"Don't talk with your mouth full, sweetie."
"Sorry."
Burda's gaze moved between them and settled on the empty space in front of Sullha. "You're not eating."
"I'm not hungry."
"Upset stomach?"
"No, well, yes." Sullha rubbed her belly. "A little."
The ache wasn't caused by hunger or thirst, but it was there.
"I'll get you some tea." Burda began to rise.
"I'll get it," Sullha said.
"Sit. I'll get it for you." The old woman pushed herself up from the bench with a small grunt and looked at Tomek. "Another glass of chocolate milk?"
Tomek's whole face lit up. "Yes, please."
"Good manners." Burda nodded approvingly at Sullha and went to the counter.
There was something steadying about Burda, the way her presence pulled the fog back a little, and her bluntness made the world feel more solid. She had been managing the garden and the women and the small daily indignities of the enclosure for longer than most of them had been alive, and she did it without complaining and without pretending that any of it was easier than it was.
"I like Burda," Tomek said.
"Me too."
"She doesn't smile a lot, but when she does, it's a real smile."
That was an unusually astute observation for a five-year-old, but it wasn't the first time Tomek had revealed how much he was paying attention to the world around him and how much he understood.
"That's very true," she said.
"Saphira smiles all the time. But Burda's smiles are better because you have to earn them."
"Where did you learn that?"
He shrugged. "I just know."
Burda returned with the tea, a second glass of chocolate milk, and two cookies on a small plate. The cookies were the soft, dense kind that the kitchen produced occasionally and that the children competed for, and Tomek's eyes went round at the sight of them.
"Cookies," he breathed.
"Cookies," Burda confirmed.
"Where did you get them?" Sullha asked.
"I'm friends with the cook."
Burda was friends with everyone, or rather, she knew everyone. She wasn't really the friendly sort.
Tomek picked up one of the cookies and held it like it was a treasure. "Can I have one now?"
"You can have both," Sullha said. "But you have to eat the rest of your sandwich first."
"One is for you, Mama." He nodded solemnly and returned to the sandwich with new urgency.
