"Do you want her to?"

"She'd think I was gross for one reason or the other or both!"

"Maybe so," Micaiah agrees. "Or maybe not."

"But if she does that would be awful."

"It would," he says. "Awful things happen sometimes."

"And - and maybe she'd tell everybody, and everybody in the whole hold would also think I was gross."

"There's plenty of people around who know you're the furthest thing from gross," he says. "Me. Your mother. Your sisters."

"Well," says Keziah, "yeah, but - it would still be pretty bad if everybody else thought it."

"Yeah," he agrees. "Or even if only some of them did."

"Yeah." She takes the pillow off her head and is somewhat more audible when she says, "So maybe I shouldn't tell her. I think I maybe like boys, and mortals, too."

"It wouldn't ruin your whole life, though," he says. "If you did tell her, even if the rest of the hold did decide you were gross for a while. It might feel that way, but in a few years hardly anybody would care."

"Years is a long time, and I'm scared."

"I know," he says. "These things are scary. Want a hug?"

"Yeah." She sits up enough to hug him.

"Nobody at all?"

"Not any more than anybody thinks it's gross for me to love your mom."

"Only when you get mushy," says Keziah.

He grins unrepentantly.

She squirms. "I dunno what I wanna do."

"Then maybe you just wanna think about it for a while," he suggests. "Until you figure it out."

"Yeah," decides Keziah. "I think I'll do that."

"Thanks, Daddy."

"Anytime, precious."