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.”
“Don’t put words in my mate’s mouth,” Constance said.
“The words in my own mouth have more than enough power,” Sari whispered. “We’ve waited long enough.”
With that parting shot, Sari strode down the steps and onto the floor of the Library.
Constance put out her hand and hissed, “You are no elder!”
Sari shoved it off and continued walking. “I never claimed to be.”
Ava could barely breathe as Sari strode to the center of the room and spoke to the galleries on either side. “I am a singer of Ariel’s line, and I request an audience with the Irina council.”
Silence blanketed the Library.
The whispers from the scribes’ gallery ceased. The muttering of the elder scribes stopped. Ava felt as if the entire room was holding its collective breath.
“I am an Irina singer,” Sari said again, a little louder. “A daughter of Ariel’s line. I request an audience with my representative on the Irina council.”
Ava’s heart was in her throat as she watched the fierce woman look around the silent room.
“Where is my council?” Sari asked. “Where are the elder singers who speak for me?”
Finally, a lone elder stood.
Mala shoved a small writing pad into her hands.
Konrad. European elder. Pro-Irina.
“Daughter,” Konrad said with pain in his eyes. “I’m sorry, but your council has fled.”
“No,” Sari said. “My council was attacked.”
Another elder stood. “Your council is in hiding.”
Mala wrote again. Jerome. North American elder. Pro-compulsion. Constance’s mate.
Sari stepped to Jerome’s desk. “My council was protecting itself. Protecting its daughters when the scribes did not.”
Furious whispers from the scribes’ gallery.
Jerome spread his hands, a tense smile on his face. “And they do not trust us to protect our sisters even now?” Jerome raised his eyes to the scribes’ gallery above him. “Does the Irina council not trust us to protect our own mates? Our daughters?” He looked back at Sari. “We want to protect them, and yet they hide.”
She walked back to the center of the room. “And I want to speak to my council.”
Jerome said, “I’m sorry, but your council is no more.”
Sari raised her hands, standing in the center of the library, and began to whisper. Ava felt magic rise in the air. Dust motes hung frozen in the light that poured through the high windows.
No one breathed.
There was a low rumble, then with a mighty crash the seven desks of the elder singers slid to the center of the room, pulled by Sari’s elemental power.
Papers and dust went flying. Furniture shifted as people ran to escape their path.
Sari stood motionless in the center of the floor, eyes traveling to meet the gaze of each elder as the massive wooden desks settled into place in a star-shaped pattern around her.
Ava released the breath she’d been holding.
“It’s time.” It was all Sari said before she left the floor of the Library and walked up the steps.
At the top of the stairs, Constance grabbed her arm.
“I see you like theater,” the woman said. “You will come with me if you ever want to be welcome here again.”
Mala stepped forward, but Sari held up a hand and shook her head. “Good. I’ve been wanting to have a little chat.”
Constance and her two companions swept out of the gallery with Mala and Sari following them. Ava threw one more glance over her shoulder to see Malachi standing across from her, wearing a triumphant expression. Damien stood next to him, his face glowing with pride.
Ava gave them both a wide smile and followed her sisters out.
AT least if she was going to have coffee with the most passive-aggressive woman she’d ever met, she had her bra and shoes back on.
Ava sat in the airy sitting room of the town house near city hall. The neo-Gothic spire of the Rathaus was visible through the parlor window as Constance’s maid served coffee and delicate cakes to the seven women in the sitting room.
“I’m glad we have this opportunity to talk,” Constance said. “Perhaps we can come to an understanding.”
“You’re from the South,” Ava said.
“Virginia.” Constance nodded. “And you’re American.”
“I am. Los Angeles.”
“How lovely.”
Ava was pretty sure Constance actually meant the complete opposite. The singer turned her attention away from Ava and looked at Sari. Renata had joined them, and she and Mala stood along the back wall while Sari and Ava took the couch.
“Well?” Constance asked.
“Well what? I have every right to demand an audience with my elders.” Sari sat, her strong arms spread across the back of the delicate settee decorated in blue silk, which complemented the butter-yellow walls and cream molding of the room. Her hair was wild from the baths, her face ruddy from the winter air. Like the Northern fjords she hailed from, Sari was primal and beautiful at the same time.
Ava thought she looked like a Valkyrie at a tea party.
Constance had her own kind of power, though. She was the kind of woman Americans would call a “steel magnolia.” She sat rigid in the chair across from Sari, unbowed by the other singer’s presence. Her pixie-cut hair was utterly feminine and showcased high cheekbones and a strong jaw. Beautiful and cold.
“You know perfectly well our elders abandoned us,” she said.
“Abandoned us?” Sari said. “Or were driven out of Vienna in fear for their lives?”
“I have been in Vienna for almost two hundred years,” Constance said. She held a hand out to the woman at her left. “Helen has been here for one hundred.” She nodded to the woman on her right. “Vania has been here for over seventy. There are many Irina living safely in our city.”
“Then where are they? Why have none organized? Why have none stepped forward to try to reform the council?”
Tension was evident around Constance’s eyes. “Because we believe our mates are correct. The Irina belong in retreats where we’re protected. Not out chasing after Grigori like animals.”