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“Have you swallowed something?” I ask.

“Several questions.”

“Keep them down.”

He eats the toast. Daurek pulls out my chair, puts the bag beside it and sits where I can rest my knee against his.

Someone passes eggs. Someone else complains that Ziku took the last clean spoon. I reach for the tea before Reivaka can pour it and fill Daurek’s cup as well as my own. Yesterday I imagined having to learn a different breakfast table. This morning I know who will want the butter next, and where Daurek’s hand will be when I lower mine.

Reivaka glances at the bag.

“Will you be keeping your room?”

“Yes. I’m staying.”

She smiles, then pushes the honey toward me.

I had braced for questions. The honey is much better.

Edrin comes down while we are finishing. I ask him to record the bond we chose after the release. He congratulates us, tells me he will bring the short declaration later, and takes his breakfast outside. Daurek’s thumb brushes mine beneath the table. I squeeze his fingers.

Then we take my bag upstairs.

There is a door beside my window that was not there yesterday.

I stop halfway across the room. Through the open doorway comes the smell of warm stone and figs.

“Daurek.”

“I see it.”

Beyond the door, a broad limb supports the outer edge of this level of the Heartwood. Ferns used to crowd its sheltered hollow. Now I can see a little courtyard, enclosed by woven branches, with pale light falling into a pool. Water laps against shallow stone steps that descend into the pool. Steam rises past leaves broad enough to cover my hand.

I put my bag on the bed and go out through the new door.

The floor stays level beneath me. The pool lies a few paces from my room, tucked into the curve of the trunk. Fungi light the stones beneath the water. On the far side, a little fig tree leans over the rim.

I kneel on the warm edge and trail my fingers in the pool.

“Oh.”

Daurek follows me. His antlers clear the branches above the doorway, which lift a little farther as he passes. He looks from the water to the fig.

“That will need shelter in winter.”

“It has you.”

“It has no sense of the climate.”

“Neither did I when I came here.”

He looks down at me. I cannot quite keep my face straight.

“It will stay,” he says.

“I thought it might.”

I sit on the rim, take off my boots and stockings and gather my skirt above my knees. The warm water closes around my calves. I let out a sound that makes Daurek turn back from examining the tree.