That, if Tamas happened to be listening to him.
"Yes," Tamas said, disconcertingly. "I know. But I can't help it."
"Don't do that!" Yuri said.
"I'm sorry," Tamas said. But Yuri looked at Ela, all pale and pretty beside him. Master Karoly said she was Azdra'ik's great-grand-daughter and his niece, and gran's cousin. So master Karoly was going to stay behind a year or two, master Karoly said, and see Tamas stayed out of trouble. So he and Nikolai were riding home tomorrow, on Lwi and Gracja. And he did not plan to sleep tonight.
Ela reached out and tousled his hair. That did not endear her to him. But being a witch, and overhearing people, she stopped immediately, and looked unhappy.
He imagined, for some reason, she had never seen a boy. She was curious. She thought he was very clever.
It was very hard to go on being mad at someone who really believed that—which was probably a spell she was casting, who could ever know? A lot of people had been scared of gran. Probably with good reason.
Which was why, Tamas had said, it really was not a good idea for him and for Ela to come back over-mountain just yet. Neither of us knows anything, Tamas had said. We had a lot of help, that's all. And there's an immense lot we have to learn.
Stupid girl, he had said back to Tamas, being surly. Lord Sun, he did not want to remember that now, when Ela was listening. She was not a stupid girl. Not, at least, stupid.
One had to look hard to see if Ela was amused. But he thought she was. He knew Tamas was.
He decided that, on the whole, Tamas would be all right. And Tamas had promised to send him word across the mountains, how he was, how he was getting along.
He did not think, somehow, that Tamas meant writing letters.