Summary:

He shouldn't—he's not supposed to call her that. He's seventeen. He's an adult. Mama is for children, for people who are idiots and emotional, for the soft and tender. Alexei is not soft. He is not tender.

He cannot be.

He knew something was happening, had felt the hum of earth under his feet, the rustle of warning in the birdsong of the orenda of the world. Moscow sings, Mama has—had—always said. Open ears will hear the truth of the world if only one will listen.

Still. He had ignored it.

OR: Alexei Rozanov grows up in a home that becomes a grave.