“Why did I leave Istanbul?” Rhys asked.
“If it’s hot, you complain about that. If it’s cold, you complain about that.” Malachi settled onto the leather-wrapped bench and shook out a paper someone had left nearby. “Is there any weather you do like?”
“England.”
Malachi frowned. “Really?”
“In the spring.”
“When the flowers are blooming, or do those give you sneezing fits?”
“Ha-ha.”
“I’d forgotten how amusing your snits could be.”
“You’ve forgotten pretty much everything about me, old friend.” Rhys’s eyes were sharp on his face. “Has that changed?”
“Some.” Malachi leaned forward, glancing around the wood-paneled restaurant. “Is this place—?”
“It’s friendly.” Rhys nodded at an older gentleman who sat across the room sipping a cup. “It’s owned by one of us.”
“The waiter is human.”
“But discreet and lacking in curiosity. Excellent qualities in a human, I’ve always found.”
Rhys paused to give his order to the man. Malachi did the same.
“Now,” he continued, “what has changed?”
“My talesm have returned to”—he leaned back and motioned halfway across his right pectoral muscle—“about here. A few more are scattered down my arm. And as my talesm have returned, I’ve recovered more memory.”
Rhys’s face was pale. “So you know about—”
“The badger prank was your idea, not mine. I cannot believe you tried to let me take the blame.”
Rhys was affronted. “It was not! And if you hadn’t started laughing, we would have got away with it.”
“We were right little demons at school, weren’t we?”
Rhys burst into laughter, and Malachi couldn’t help but grin.
“We were,” Rhys said. “Our poor mothers.”
“It’s amazing we survived to adulthood.”
His old friend paused. “Your family marks?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry, brother.”
The tattoos his father had given him when he reached the age of thirteen hadn’t reappeared. While they gave Malachi little power, they were part of his identity. A way of marking his lineage, given to him by his father. Because he’d not scribed them himself, he had no idea if they would ever return.
“It will be as it is meant,” Malachi said. “I’m blessed that any have returned at all.”
“Ava?”
“She sings to me. She heals me.”
Rhys shook his head slowly. “Lucky bastard.”
“I am.” He lowered his voice again. “Has Max told you—”
“About the Grigora?” His smile fell. “He called everyone to Damien and Sari’s as soon as he and Renata got into town. I’m still trying to understand how we could have missed something as big as this.”
“They prefer to be called kareshta. Silent ones.”
“Silent ones?” Rhys asked.
“Those who survived had to be.”
Rhys slowly shook his head. “All these years, Malachi. How many have suffered? How many have been killed? They were the Fallen’s first victims, and we knew nothing.”
“How were we to know?”
“How could we not? It seems so obvious now. The Forgiven fathered daughters, why wouldn’t the Fallen?”
“The stories only ever speak of male hunters. That’s all we were ever taught.”
Rhys was incredulous, barely noticing the human waiter who was back with their coffees and two glasses of water, along with a couple of small pastries.
“And we shouldn’t have known better?” he asked. “Asked more questions? Our own scrolls speak of the mighty men of ancient times. Heroes, not heroines. And yet we know that the Irina were always there.” Rhys leaned forward with bright eyes. “And I believe the early singers were with the scribes in battle as well. The Dacia manuscript—”
“This sounds like an academic argument I’m completely unprepared to have with you.”
Rhys paused, his mouth likely ready to launch into an explanation of some ancient language interpretation Malachi had no interest in.
“That’s… probably true,” Rhys admitted. “But it may be relevant to the Irina problem.”
“Can we stop calling them a problem?”
The corner of Rhys’s mouth turned up. “Oh, I think they rather like being problematic. And you know where Orsala and Sari are going to fall on the Grigora—kareshta question, don’t you?”
“Probably where Ava is.”
“She is one, you know.”
“She’s part kareshta. It’s…” He hesitated. It wasn’t his story to tell. “It’s complicated. You need to ask Ava.”
Rhys’s curiosity had clearly been sparked. “I will. Can I assume she also anticipates a large family reunion? Welcoming the kareshta into the arms of their Irin sisters?”
“She’s more cautious than that. You have to remember, Ava has been in their place. She had no idea she was anything but human, and she had no control the way our women have. She thought she was insane, and I’m guessing more than one of the Grigori females is in the same situation. She sympathizes with them, but I think she’s also more realistic about how damaged or dangerous some of them might be.”
Rhys shook his head. “The main question is, can they be trusted? If what Max said is true, then any with living fathers can be tracked by the Fallen who sired them. They have no free will unless their sires are dead. We have to consider them security risks as well as victims.”
“All the more reason to shift focus,” Malachi said quietly.
Rhys glanced over his shoulder. “Are you saying what I think?”
“We must start going after the Fallen, not just the Grigori.”
“A monumentally more difficult task,” Rhys said. “And not one that will be popular with the council.”
“Rhys.” Malachi fought to explain. “The Grigori we met in Sofia—the ones Max has come to a truce with—they’re not like the others. They’re… more like us. Yes, they are wilder. Untrained. Hungry. But not mindless drones. With their sires dead, they had free will. They were struggling to control themselves, but they were trying.”
“Not unlike the Irin now.”
Malachi frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Surely you can see the parallels,” he said, taking a sip of coffee. “We’ve been without widespread Irina influence for only two hundred years, and where are we as a society? Declining. Touch-hungry. More and more aggressive. We’re completely out of balance. We need…” Rhys’s voice grew rough. “Our race is dying without the Irina, and not just because so few children are born.”
“Then we bring them back. On their terms, not because of some compulsion act dreamed up by old men. And we work to save the women we can, even if that means fighting with the council.”
“You’re ready for this fight.”
“Yes.”
Rhys smiled ruefully. “You’re almost panting for it.”
“And what if I am?”
“Yes.” He drained his coffee. “You definitely seem more like yourself.”
Chapter Fourteen
“WELCOME TO VIENNA,” Ava whispered to her reflection. “Your father is an angelic bastard. Your grandmother was driven insane by the angel who raped her. Your great-grandfather is an archangel who kills things for you as tokens of his twisted affection. And somewhere in the middle of this, you mated a four-hundred-year-old man with amnesia.”