a sharp step forward before checking himself, halting just a few feet away. "People don't just possess a magical off-switch for an infant's hysteria. Who are you? The employment agency sent three files this week, and none of the photographs matched the woman standing in my foyer."
My pulse hammered against my ribs, a sharp, trapped bird beating its wings. The employment files had been a desperate necessity, cobbled together through cheap public terminals and forged references that would never withstand a serious background check by a man of Varric’s resources. I had known the risk when I walked up the marble steps in this maroon maid uniform with my blonde hair pulled back tight, but hunger and desperation have a way of narrowing choices down to a single terrifying path.
"The agency had a backlog," I said, keeping my tone carefully level, draining it of the tremor I felt in my hands. "My paperwork is being updated. But I know how to care for an infant. If you want to check my references again in the morning, you can. But right now, Nico needs quiet, and he needs a stable room."
Varric narrowed his eyes, studying the way I supported the baby's head, my palm cupping the small of his back with a familiarity that defied our supposed employer-employee relationship. He walked slowly around the desk, his gaze dropping to the infant's peaceful expression, then tracking back up to my eyes.
"You didn't answer my question," he murmured, his voice dropping into a dangerous, confidential register. "How do you make him stop crying?"
Before I had to invent another half-truth, Nico gave a faint, sleepy sigh, his tiny fist twitching against my chest. The movement served as an instinctive punctuation mark, reminding us both of the fragile truce holding the room together.
I looked up, meeting his stare directly, letting the silence stretch until the air between us felt heavy with unvoiced history. "If you wake him up now, Mr. Varric, he'll start screaming again. And you and I both know the guards outside won't be much help with a colicky baby."
Varric stared at me for a long, grueling moment, the muscles along his jaw working. He wasn't stupid; he could smell deception, but he was also a desperate father cornered by circumstances he couldn't control. Slowly, the rigid angle of his shoulders softened just a fraction. He pulled back his hand from the desk and gestured toward the private staircase leading up to the family wing.
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"The nursery is down the hall from my suite," Varric said, his tone turning ice-cold and absolute. "You'll stay there tonight under strict supervision. If I find out you're anyone other than who you claim to be, the police won't even be the first ones I call."
"Understood," I said quietly, turning toward the inner door that led deeper into the darkened estate, carrying the sleeping child toward the shadows that waited for us upstairs.
