When she thought she’d been mentally ill. Malachi nodded. Ava probably would not have considered herself a suitable mother then.

He put an arm around her. “We have time.”

“I know.”

They had centuries if they wanted them. A thousand years to be together. Maybe longer. Many Irin mates broke up the centuries of life by spending significant time apart. It only made reunions sweeter, and they always had their time together in dream-walks.

Malachi didn’t want to be apart from Ava. He guessed he could have centuries and still hunger for her.

If they managed to survive.

As if thinking the same thing, she asked, “Still no sign of Grigori in the city?”

“None. Volund depleted his forces in Oslo, and there don’t seem to be any rushing to fill the void. Have you had any more visions?”

“Still the same.”

Jaron walked with her at night. He could sense the fallen angel’s presence but not see him. Not hear him as Ava did. Malachi had never said anything to Ava, but it infuriated him that he was powerless to stop the intrusion of the Fallen into her mind. He could protect her body—would protect it with his life—but he could do nothing to guard her mind.

In that, she was completely alone.

THEY pulled up to the house in Beyoğlu fifteen minutes later. Leo was standing at the front step, enjoying the morning sun with coffee in hand. He grinned when he spotted them turn the corner in the cab. The old house stood in the background, scarred from the fire Volund’s Grigori had started, but slowly coming back to life.

“Sister!” Leo held out his arms as Malachi helped Ava out of the taxi. She ran to him, and the big man enfolded her in his embrace. Malachi felt no twinge of jealousy at their contact. His brothers had been the ones to take care of his mate when he’d been gone.

But he did envy their familiarity.

“I can’t believe it!” Ava said. “You’ve gotten taller.”

“I have not. I promise.”

“No, you have. I know it.”

Leo smiled at Malachi. “You’ve just been spending too much time with this midget.”

Malachi chuckled. He was above average height for most Turks due to his mother’s German heritage, but Leo and his cousin Maxim were from Northern blood. They towered over all the other scribes in the house at well over six and a half feet.

Rhys appeared at the door, and Malachi walked over to him after paying the driver and grabbing their bags.

“We didn’t know you were coming,” Rhys said.

“She worries.” Malachi stopped and set down their bags before he spoke a question that popped into his mind, as familiar as please and thank you. “Does the fire still burn in this house?”

“It does.” Rhys’s mouth spread into a grin. His eyes darted between Malachi and Ava, who had come to stand at his side. “And you are welcome to its light. You and your own.”

“Rhys!” Ava held out her arms, and Malachi let her go and watched as the dark-haired scholar embraced her.

“Welcome home, sister.”

“I missed you guys.”

“We kept the fire burning.”

The fire that burned in the ritual room of each scribe house was sacred. The fire of Istanbul had burned continually since the house had been founded during the Byzantine era. The scribe house had been torn down. Moved. Rebuilt. But the fire remained the same. Combined with magic, Irin fire could heal, and it was necessary to the scribes who tended it. Rhys had risked his life to save coals from the hearth when the wooden house had burned the year before, knowing the human firefighters would extinguish it with their modern equipment.

The fire still burned. The history was intact. And Malachi felt another key turn in the vault of his mind.

Visions of shadows and light. Candles flickering against carved walls. The tight burning pain as the needle hit his skin. He hissed, looking down at the intricate talesm that rose on his right forearm.

“Malachi?” Ava turned to him and noticed it. “Your arm. What—?”

“I just remembered writing it,” he said quietly. “In the ritual room here. It was right after I’d met you. I’d been tempted, and I still thought you were human. I wanted to touch you, but…”

Rhys looked down, his scholar’s eyes keen on the mark. “It’s a spell of focus. To enhance self-control. Very well done, brother.”

“Thank you.”

“Is it painful?”

He nodded. “Like I’ve just tattooed it.”

“Hmm.” Rhys cocked his head and pulled Malachi and Ava into the foyer of the house. Leo followed them until they were away from prying eyes. “It’s very likely that your talesm will reappear with your memories. They may be tied to specific places. You had the memory here, and the spell reappeared. It seems to be complete, though I don’t know if you’ll be able to access this magic since it is not connected to your talesm prim.”

Malachi’s newly scribed talesm prim was on his left wrist. The original it replaced had been the first spell he’d ever tattooed on himself, the one that tapped into his natural magic and let him control it better. As he’d grown older, more spells had been added. But when he’d died, they’d died with him. When he’d returned, it was as if he’d been reborn.

To date, he’d only recovered a portion of the magic on his left forearm; the recovered spell was on his right.

“There are these as well.” He pushed up his sleeve and showed Rhys the spells that had first reappeared during his dream-walks with Ava. Shadows of his former magic, lurking like smudges beneath his skin. They were sporadic. Patchy.

Leo’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t show us these? When did this happen?”

Malachi glanced at Ava. “When she sang to me,” he said. “In our dreams.”

She bit the corner of her lip. “But I’m not singing to you anymore.”

He pushed Rhys and Leo away from examining his arm and pulled Ava to the side. Speaking quietly, he said, “When you are ready, you will sing to me.”

“But—”

“There is no rush, reshon. We are protected here. My strength is returning on its own. Your magic is yours. You must make the decision to use it when you feel safe.”

She nodded, but her mouth was still downturned.

“Smile, Ava.” He touched her chin. “We are home.”

“Don’t tell me to smile when you’re still not whole.”

He swallowed the pain. He wasn’t whole. He wasn’t the man she’d once loved. He was different. Damaged.

“Do you love me?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Then I’m whole.”

A wound doesn’t heal just because it stops bleeding.

They were both still wounded, but her love had stopped the bleeding. Malachi knew everything else would come in time.

HE walked next to her in the forest, the trees towering over them and the moon high and full. He could hear the birds. Feel the grass beneath bare feet.

She walked with the dark angel at her side, but he could not hear them. As much as he strained, no voices reached his ears. It was as if the dark one had wrapped Malachi’s mate in a fog, shielding her from him. From the forest around them. From the night.

From everything.

For a heartbeat, his grey eyes met the golden gaze of the Fallen, and a whisper came to his mind.

Thousands of you, Scribe. One of her.

The warrior scanned the forest with newly woken senses. No longer did he reach for his mate wrapped in the fog; he reached outward.

Darkness surrounded them. And though the light from the full moon shone overhead, it did not illuminate the forest, save for the path they walked. A heavy presence pressed against his skin, and at once he perceived the truth.

Do not fear the darkness.

The dark angel was shielding his mate as she dreamed. Hiding her.