He smiles and pets her hair. "You get me such good presents."

"You're not hard to get presents for! You always like the same things. Some of the other apprentices change what they like a lot."

He laughs. "Yeah, I'm very predictable."

"I could probably find you knives for all your birthdays forever in those rooms if I just wanted to do that but I think that much repetition probably wouldn't be good."

"I bet you can find other things I'll like." Pet pet.

"Probably yeah."

More time passes. It becomes clearer that clumsiness wasn't the only part of her childhood gawkiness that she's growing out of; the puberty fairy hit her pretty hard with the pretty stick.

Ooh. That's nice.

He doesn't tell her to go drink the nasty tea, though. Not yet. He is not in a hurry.

She turns thirteen.

She shows up at his room looking like she's been crying.

"I think maybe you need to remind people not to touch your stuff. I--obviously didn't have enough warning to drink the nasty tea first or I'd've just come here so you could make him not but I'm bleeding and one of the other girls said you can't get pregnant if they do it while you're bleeding and um it was Jurevi can I stay here for a while. He did it in my bed and I don't feel safe there anymore."

"—yeah, of course," he says.

"Thank you," she says. If she has any idea what the look on his face meant she doesn't show it.

"And I'll remind Jurevi what happens to people who mess with my stuff."

"Thank you. --Maybe I should find the tea in case it does something even after, after a little while."

"Yeah, that's a good idea."

"Okay. I'll go do that. And then I'll be back."

"If you're not back soon, I'll come looking," he promises.

"Thank you," she says again, and then she goes.

She is back soon, smelling faintly of bitter herbs.

"Will you be all right if I leave you here while I go find Jurevi?"

"I think so."

He nods.

He goes looking for Jurevi.

Jurevi is in one of the common study areas, working on something on paper at one of the desks. There are some older apprentices, about fifteen or sixteen, in the semicircle of squashier chairs around the cold fireplace.

He walks up to Jurevi and says, "You messed with my stuff," and gives him the pain spell for ten seconds.

Jurevi falls out of his chair!

Yep.

He waits to see if Jurevi will have anything interesting to say after this.

"The hell? Is this about the girl?" he demands.