Her hands shake slightly as she pours the hot water into the readied pot. Staring down into the swirling depths, Anya forces herself to take deep steadying breaths. It's too much. She didn't ask for this. Doesn't want this. She's barely had time to get used to this place, this time, this life. It isn't fair. What right does he have to say these things to her? To tell her the Dmitry and Vlad hadn't been lying? Or perhaps not that, that their lies had somehow stumbled into the truth somewhere along the way.

Placing the lid on the pot, she closes her eyes for a moment. White knuckled hands grip the edge of the counter as unasked for voices drift through her mind. The laughter of girls, the bark of long-dead dogs. A gentle-yet-stern man's voice placating and encouraging. A woman with her long white dress. A smell of lilacs that won't go away.

Ghosts. All of them.

Deep down Anya knows who they are, who she wishes they were. She had just started to believe back in Paris, but that notion had shattered. His words that he wouldn't tell her if he wasn't certain drift through the door. She believes that. It's a dangerous things to believe. That the youngest daughter of the last tsar of Russia is still alive. So many do not wish for her to have lived. But how can she do anything else?

Opening her eyes, she carefully loops her fingers through the handles of the teacups. With a cloth wrapped around the teapot, she walks gingerly back into the room. Passing a quick glance at him, she focuses mainly on the task at hand. Setting the cups down on the patterned runner on the small table, she crouches down besides the table to pour tea into the cups. The emotions have left her hands unsteady. Setting the pot down, she lifts a cup up to him. "I'm sorry, I didn't ask if you took milk or sugar," she says playing into the rote act. Lifting her gaze, she locks eyes with him searching for truth in their dark depths. "How can you be sure?"