“I suppose I can’t tell you whose bed you’re allowed in,” Elloven said, playing with a smile.
“And if I want you to tell me what to do?” Jesstin pressed a hand to the counter behind her back and leaned in. “What then?”
Her mouth was parted as her eyes traveled to his hand curled around the edge of the wood. He took it all in. The sharp little inhale. The delayed blink. How she swung her gaze away and pretended to find interest in something across the room.
Elloven’s expression creased in alarm when the boy coughed in his room. Jesstin beckoned for her to follow and repeated the quieting gesture from earlier. When he opened the bedroom door, though, the boy was fast asleep again.
Elloven took one step beyond him and exhaled, throwing a glance back.
Jesstin eased her out and closed the door with a careful click. “He’s from the estate,” he said when they were back in the kitchen. “He’s staying with me, until...”
“Until when?”
Jesstin shrugged. “I don’t honestly know. I intend to find him a family, like the others, but he’s attached to me for some reason, and I don’t have the heart to tell him no.”
Elloven lit up. “You’re thinking of keeping him, aren’t you?”
Was he? She was the second person to suggest it.
“Taking it a day at a time,” he said.
“I know you never wanted children.”
“I wanted children,” he said. “I didn’t want to breed monsters.”
“This little one isn’t a monster, is he?”
“Of course he’s not. He’s... sweet.”
Elloven laughed. “You’re bonding with him. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“What do I know about bonding with a child? Let’s say I kept him, and I am not saying I will, but for the sake of debate, how would it go? We learn how to be parents from our own parents. I don’t know how to be one.”
She frowned and tilted her head to the side. “But that’s not true.”
“What do you mean it’s not true? Of course it’s true.”
“It’s a half-truth, and not the important half. You had Asterin, who was both brother and father figure for you when you were young. He trusted you to help raise his own children, which is a tremendous endorsement of his faith in you. And you had Emrys. Sesto. Rhiain. An orphan who never had to wonder if he was loved might have exactly what another little orphan needs.”
“You’re saying I should do this?”
Elloven lifted one shoulder. “You shouldn’t dismiss the idea.”
“An apartment above a tavern is no place for a little boy though.”
“Or a family man,” she said.
He made a noncommittal gesture. She was offering an opening for him to communicate his intentions, but for once in his life, he didn’t want to act on impulse. His mind was still working the problem. When he solved it, he’d be sure.
“The others from the estate?” she asked.
“There were eight altogether left in the cellar. A few are old enough to be on their own, and they’ll have jobs in the tavern as barkeeps for now. One, Susana, wants to study to test for one of the universities even. Sesto said my great-nephew, Wyat, has offered to tutor her, but we’ll see. We already had families picked out for most of them, before you set the place on fire.”
Elloven made an oops face.
“Sesto said Asterin is making arrangements for the displaced workers?”
“They’re staying at the Hermitage until the details are worked out. There’s a couple of buildings at the back of the property he had built for Sianha and Rhydian, for when they visit.”
