“I didn’t know there were so many families left,” she said as Astrid went to the kitchen. “How many are there?”
“More in the last few years.”
“I thought most of the Irin and Irina lived apart.”
“Most, but not all. The girls who weren’t mated after the Rending mated quickly, if they were still interested. Many weren’t. But some. So there are still a few families.” The smell of pepper and red meat filled the air. It smelled like Astrid had made chili. “There are more in Vienna since it is the safest Irin city. But even there, Irina live very quietly. A very few live in scribe houses with their mates. Some live in places like this. But most Irina have hidden in the human world.”
“Does the council know about them?”
“They do and they don’t. They know we exist. From the news that leaks out of Vienna, there are as many solutions to the ‘Irina problem’ as there are elders.”
“I can imagine.”
“I doubt that,” Astrid said, but she didn’t seem condescending. Just tired. Her movements were deliberate as she set out the cups for tea. “So, only a few families. And of course, there were some children left.”
“How many—”
“Fifteen… maybe twenty percent of the children survived.”
It seemed impossible that any people could endure so much tragedy.
“Can the Irin survive, Astrid? Really?”
Astrid cocked her head. “Biologically? Yes. There are enough of us to survive. But will we? Who knows? Things are still very fresh for us.”
“But the Rending was two hundred years ago.”
She smiled. “It seems strange to you, I know.”
“More than a little.”
“Life didn’t stop for us, Ava.” Astrid waved her toward the table and Ava sat. “But it did slow down. For many years we all just… waited.”
Astrid’s eyes had drifted off; she stood at the stove, but was looking out the window over the sink.
“For what?” Ava asked.
“I think I spent ten years after Marten died, waiting to wake up and realize it was all a horrible dream. Life seemed to stand still. It was easier for those with children to move on, because children don’t stop growing. But there were so few children left. The villages were destroyed. No one even wanted to try to rebuild. The council was… unbelievable.”
“How?”
“Immediately after the attack, there were some who blamed the Irina for letting their guard down. ‘They should have been more prepared,’ they said.”
Ava gasped. “But—”
“Most who took that view were condemned, of course.” Astrid shook her head. “What a horrendous thing to say! One elder was attacked and killed by scribes from a house near Leon. They’d lost everything. Not a single survivor from their village. It had been burned while the scribes were fighting the Grigori attack in Paris. They blamed the council for ordering them away.”
“What happened?”
Astrid shrugged as she ladled stew into deep bowls and set one in front of Ava. “I don’t know. It wasn’t like now with instant communication. Letters would take weeks or months to arrive. There was so much confusion. Those of us who remained went into hiding. We didn’t know if more attacks were coming. None of us felt safe anymore. Many of the scribes whose mates
had
survived left with them and hid, even though they abandoned their posts at scribe houses and libraries.”
“They could do that?”
“No. Even now, if they came out of hiding, they would be punished by the council, so it’s not worth it to them to try to reenter Irin society. They’d rather remain with their mates.” Astrid’s eyes glanced toward the window again, and Ava got the distinct impression that more than one of the males she’d seen was a fugitive.
“But not everyone joined their mate,” she said, thinking of Damien and Sari. “Some of the Irina here, they have mates in the outside world, don’t they?”
Astrid nodded as she sat. “Yes. Some do. There are three Irina here who have mates who fight in houses away from here.”
Ava couldn’t imagine Malachi being in the world and not being with her. “How do they… I mean, don’t they need—”
“Contact?” Astrid smiled a little. “Of course they do. Emotionally. Even biologically, Irin and Irina need physical contact. Mates dream walk, of course, but the mated Irina here often leave.”
“And Sari lets them?”
Astrid smiled. “We’re not stuck here. We can go anytime we want. Most of the women with mates meet them when they can get away. They go to the city for a while, or places in the country where they can be alone.”
“And children?”
Astrid shrugged. “I’m sure a scribe would be given leave if his mate was pregnant. Children are rare for us, and Irin men seldom leave their women alone when they are pregnant.”
“So how does nobody know where this place is?”
“Orsala.”
“Who’s Orsala?” Ava asked. “And… does she have tentacles and a great singing voice?”
Astrid threw her head back and laughed. “Singing voice? Yes. Tentacles, no. Orsala is Sari’s grandmother. She’s very old. The oldest singer I know. She’s letting herself age now because her mate was killed during the Rending. But she’s still with us. And Orsala is the one who’ll talk to you before you leave. After you talk to Orsala, Volund himself couldn’t make you give up the name of this place.”
She felt a shiver creep up her spine. “Magic?”
“
Strong
magic.”
Ava fell exhausted into bed that night, hoping to lose herself in dreams. She suspected she was sleeping too much—and had spoken to enough psychologists to recognize the symptoms of depression—but something drew her. Some instinct tugged her to darkness and rest. She huddled under the thick down blankets and closed her eyes.
She wandered through the forest, but she no longer wept. She waited. He’d said he would be there, and she knew he would come.
“
Reshon
.”
She turned toward his voice, smiling. “You’re here.”
“I told you I would be.” He approached cautiously, one hand lifting as she drew near. “You’re not crying anymore.”
“I don’t need to.” She took his hand and led him toward a low bed that had appeared at the edge of the clearing, butted up against the hedge he’d torn through. The gash had closed, and now the dark leaves were lush, no longer forbidding. The forest surrounding them was a shield and not a barrier. It hummed with life, and the meadow where they rested was lush with grass and dotted with white flowers that glowed under the half moon.
The two lay down on the bed and he wrapped her in his arms. Her body hummed in awareness as he traced over the marks he’d painted on her neck and shoulders, and everywhere he touched, her skin turned gold.
“You’re not as tired as you were before,” he said.
“No. I’m sleeping better now that you found me.”
“I’m glad.” He nestled his face in her neck and took a deep breath. “I miss your scent.”
“And I miss yours.”
“Jasmine and smoke. We met in the market; it smelled like cloves.”
“I think… I remember that.”
She held on to the arm that banded around her waist. He’d rolled her onto her back and kissed softly along her collar and neck, his mouth lingering on her skin. His tongue tasting. Teasing. She closed her eyes and let her senses take her away, losing herself in the feel of his skin against hers, his energy aligning with her own. She felt calm. Content to her bones. But slowly, with every nip of his teeth against her neck, desire rose.
Her grip on his arm tightened. “I need you.”
“As I need you.”
His arm slid around her waist, and suddenly the clothes she’d felt against her skin and his were gone. In their place, a warm breeze wrapped around them as his mouth met hers. Their tongues touched, and he swallowed the low sigh that came from her throat.
“I missed this,” she whispered. “I missed you so much.”
“So did I. I don’t…” He pulled away for a moment, frowning. “I don’t remember what happened.”
“I don’t either.” Her hand went to his cheek, and she rubbed her thumb against the coarse stubble on his jaw. “Kiss me. It doesn’t matter. You’re here now.”
A slow smile—the one she loved that made his dimple stand out—spread over his face.
“I’m here now,” he whispered. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
He murmured it over and over again as he moved over her in the dark. The forest protected them; no danger hovered nearby. Soft night birds called in the trees as they held each other, and that moment was all she knew. They made love under a blanket of stars.
And it was enough.
Chapter Seven
Malachi woke slowly, keeping his eyes closed to hold on to the edges of the dream. He could still taste her skin. Still smell the jasmine in her hair. He rolled over, eyes slowly opening, and the bedclothes were damp, as if they’d been left out in the night air.
“Ava…,” he whispered.
A knock came at the door.
“Wake up.” It was Rhys. “We’ve got work to do in the library. Leo wants to start your
talesm
tonight.”
He glanced at the clock. It was just after six. Malachi took a deep breath and stretched up from the bed, his body refreshed and relaxed despite the hour. He stretched his neck to the side and reached over his left shoulder to stretch the muscle in his arm. As he did, his fingers brushed against something that made him wince. He frowned and stood, going to the mirror near the closet door.
Curved into the tan skin of his shoulder were three scratch marks.
“More.”
He blinked at the memory of her voice. Was it a dream or a memory?
“It’s been too long. I need you. Harder.”
He could feel the bite of her nails. Hear her breath. There was a low rumble in his throat as he remembered her nails digging in. The tug of her hands in his hair.
Malachi looked at his reflection in the mirror as Rhys banged on the door again.
“Malachi, wake up.”
“I’m awake,” he called.
There was a pause, then the sound of shuffling feet. “Meet me in the library.”
He pulled on a pair of pants and, with one last glance at the nail marks, threw a T-shirt over his head. Then he looked at himself in the mirror.
“It was just a dream.”
He gave a last glance to the bed, then he shook his head and walked out, down the hall, and toward the library.
Dawn was breaking over Cappadocia, and the rocks of the cliff where the scribe house was built glowed pink in the morning sun. Birds called from the olive trees near the gate, and a lazy cat stretched on tiptoes atop the wall. Two young scribes were sitting near an outdoor fireplace, drinking tea and arguing quietly over a book. Both of the men looked to be in their twenties, though Malachi knew they were probably far older. Vivid black
talesm
crawled up their wrists and under the sleeves of their sweaters.
He’d been practicing his characters with Leo for almost a week. Like anything having to do with writing or reading, it came easily. Once he’d practiced a little, reading was no struggle, whether it was a blank wall that had once held Roman graffiti or an ancient Chaldean manuscript, which Rhys claimed was the human tongue most closely related to the Irin language. His writing had become almost rote. He could copy characters with ease except for a few that Leo had said he’d always had a problem with. Malachi already knew how his
talesm prim
would look.
So he supposed it was silly to be nervous about it. Still, the knowledge that he would unleash ancient magic solely by writing words on his skin was a bit intimidating.
The library door was open, and he could feel a cross breeze from the high windows in the back of the room. Even though it was November, the air was still dry, so the scribes were airing out the library, which could become stuffy with the fires burning in the hearths. The chill in the air nipped at his neck, and he shivered as he approached the table where Rhys sat.
“Hope your blood thickens up,” Rhys said. “Or you’re going to be miserable when we head north.”
Malachi sat down. “Is that where we’re going?”
“It appears so. I found surveillance footage of them on the ferry from Denmark. Once they reached Norway, we lost them again.”
“But they’re in Norway?” He felt his heart pick up.
Rhys didn’t look as optimistic as Malachi hoped.
“Norway is a big country. Huge. And with over twenty-five thousand kilometers of coastline and thousands—
thousands
—of islands, do you have any idea how easy it is to hide there? We can’t just go stomping off to the great north and expect to find them. We need to speak to Gabriel. If we don’t get some clue from him about where Sari’s home is, it could take forever.”
Malachi tried to look on the bright side. “But we know which country they’re in.”
“Or they could have gone to Sweden. It wouldn’t be unlikely for Damien to anticipate me finding the ferry footage and heading in a different direction, just to throw us off.”