The dog seemed to let himself be petted, so Yuri scratched the top of his head with his fingertips. "That's a strange thing for a children to accuse one another of," Yuri commented, hinting that he wondered at it. "Why did they?"
Her question gave him pause, he could not help it. Yuri was a terrible liar, and even worse at trying to conceal the truth. "It was my ex- Katya's mum." The way he expressed his discomfort at this thought was in how studied his movements became, much less erratic. "I don't know why she's here, frankly, but she was only staying the night... she wanted a place to stay, but she's going to sleep at Zach's. In exchange, I got Clare." The grin he gave indicated he'd had the better end of the bargain; but there was some lingering curiosity in his mind about how she'd been spending her time, which disturbed him.