He lets himself get yanked up and has to fight back a smile, the urge to tell her she's being a brat. It might be true but it's the last thing he should say now. "He told me you were safe," Dmitry says instead and there's weight to it born of a less flighty emotion than anger.

Anya continues on, not quite as furious but there's still an autocratic lilt in her words. Dmitry can hear Vlad chuckling; She said that like a Romanov! What a temper and it's still directed at him.

"You weren't." Well, that's not precisely true. "That's how it started. Just a con. But you knew things no one but Anastasia Romanov could know." She remembered him. No fake Anastasia would ever have conjured up such an inconsequential detail. "I went to the Dowager Empress to try and change her mind. I..." Well. Admitting to stomping on Anya's last living relative's dress is probably going to do him no favors.

"Of course you're more than a pawn. Had been for a long time. And you hated me. So why wouldn't I stay out of your way?" And if, maybe, he'd thought it might hurt too much to look at her and know she was beyond his reach...she doesn't need to hear about that either.