Ber recognized the nobleman who walked over to greet him shortly after he stepped through the door. A few years older than him, the tall soldier had made a name for himself in mandatory training, but what his actual name was, the younger man could not for the life of him remember.

It was just as well. Clearly the other soldier didn’t remember Ber’s name either.

Furrowing his brow slightly at the tall man’s question, Ber looked at him for a moment in faint confusion before offering an awkward and self-explanatory, “Uh, the books.” A vague gesture with one hand to the shelves around them. Why else would anyone enter a bookstore? “Thought I’d get a book. Isn’t that why you’re here, too?”

Cool. They were both here for books. With that riveting fact established, Ber began to turn away from the nobleman, but the other man seemed far less interested in minding his own business than the commoner would have preferred. “I don’t,” He said, glancing toward the nobleman before looking back at the shelves once more. “The book’s not for me.”

With his gaze resting on some particularly eye-catching covers, Ber narrowed his eyes slightly before turning to face the nobleman. “I’m sorry, who are you?” Despite his prickly tone, he searched the stranger’s face for any suggestion of malicious intent but only found a genuine, ostensibly friendly interest in Ber’s affairs. Yeah, well, Ber wasn’t born yesterday. He knew better than to trust a noble’s kindness. The only time they cared for commoners was when they wanted something – the humiliation of said commoner notwithstanding. After another moment, the soldier acquiesced ever so slightly: “I don’t need anything romantic.”

“Oh. Right. Yeah. Sorry.” Alden Thornhill. The guy’s face had looked vaguely familiar, but after so many people had passed through the military wing, such distant recognition meant little. Ber would have been hard-pressed to remember his name, even if the name itself sparked some faint impression of someone with a nobleman’s typical careless disregard - which in and of itself also told Ber very little about the man in front of him.

The real question was why Thornhill evidently remembered Ber.

And, apparently, what kind of book he was looking for. The noble had evidently meant it when he offered to help. “Uh, well, I was thinking maybe a mystery story. And…” He thought for a moment. “I’m not sure, actually. Maybe another mystery?” A pause. “Do you know anything good?”

Well, good for Thornhill. “That makes one of us,” Ber offered with a nod. Not all of them were blessed with a knack for faces and names. Or enough money to not have to worry about anything except remembering who they met once or twice in training years ago.

For lack of any better ideas - the nobleman seemed far more at home in a shop like this than Ber felt - the younger man trailed after his taller counterpart as the latter began walking away. His eyes jumped from book to book along the shelves, though the words along the spine were incomprehensible to him. “Murder?” He echoed thoughtfully, remembering how interested Temperance had been in the conversation with Woodwick in her greenhouse. “No, I don’t think she’d care about that. Do you know a good murder mystery?”

Noble or not, at least one of them knew how to navigate this maze of a shop. Did Ber trust Thornhill? Not really. Did he have any other options in this endeavor? Also not really. The older soldier, at least, had seemed friendly enough - even unusually forgiving - thus far.

When Thornhill handed him the leather-bound book, Ber turned it over in his hands as if doing so would allow him to judge the quality of the story within. “Why would someone kill someone in the castle?” He asked, a little skeptical of the premise, as he flipped through the novel and saw nothing but far too many words for his liking. “That’s the last place you’d want to do something like that.” There were always so many people around that the body was bound to be discovered. Sure, the castle quieted down at night, but with an entire wing full of soldiers and royal guards on patrol, it still seemed like a foolish decision to make.

Perhaps it went without saying that Ber was hardly a connoisseur of fiction, mysteries or otherwise.