“Ava, give me your coat and I’ll—what’s wrong?”

She turned, smiling. “Nothing is wrong. Sorry. Happy tears, babe.” Her hands went to his cheeks. He’d let his beard start to grow, and she was getting used to it. It suited him. “You’re coming back to me. And everyone is here. I feel like I’ve lived with this knot of fear in my stomach for months now, but I just… I know it’s going to be okay. Somehow, it’s all going to be okay if everyone is here.”

He held on to her wrists and squeezed them as she smiled.

“I love you,” he whispered, and Ava realized the whole room had gone silent.

She turned, and everyone was smiling at her.

“Hello, Ava.” Sari stood and opened her arms. “It’s good to see you, sister.”

Sister.

Ava would only admit it to herself, but part of her had wondered whether the Irina would treat her differently now that they knew her blood was from the Fallen. She should have known better. Orsala embraced her. Mala pinched her bicep in mock disapproval. And Ava knew without a doubt that Karen would still bake her too many cakes and Astrid would still share a self-deprecating joke to break the tension.

They were her sisters. For the first time, her heart was light enough to enjoy it.

Malachi had his hand on the small of her back, guiding her to a chair near Damien, who looked up, tension plastered over his brow. Sari squeezed his hand, and he lifted her knuckles to his mouth, the easy affection between them another wound healed over in Ava’s heart.

They looked like love to Ava. Tested. Broken. Mended. Faithful. Forgiven. She didn’t know everything they had lived through, but if Damien and Sari could recover from it, she was certain she and Malachi had a better-than-average chance.

“What’s wrong?” Sari asked.

“Anurak has rejected my request for a meeting.”

Sari looked shocked. “What? But he’s been vocal about the reformation of the Irina council.”

“I know. Perhaps he’s feeling pressure—”

“If Anurak is the same scribe I once knew,” Orsala said, “he’s grown tired of talk. He’s a taciturn man by nature, and I doubt he wants debate. I have a feeling he and many other older scribes simply want the Irina to step forward and claim their role in the Library.”

“The Library?” Ava whispered to Malachi.

“The Elder Council meets in the Library. It’s symbolic but also practical, as their primary job is interpreting Irin scripture and history and using those interpretations to resolve disputes.”

“Where did the singers meet?”

“The same place. There are fourteen desks. Seven have been empty since the Irina elders fled after the Rending.”

“A library?”

He shrugged. “It’s a very big library.”

“I thought I heard something about council chambers.”

“I believe it is not unlike your court system. All the elders have their own offices and staff, but the actual decisions are made in the Library.”

Well, Ava supposed there were worse places to run an entire society.

“But wouldn’t meeting in a library favor the scribes?” she asked. “I mean, they’re all supposed to be equal, right? Seven scribes and seven singers. But that’s kind of a scribe thing, right? Written magic?”

Malachi frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“I mean, doesn’t running the Irin world from a library mean the Irina are at a… tactical disadvantage?”

“No.” He was shaking his head. “Irin scribes must be in the Library. That is where we draw our strength. But Irina…” Malachi smiled. “Irina singers are the library.”

Oh. Well, that was cool.

Damien looked up with a rueful expression. “They can be quite superior about it.”

Orsala chided him. “Just because you males are forced to rely on books and scrolls doesn’t make your magic less powerful, Damien.”

The watcher gave her an affectionate smile before he turned his attention to Ava. “It did create a rather major problem when the Irina elders went into hiding, though. While they could take copies of our scriptures with them as references, we had no access to Irina knowledge. It’s one of the reasons there’s been so much division since the Rending.”

“I think Anurak is right,” Sari said. “We need to stop debating. Irina elders should just walk in and take their place at their desks. No more debate. No more talk of compulsion. We’d have a voice on the council, and no one would be able to question it.”

Mala shook her head and began signing. Sari translated as she signed.

“They would question anything not supported by the wives,” Mala signed. “Sari and her supporters are not the only Irina in the city now. Whatever elder singers take their place in the Library must have legitimacy among all the Irina—even if there is dissent—or we lose all rights to challenge the elder scribes.”

Max said, “I agree.”

“So do I,” Orsala said. “The problem is how we can elect our own elders when we’re still so scattered.”

“How are the elders chosen?” Ava asked. “I know they’re chosen by the watchers of the scribe houses, but it’s got to be more specific than that. I mean, we’re talking about the whole world, right?”

Malachi put an arm around her shoulders. “One from each continent, for the most part. And then one seat that changes depending on population.”

“So one from North America and one from South,” Rhys said. “One elder from Africa. One from Europe. One from Eurasia—that one is up for debate every single election—and one from Eastern Asia and the Pacific region. That’s six, and then when the seventh seat comes up for election every seventy years, it’s decided based on population. Right now, there is an additional European elder on the scribe council, but the time before that, there were more scribes in Asia. It changes over time.”

Sari said, “And the Irina are basically the same, but we tend to have different population concentrations. Our seventh seat has more often come from Africa or Asia.”

“Okay, I get that it’s complicated,” Ava said. “But Sari, didn’t you say the havens are mostly connected online?”

“We all have e-mail, of course.”

“So…” She held up her smartphone. “Have elections online. Do it over the Internet.”

“Online elections for elders?”

Max leaned forward, smiling. “You know, Ava has a good point. Human revolutions are fueled by social networks now. Don’t you think the Irina could organize their own revolution on the Internet?”

Damien and Sari exchanged a look that told Ava they’d be talking more about it later. Yeah, so it kinda made her feel like a kid at the grown-ups table, but she had to remind herself that to these people she was a kid.

“Hey,” she whispered to Malachi. “When are Irin considered adults?”

He was following what looked to be a quiet argument between Sari and Mala. “Full adults? Around sixty to seventy-five years. When we’re finished with our training. Why?”

She flushed. Wow.

“So, you’re quite the cradle robber, aren’t you?”

Malachi turned to her abruptly. “What? No, I’m not.”

“I’m not even thirty. That’s like… a teenager to you guys.”

She could see the flush crawl up his neck, even behind the beard. “You’re human. You mature differently.”

“But I’m not really human.”

His shoulders were stiff and his posture screamed his discomfort. It was really a shame that Ava found teasing him to be so amusing.

“I mean, what would your mom say if she found out you were mated—and I mean well and thoroughly mated—to what she would basically consider a kid?”

He wiped a hand over his forehead. “Heaven above, please stop talking.”

“So are we going to stop fooling around now?”

He groaned. “Ava.”

“I’m just yanking your chain.”

“You’re going to have to speak up, because the mental lecture my mother’s memory is giving me right now is rather loud.”

She bit her lip so she didn’t burst into laughter. “Malachi?”