Silence again, save for the scatter of rain outside and the soft crackling of the awakened hearth fire. Tats shifted on his bench. “I guess I’m not worried that they’re hurt. I’m worried that they’re together.” He hunched his shoulders more tightly, as if that would ward off his pain.

Sedric watched him in sudden understanding. He knew the pangs of jealousy when he saw them.

The bench creaked as Carson shifted his weight. He was in profile to Sedric, and the light of the fire lit the consternation on his face. “Well. Nothing you can do about it if they are, son. Things like that happen.”

“I know that.” Tats had locked his hands together. He trapped them between his knees, rocked slightly, and then suddenly said, “I made a mess of things with her. I thought everything was going well and then suddenly it wasn’t. She was so angry that I’d slept with Jerd. And I didn’t get it, because when Jerd and I were together, Thymara didn’t even seem interested in me. She was just being my friend, like always. So why was she so angry about it?

“Well. Now I guess I understand it better.”

Carson leaned down and used a piece of kindling to poke the log deeper into the hearth. “It’s a hard way to learn, but I think that’s how most of us learn about jealousy. It seems like a stupid way for anyone to feel, until someone makes you feel it.”

“Yes.” Tats was animated now and perhaps angry. “And I can’t stand thinking about them together, and I can’t stop thinking about it. How can she do that to me? I mean, couldn’t she have told me about it, warned me, or given me a chance to do better before she chose him, or, or something?”

Carson glanced over at Sedric and then back at the boy. “Sometimes things aren’t all that planned. They just happen. And, well, you’re talking as if her being with him, if she is with him, is something that she’s doing to you. Now I’m not trying to hurt your feelings, but chances are that you didn’t figure at all in her decision. When you decided to be with Jerd, did you stop to wonder what Thymara would think of it? Or Rapskal or Warken? Or anyone?”

A bemused smile twisted Tats’s mouth. “When I ‘decided’ to be with Jerd. Hah.” Despite his misery, the memory lit his face with a smile. “I don’t remember deciding anything that night. Or thinking at all.”

“Well, perhaps for Thymara . . .”

The smile faded abruptly from his face. “But she’s a girl. Girls do think about those things. Don’t they?”