“Oh.” They stopped at a door flanked by two potted hydrangea blooming a brilliant blue despite the winter chill. “Well, that sounds like fun.”

Sari paused and turned to Ava. “You’re not too American about nudity, are you?”

“Excuse me?”

“Communal baths. Do they bother you?”

“No.” She shrugged. “I love the hamam, so—”

“This is actually quite similar. You’ll be fine.”

Mala and Sari rang a discreet bell, waited for the door to buzz, and pushed it open. Ava walked through to see a wide-eyed attendant and a suspicious guard who gave Mala a run for her money in the fierce department. She was tall and blond, carrying a staff that looked well used. She saw the guard eying Mala in particular, and Ava was grateful Sari had convinced her sister to leave her weapon at home.

The attendant stammered, “We were not expecting—”

“We have come for the ritual bath before we enter the gallery,” Sari said smoothly. “It is my sister’s first time in Vienna.”

Ava didn’t correct her. The guard eyed them warily before she searched their bags. Back at Sari and Damien’s town house, Mala had given Ava a linen shift, strips of cloth to bind her breasts if she wanted them, and a high-necked robe. Ava had tucked all this in her old messenger bag and tried to sneak her camera in, but Mala had caught her and forced her to hand it over.

They left their shoes near the door and entered a marble bathing room that reminded Ava very much of the hamams in Istanbul. Grey marble benches lined the circular room. A seven-sided pool was in the center, and steam wafted into the air. It was humid and damp, lit only by oil lamps embedded in the wall. No electric light touched her skin as she undressed and stowed her bag in an intricately woven basket the attendant provided.

Mala and Sari disrobed beside her, obviously at ease with the ceremony of the bath. Ava simply followed their example.

“We bathe here before we pray,” Sari said quietly. “The ritual bath is to cleanse your spirit and calm your mind.”

Ava heard Mala take a deep breath before she immersed herself in the water. Sari hummed a quiet song as she closed her eyes and floated. Ava let the magic flow through her as she listened. She still didn’t understand all the words of the Old Language, but she could sense the power behind them. Almost as one, the three women’s mating marks lit on their skin as Sari’s chanting grew stronger.

Mala’s shone incandescent against her dark skin, no less beautiful for the mourning collar painted thick around her scarred neck. Sari’s were a luminous glow against her pale skin. And Ava’s shone clearly, the edges seared black against the olive tones of her skin. She looked down.

Her skin tone had always been a bit of a mystery, considering her parents were both fair. But with her father’s family history being unknown, she’d never thought about it much.

“My grandmother is Persian,” she said quietly.

“Ah.” Sari tucked a wet lock of hair behind Ava’s ear. “Yes, I can see that.”

Mala signed something.

Sari said, “Mala asked if you look like her.”

“Maybe a little. But she’s much more beautiful.”

Mala poured an almond-scented oil over Ava’s hair, helping her to work it through the heavy mass while Sari rubbed her shoulders with a soap scented with amber.

“These are beautiful,” Sari said, running a finger over Ava’s shoulder where her mating marks gleamed. She could feel Mala turning her back to examine the marks there. “Malachi has a steady hand.” She grinned as she ran the amber soap over her own skin. “Damien was so nervous on our mating night—I think a few of mine are barely readable.”

Mala pointed to a faint mark on her hip as Sari and Ava turned to help her wash.

“Zander completely smudged that one,” Mala signed as Sari translated. “He was so impatient. I’m amazed any of them dried properly before he attacked me.” Mala smiled. “I was his first woman. His only woman. He was very eager.”

Ava had never heard Mala talk about her lost mate, but in the darkness of the bathhouse, no topic seemed off-limits.

“My grandmother is in a mental institution,” Ava whispered. “She’s pretty much insane.”

Mala signed with fierce movements. “She is not insane. She’s only lived in the human world too long. We will find a way to help her.”

“She is, though,” Ava said. “More than me. It’s a long story. I’ll tell you. I promise. Just not today.”

Sari took her hand and led her out of the bath after they’d all dipped in the water to wash the excess oil and soap from their bodies.

“We’ll help them all,” Sari said. “But to do that, we need standing again. That’s partly why we’re here. Come to the prayer room. Sing with me.”

Ava did. She sat cross legged before a low fire, linking her hands with the two women at her side while Sari chanted a song that made Ava’s heart fly. In that moment, she had no question where she belonged. No matter whose blood ran in her veins, these were her sisters. She belonged with them. She was made to sing these songs. Made to wear Malachi’s marks on her skin.

She’d wandered for years, and now she was home.

“ARE you ready?” Sari whispered at the door that led to what she called the singers’ gallery.

“My hair’s wet, I have no bra, and I’m dressed in what feels like a toga. This is not exactly the wardrobe I would have chosen to rock the world in, but I guess it’ll have to do.”

She felt Mala shaking with laughter behind her. Ava thought Sari and Mala looked like warrior goddesses from some cool sci-fi movie, while she looked like a kid playing dress-up. She needed platform boots, not felt-lined sandals.

“Just follow my lead. Don’t feel like you need to say anything.”

“Sounds good to me.”

Sari pushed open the door, and Ava immediately felt every eye in the gallery swing toward them.

“Holy shit,” she murmured.

It was a palace. No, it was a temple. Of books. Three stories of bookcases lined the walls, ladders and balconies built in to access what must have been thousands of shelves. She’d seen the Austrian National Library in this same palace complex, but it was nothing to the Irin Library.

The gallery across from them was crowded with scribes. She searched for Malachi but couldn’t make him out among the crowd of men all wearing linen wraps and ceremonial robes similar to theirs but open at the neck.

“I guess everyone’s in on the toga party,” she whispered.

“Shh,” Sari said.

The scribes’ chests were bare, black talesm on display down the center of their robes, and Ava was relieved that Malachi’s had mostly returned where they’d be visible. She had a feeling that more talesm equaled greater badass, and she didn’t want her mate at a disadvantage.

Every eye was on them as they climbed the stairs to the gallery. Ava had never felt more conspicuous in her life. Just then, she caught her mate’s smile. He was standing with Damien at the end of the railing, looking like the cat that had stolen the cream.

“Oh, yeah,” she muttered, “this was totally your idea.”

Sari ignored the shocked stares and whispers from the floor, heading toward the end of the gallery with Mala and Ava trailing after her.

“Constance,” she said to the woman who waited there.

“Sari.”

“I see we’re once again missing our Irina elders from the floor today.”

A slight smile crossed the woman’s coldly beautiful features. “We are fortunate, then, that in the face of abandonment by our leadership, we have such excellent care from our mates.”

Ava felt Mala tense beside her.

“That’s an… interesting perspective,” Sari said.

“Why are you here? You’ve been open in your contempt for the elder scribes before.”

“I have no contempt for the office of elder, only for some who sit at their desks and try to ‘unburden’ me of my own self-determination.”