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“Children damage things.”

“He’s three, not a demolition crew.”

Misha enters wearing one bear sweater and carrying the second over his head. Oksana is behind him.

“I have two bears,” he says.

Alexei studies him. “We should be scared.”

Misha lowers the sweater and climbs onto the chair beside him.

“I’m still not finished. What about the new books stacked near the window?”

“Logistics.”

“You mean reading material.”

“Yes.”

“And every one of them has a cartoon bear in it?”

“Misha likes bears.”

I look at the two bear sweaters. “You noticed.”

Alexei picks up his tea. “I notice everything.”

Beside him, Misha pulls the second sweater over his head again. “Now I’m two bears.”

“That,” Alexei says, “was difficult to miss.”

He gives me a pointed look and nods at Misha’s two layers of bear.

I throw up my hands. “Oh, come on. This is too much bear for one breakfast.”

Misha reaches across Alexei’s plate and steals a strawberry. Alexei watches the theft, then slides the entire bowl closer to him.

“Misha,” I say.

He freezes with the fruit halfway to his mouth.

“That isn’t yours.”

Alexei lifts one hand. “It is now.”

Misha eats it and takes another.

“You’re rewarding theft,” I tell him.

“I’m preventing escalation.”

Misha takes a third strawberry and puts it on Alexei’s plate. “For you.”

Alexei picks it up. “A negotiated settlement.”

I watch them eat from the same bowl. Alexei cuts the larger berries in half before moving them toward Misha, and he turns the bowl when juice begins running toward the boy’s sleeve. No one tells him what to do. He notices.

That careful attention bothers me more than the guards.