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I can’t decide whether he knows what that does to me.

Three young barklings are floating seed husks in the pool. Their guardian stands nearby with a folded towel over one arm. She sees Daurek and calls the children away from the edge so sharply that the smallest drops his boat.

The husk fills with water and sinks.

Daurek crouches beside the pool. He reaches in and lifts the boat on one broad fingertip, lets it drain, and sets it afloat again.

“There.”

The child returns to the edge. “It keeps turning over.”

“You’ve put the mast too far forward.”

Daurek points to a hole nearer the middle. The barkling picks up the boat and moves the twig that serves as its mast. This time the husk stays upright when he sets it on the water.

“Did you make boats here?” I ask.

“Yes. Mine usually sank.”

The smallest child looks at him with sudden interest.

“Were you small?”

“For a while.”

“How small?”

Daurek holds his hand a little above the child’s head. The barkling studies the distance, then looks up at the antlers.

I laugh. Daurek’s mouth moves at the sound, and I want to catch his hand before he stands.

The child turns toward me.

“Are you staying?”

The guardian makes a quiet, horrified sound. Daurek rises, but he leaves the answer to me.

“For now,” I tell the child. “I don’t know yet where I’ll live afterward.”

“Can you come and see my boat when I put a sail on it?”

“If I’m still here.”

The answer disappoints him. I nearly promise to come back regardless, or offer to help with the sail today, or say anything that would make him pleased with me again.

His sister splashes his boat. He immediately forgets my future and objects to her methods.

Daurek and I leave them arguing over who gets the towel.

“That was difficult,” I say once we’re out of hearing.

“Answering him?”

“Letting him dislike the answer.”

“He’s occupied.”

I look back. The children are kneeling in a row again, all three boats afloat.