He shoved back the instinctive anger and spoke calmly. “She is my mate.”

“She is.” Rhys looked down, shuffling the papers they’d been looking at into a pile. “She is, without a doubt, your reshon. A true soul mate. I saw it even before you did, I think.”

Malachi didn’t know how, but the emotion was there, wrapping his mind with certainty. “I love her.”

“I believe you,” Rhys said, before clearing his throat. “You love your mate. But… you don’t love Ava. You can’t, because you don’t know her anymore.”

The hollow loss rang in his chest, and he knew, in part, that Rhys was correct. As much as he hated it, Malachi knew the other man spoke the truth. And there was nothing he could do about it.

“She needed you back. And you are. But you’re not the same man. I don’t know if you ever will be. And that—that is why I am angry.”

Maxim, Leo, Rhys, and Malachi met in the sitting room that evening. The outside air had taken on the snap of autumn, but in the house in the caves, the fire warmed the small room where they sat, drinking tea and talking.

“It’s clear we’re not going to find any written or electronic records,” Max said. “Damien is too savvy for that. What we need is a personal connection.”

Rhys scowled. “Damien doesn’t have any personal connections. Why do you think he made such a good watcher?”

“Watcher?” Malachi asked.

Leo was the one who answered. The friendly scribe had been the one person with whom Malachi felt at complete ease. “All scribe houses in cities are organized in teams of five to eight men. A watcher is the head of the house. He tends the sacred fire and makes the most important decisions. Damien’s your boss, in other words.”

Max said, “Watchers also watch. Don’t ever forget that. They’re the ones who report to our main council in Vienna. It’s very structured. Damien reported to the lieutenant of a councilor. That councilor reported to his elder. Every area is tightly controlled. The Irin council has ears everywhere.”

“You don’t have to make it sound so sinister,” Rhys said. “Damien knew when to keep a confidence.”

“He did.” Max nodded. “Why do you think he was still a house watcher, as old and experienced as he is? If he were more politically savvy and less loyal, he’d be a lieutenant or even a councilor in Vienna now.”

Leo said, “It’s true, and you know it, Rhys. Damien became a problem for them when he mated Sari.”

Malachi asked, “Why? She’s the Irina he took Ava to?”

“His mate,” Leo said. “And Sari was a problem because her parents were well-known to the council as dissenters .”

“What does that mean?”

Max continued, “It means they didn’t agree with the steps taken when the retreats were formed. They didn’t believe that women and children should be isolated or that Irina should withdraw from the human world.”

“But Rhys said the Irina were being attacked by the humans for practicing magic. Wasn’t it wiser to protect them?” Malachi frowned, remembering the painful history lesson he’d been forced to sit through. As always, once he’d been told, he could remember some things, though they mostly came in the recollection of feelings. Horror over the Rending, pain from the loss of his parents and village. A dull, burning anger toward an enemy he couldn’t remember. The memories were shadowed and fleeting.

“True, they were being attacked,” Max said. “But the dissenters didn’t believe in turning from the old ways. Didn’t believe in separation. They were proponents of the Irina being trained in more offensive magic and not focusing on only creative and healing work. Sari’s parents were some of the most outspoken.”

“Isolating half our population was never a smart idea,” Leo said. “It left them too vulnerable.”

“Be careful,” Rhys said in a low voice. “You and  Max were both children during the Rending. You don’t remember before. You may not agree, but there were reasons the retreats were formed.”

Max frowned. “I know—”

“No,” Rhys continued in a quiet voice. “You think you know, but you don’t. Not really. Try to imagine the pain of losing your mate and child because an ignorant human thought she was a witch sent by the devil and your child the devil’s spawn. Imagine the rage you’d feel, then multiply that by the Inquisition. It wasn’t only the Irin males who proposed the retreats, many Irina did, too. They didn’t want to worry about their safety or the safety of their children. Didn’t want to live as we do now, constantly battling against the Grigori and looking over their shoulder for humans, too. The retreats were not concentration camps; they were communities. There is no black and white here.”

“The Irina left their protection in the hands of others,” Max said. “How was that wise?”

“They left their protection in the hands of their mates.” Rhys said. “Their fathers and brothers. How were we to foresee the Rending? Yes, there was fault, but our race’s tragedy wasn’t born from hate, Max. It was born from love. And the fear of losing what we loved.”

“But now our race is dying because of it,” Leo said. “And the council does nothing. Younger Irin want change—we know how much we need the Irina back—but no one will listen to us. Damien wouldn’t listen to us.”

“Maybe not as much as you’d wish, but he did listen. To me. To Malachi. He wasn’t some puppet of Vienna, so don’t make him out that way. And do you read any news? Vienna is churning with proposals to get the Irina back. You have to remember change comes slowly, Leo.”

“Who did Damien trust?” Malachi asked, uninterested in the politics they were caught up in. “That’s the real question, isn’t it? Who else would know where his mate has hidden?”

Max and Leo exchanged a look Malachi couldn’t decipher, then Max said, “I’ve heard Sari has a haven somewhere in Norway with a large group of Irina, but no one knows for sure. Her family was very secretive about their land after the retreats were formed, so only other members of the family knew about it.”

“But Damien would have known?”

“Yes. I’m sure of it.”

“And Gabriel,” Rhys said under his breath. “Gabriel would know, too.”

“You can’t possibly think Damien would go to Gabriel,” Max said. “Even I know the bad blood there. And there’s no way he’d take Ava to Vienna.”

“Of course Damien wouldn’t go to him,” Rhys said. “I’m just saying Gabriel might know where Sari is.”

“Gabriel?” Malachi asked. “Who is… Are you talking about the angel?”

Max looked at Malachi as if he’d just spit on the floor between them. Leo laughed, and he could see Rhys trying to stifle a smile.

“Do you think archangels go for jaunts on the earthly realm?” Max said. “Of course not the angel Gabriel.”

“Then who—”

“Gabriel is Damien’s brother-in-law,” Rhys said. “Or he was. His mate was Sari’s twin sister. She was killed during the Rending.”

“But why does he hate Damien? You said many scribes lost—”

“Sari’s sister was killed during battle,” Max said. “Not an ambush on a retreat. Damien took Tala into battle because of her foresight, and Volund’s Grigori killed her.”

“Oh.” Suddenly, the bad blood between Damien and his brother-in-law made more sense.

Leo cleared his through. “As you can imagine, they don’t really get along.”

It was Leo who was left teaching Malachi the next night. The two scribes were practicing Malachi’s writing in the library, practicing the spells in the Old Language, which he would scribe on his hands and arms to give himself the most basic protection before they left. Max and Rhys were still arguing about the best way to approach Gabriel, who was an assistant to one of the senior elders on the Irin council. They were going to Vienna, but everyone agreed that Malachi needed more strength before they left.

“Your talesm prim will be much better this time,” Leo said with a smile, holding up his hand. “For scribes, our first tattoo is always the shakiest, because we do it when we’re young and first starting. Nothing can really prepare you for the pain of jabbing an ivory needle into your own skin over and over again.”