"Your..." it's clear he's surprised by that, blinking as the knowledge settles in. A moment later there's an exasperatedly fond look on his face as though to acknowledge that yes, he does know that Phillip was deliberately not talking about that and, yes, he understand that he would have been dust in the ground long before Phillip would have ever admitted to it if there were any other way. Still, now's not really the time for the "do you think that would have been pertinent information at some point before now" conversation.

"I... suppose that shouldn't surprise me," he says, after a moment. "I..." he doesn't know what else to say. There's so much missing, still, so much he doesn't know and doesn't know how to ask, so much lost. He's had a hand in losing it, too, destroying it, but the alternative was letting the world be destroyed.

In the end, he just reaches out and wraps his fingers around the crystal, picks it back up again. He's not sure if he hates how right it feels in his hand or if it's comforting.

"I don't know what any of it means," he says, finally, "I have no reason to suspect it's not the truth, that this doesn't belong to me. But I don't know if it changes anything."