An incredulous smile spread slowly across Carson’s face. “You came here tonight to ask me for advice about women?” He turned and looked pointedly at Sedric. “Are you sure you knocked on the right door?”

Tats looked uncomfortable. “Well, who else can I talk to? The other keepers would just make fun of me. Unless I talked to Jerd, and that would go places I don’t want to go. Or Sylve, and then I just might as well talk straight to Thymara because anything I said to Sylve would get right back to her. So I came here. You, both of you seem happy. Like you got it right. And I thought, of everyone that’s here now, you seemed the best to talk to. You’re older. And it can’t be that different, can it? People being jealous, people being in love.” The last word came awkwardly to Tats, and he didn’t look at Carson as he said it.

Sedric found himself glancing away from Carson, as if he dared not read what might be on his face. For a time, the hunter didn’t speak. Then he said quietly, “Happy comes and goes, Tats. Loving someone isn’t that crazy infatuation that you feel at first. That passes. Well, not passes, but it calms down, and then sometimes, when you least expect it, you get a glimpse of the person and it all comes back again, in a big rush. But even that’s not what you’re looking for. What you’re looking for is the feeling that no matter what, being with that person is always going to be better than being without that person. Good times or bad. That having that person around makes whatever you’re going through better, or at least more tolerable.”

“Yes. That’s it, exactly. That’s what I feel about her.”

Sedric looked up at Carson. The hunter was slowly shaking his head. “Sorry, Tats, but I don’t believe it.”

The boy shot to his feet. “I’m not lying!”

“I know you aren’t. You believe what you’re saying. Now don’t get angry. I’m going to tell you the same thing I told Davvie not long ago. Don’t take offense, but you just aren’t old enough to know what you’re talking about. You want Thymara, and I’m sure you like being around her. And I’m sure it’s making you crazy tonight that she’s with Rapskal instead of you. But what I see is a young man with a very limited selection of partners and a very small experience of . . .”

“You don’t understand!” Tats cried and spun toward the door. He snatched it open and then paused to pull his hood up.