I feel sick as I speak. When I’m finished laying it all out, Afon balances his still-burning cigarette on the edge of the saucer and starts to applaud, slowly and sarcastically.
“See? Simple. Was that so hard?”
The wife. f**k, even calling her that makes my stomach churn. She hasn’t been the wife in a very long time. She’s been Cass, my wild filly, my dikarka.
Afon is squinting at me like he’s seen exactly where my thoughts have gone. “What is it?” he asks.
“The look on your face.”
“I don’t have a look on my face, Uncle.”
He nods. “Good. Keep it that way. Remember what I told you, Matvei: Put your heart in a box on a shelf. In our world, it’s irrelevant. Best kept out of reach.”
I lift my eyes. He is across the steel table from me, my father’s little brother, the man who once washed
