For a second I just stare at him.
Then I let out a quiet, disbelieving breath. “Oh.”
He says nothing.
Of course he doesn’t.
The wind moves through the trees overhead with a dry, restless sound. Somewhere farther off, a crow lands on a monument and hops once across the stone.
I look back at the graves again, trying to picture it.
A grandmother who adopted two girls.
A grandfather who already had a son.
A marriage that turned them into siblings.
A son and daughter who still went on to create Maksim anyway.
My stomach tightens.
“That’s…” I trail off.
His mouth curves, but there’s no humor in it. “Say it.”
I cut him a look. “Complicated.”
“Coward.”
I snort softly. “Weird.”
He finally gives me the ghost of a real smile at that. Small. Crooked. Gone almost as soon as I see it.
“There you are,” he murmurs.
I fold my arms tighter across myself and look back at the graves. “That’s a hell of a family secret.”
His face closes again.
“Bigger than you think.”
The words land wrong.
Not dramatic or thrown for effect.
Just dropped there between the graves like a bone I’m supposed to trip over later.
I turn to him slowly. “What does that mean?”
He watches me for a beat too long. Wind catches the longer hair on top of his head, faded blue dulled under the washed-out sky. The mark on his neck from my knife disappears under the collar of his shirt, but I know it’s there. I know exactly where.
Then he looks away first.
“It means,” he says, voice gone flat again, “you dig too much.”
I stare at him.
He stares at the grave.
