The Secret

  Volund could find her anywhere.

  Malachi hadn’t had another dream since Italy. He was half-convinced they’d been nightmares of his own making. He hadn’t told Ava. Every time he decided to share it with her, it seemed another problem or revelation came their way.

  He leaned his head against the doorway and fervently prayed for the privilege of years. Years he’d be able to kiss her good-bye and come home to her at night. A lifetime of routines they would build. Everyday intimacies they would share.

  Please.

  Is a thousand years too much to ask?

  For now… give me one.

  His soul cried the unspeakable name of the one who had returned him to the mortal plane. He felt the yearning pull at his chest as the door opened. Then she was there, pressing a kiss over his heart. She leaned her forehead against his collar, wrapped her arms around his waist. She said nothing, but he knew she’d heard his voice. Her touch bolstered him; he grew taller under her small hands.

  “I could hear you,” she said. “Woke me up.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be.”

  “I love you.” He squeezed her tightly. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  She stepped away from him and took a deep breath. “Coffee?”

  “I’ll get some with Damien on our way. I think he’s probably waiting.”

  “Okay.” She smiled, then cocked her head toward the door. “Really?”

  “What?”

  “You can’t hear him?” She unlocked the hallway door and cracked it open, only to see the black cat from the other day slip in. He went to the kitchen and hopped up on the window ledge, staring out into the street.

  Malachi shook his head. “We’re not keeping him.”

  “That’s so weird. Why would his owner even let him out so early? He doesn’t look like a stray.” She yawned and went to the kettle to heat water.

  “Getting a cat through quarantine is a nightmare. If you truly want one, we’ll find one when we get home.”

  “It’s fine, babe. I won’t get attached.”

  The “babe” thing she’d started had annoyed him at first, considering he was roughly three hundred and seventy-five years older than she was. Then… it didn’t. It was Ava. His human-Irina-Grigora mate who called him ridiculous things like “babe” and said the word “dude” in actual conversation.

  Maybe it was a California thing. He didn’t care.

  Heading toward the door with a smile, he called out, “I’ll see you tonight.”

  “I’ll… cook meatloaf or something.”

  Malachi turned. “Really?”

  “No.” She snickered. “I have no idea how to cook meatloaf.”

  “Chinese takeout it is.”

  “As much as I travel, Chinese takeout is my comfort food.”

  His eyes fixed on her.

  “You have to go,” she whispered.

  “I don’t want to.”

  A shy smile teased her lips. The cat growled at the window, pawing it before he looked over his shoulder.

  “Go,” Ava said. “The cat says Damien is here. Call me when you’re done at the Library.”

  “The cat does not know that Damien is here.” Still, he kissed her and walked out the door before he lingered any longer, walking down the stairs to find Damien waiting on the street, his breath frosting in the morning air.

  He was looking up to the window of their flat. “Did you get a cat?”

  “We’re not keeping the cat.”

  “Huh. Coffee?”

  “Please.”

  HE’D sated his craving for coffee, but Malachi’s stomach was rumbling. He should have eaten a bigger meal the night before.

  Hunger would have to wait. Liquids were permitted before the cleansing ritual but not food. The satchel over his shoulder held the linen wrap he’d wear, along with his ceremonial robe. They had both been in storage in Istanbul. Rhys had retrieved them before he came to the city. While scribe houses were more informal, Vienna was not. If he and Damien were to be permitted entrance to the Library, they would have to visit the cleansing rooms attached and enter in ceremonial garb.

  “You’ve been doing this every day?” he asked his watcher.

  Damien nodded as he drained his coffee cup. “Almost. I’ve managed to be granted audience with Konrad—whom my brother-in-law works for—and Kibwe. But both are already traditionalists in favor of restoring the Irina council. I need to speak with Anurak and Rafael. They’re the swing votes. Currently, there are three elders who are openly in favor of compulsion.”

  The whole concept irritated Malachi. “Do they actually think they can force the Irina into retreats again? They don’t have any control over them.”

  “No, but they have control over their mates. Other than a few deserters, the Irina in hiding are mated to active scribes who owe their own allegiance to the council. For the past two hundred years, the council has asked no questions when a scribe has left his post for a time—even if it’s for years—”

  “Somebody has to raise children if our race is going to survive. I can count on one hand the number of scribes I’ve known who’ve had children in the past two hundred years.”

  “Exactly. They’ve ignored it when a scribe has left his post when his mate was with child. Asked no questions. But what will happen to those mates if compulsion becomes law? They can make an issue of scribes leaving their posts if they want to. If the Irina they’re mated to is not in a retreat.”

  “It’s madness.”

  “It’s control wearing the mantle of security. And some on the council are obsessed with it.”

  Malachi walked in silence, entering the maze of the palace complex along with myriad other workers and suited men as they made their way into the tangled streets and the network of passageways that made up the Hofburg Palace.

  Massive buildings of every design—Gothic, Baroque, and Classical—surrounded them as he and Damien moved among the working population of the palace. Over five thousand humans worked in the Hofburg complex, janitors and tour guides, clerks and government officials. It was the perfect hiding place for the Irin Library, and some version of the council had resided here for over five hundred years after having made a secret pact with the Hapsburgs. The empire had been lost, but the Irin had remained hidden with the help of their gold, influence, and magic.

  Malachi knew that many of the suited men making their way into the government buildings wore talesm under their dress shirts. As a center of commerce, culture, and international intelligence, Vienna was the perfect seat of Irin power.

  Damien knocked on an intricately carved wooden door hidden in the corner of a small courtyard. A buzzing sound followed and they pushed it open, only to be met by two scribes who were obviously part of the Library Guard. They wore suits and earpieces Rhys would be jealous of. They nodded to Damien with familiarity but still searched both their bags. Malachi turned in the pair of silver daggers he carried and received a receipt to retrieve them at the end of his business.

  Damien was smiling when Malachi finally joined him.

  “What?”

  “You have caught the Guard’s attention. They don’t often see scribes carrying weapons here.”

  The Library Guard was one of the most prestigious postings a warrior could have, but it was also one of the least dangerous.

  Malachi grunted. “Then they are complacent.”

  “Don’t underestimate them.”

  The ground floor housed the cleansing rooms. Malachi breathed deeply of the steam and smoke when they stepped through the door. His heart swelled with longing. It had been too long since he’d been able to truly pray. While the political maneuvering was not how he would wish to spend his day, the ritual of the bath was welcome.

  Stripping off his street clothes, he entered the chamber.

  The bath’s marble walls were carved with centuries of protective spells. Words dark with age. He could hear low prayers ch
anted from the far room as scribes who had already cleansed their bodies cleared their minds of earthly cares.

  Malachi walked into the pool and took a deep breath before he immersed himself. Warmth, light, and love. Held in the water’s embrace, he felt another door open in his mind.

  “Like this?”

  “Evet, oğul. Just like that, Malachi.”

  Water sluiced over his small body as his father hummed a song his mother had taught him.

  “You have taken your first marks. Every year, we will do this now. To give thanks.”

  “Every year?”

  “It is tradition. Tradition is important.”

  Whispers drifted in the water, and there came a flash of light behind closed eyes.

  Malachi floated.

  Songs in the air.

  A vivid sky cut with beams of gold light. Crystal waters and presence.

  Holy and wholly.

  His body feels no pain. His soul, no struggle. Body and soul are one. Complete joy. Complete peace.

  Love surrounds him. Perfect love.

  He cries with joy because he is home.

  “Son.”

  He is there. He is eternal.

  This is what they long for.

  Who would not long for this?

  He is surrounded by love. Complete. Replete.

  He needs nothing.

  “She calls you,” a familiar voice whispers.

  He hears.

  Longing.

  Need.

  He chooses.

  And like the angels before him, he falls.

  Malachi rose with a gasp and lifted his eyes to see the carved marble and stone encasing him.

  His body ached, his flesh a prison he’d never felt before.

  In the space of a single breath, in the thin line between the present and eternity, Malachi remembered heaven.

  He had danced in the presence of the angels. Welcomed as a beloved son.

  “Vashama canem, reshon.”

  He had come back for her.

  But until that moment, Malachi hadn’t remembered what he’d given up to return.

  He didn’t sense the tears on his face until Damien reached him.

  “Brother?”

  “I’m fine.” He wiped his eyes and dipped in the water again, brushing the wet hair back from his face and pulling the water from his beard. “I’m fine, Damien.”

  His watcher held Malachi with his eyes. “Tell me.”

  Malachi shook his head. How could he explain?

  “I was in the heavenly realm for months, brother.” He wiped the water from his face and moved to exit the bath. “Some memories I wish I did not recover.”

  “But why?” Damien followed him, and the men dried themselves with the linen towels provided. Their wraps had been placed on marble benches near the entrance to the ritual room. “You must have seen things—”

  “It was perfect beauty. Perfect peace,” Malachi said quietly. “And I chose to give it up. It was my choice, and I’m glad of it. But at this moment, it hurts.”

  He held the towel to his face and sat on the marble bench, staring into the steaming pool where the memory of heaven had been given to him.

  Why?

  “Choose.”

  He’d chosen Ava. He would still choose her.

  Perhaps this was the answer to his desperate prayer that morning. Perhaps it was only the assurance that, no matter what the future held for him and his beloved in the earthly realm, something even more beautiful waited for them should they fall.

  “I think I’d pull down heaven if that’s what it took to keep you here with me.”

  “And I’d abandon it if you weren’t there.”

  The memory snapped into place next to his vision of heaven. He and Ava, lying in bed after they’d made love. A different kind of completion, but no less beautiful. His mate, a daughter of the Fallen. Malachi, the son of the Forgiven.

  “We were meant to be like this. Two halves of the same soul. Dark and light together.”

  Their union was a reflection of the peace he’d seen. Holy and wholly.

  And Malachi finally realized what Jaron truly wanted.

  Forgiveness.

  He wrapped himself in linen and entered the prayer room, kneeling before the sacred fire and giving up the remnants of his pain as thousands of others had done before him. He left his sorrow and regret there. Burned slips of prayers in the fire. He let his soul mourn for what it had given up, while it caught fire with the vision he’d seen.

  He’d left the heavenly realm for a reason. He was Mikhael’s son, and he’d returned to earth to battle for the soul of his people.

  THE Irin Library was a palace of knowledge—every ritual, every rule serving a purpose that had something to do with its preservation. Malachi and Damien wore linen shifts and ceremonial robes that dated back thousands of years. The linen, pure and undyed, was worn because it would not react to the ancient scrolls or manuscripts the scribes preserved. Baths served a spiritual purpose but also cleansed the environment of any pollutants or molds that could harm the books.

  The first time his father had brought him here, Malachi had been thirteen years old and on the precipice of starting his training. A child in awe of the ceremony and solemnity, he’d bathed with other boys his age from all over the world under the watchful eyes of their fathers, passing the traditions on to the next generation of scribes. He’d received his family marks only weeks before, the first tattoos that had signaled his passage from childhood to adolescence.

  That morning, he’d seen no boys readying themselves in the ritual room with barely concealed excitement. No fathers introducing the next generation to the sacred fire. No awe-filled eyes as they climbed the wooden steps to the scribes’ gallery above the Library floor.

  His heart hurt.

  Malachi and Damien climbed the stairs in silence.

  Seven scribes worked diligently below the gallery, assistants fetching them books or pens or ink, depending on what they were doing. Some were copying manuscripts. Others made notes in careful handwriting as they studied manuscripts or scrolls with silk-gloved hands.

  Whispers filled the gallery. Quiet negotiations between secretaries and petitioners. While the work the scribes did below was sacred in nature, the Library was a political theater. Damien and Malachi were only two men in dozens who were visiting the Library that morning, hoping for an audience with an elder. They presented their petitions on paper slips passed to the secretaries. Those secretaries examined the petitions and decided which ones would be passed down to the elder on the Library floor.

  The singers’ gallery, on the opposite side of the room, stood empty but for three silent figures standing at one end, watching the elder scribes working below.

  “Who are they?” Malachi asked.

  “The mates of three of the elders—Jerome, Edmund, and Rasesh. They’re the only Irina I’ve seen in the Library since I’ve been here.”

  His mother had once stood there. Had once sung there, joined by the chorus of her sisters.

  Now there were only three.

  The women also wore ceremonial clothing. Long linen shifts and robes, high-necked to warm the voices that held their magic. Their hair was freshly washed and tied back in simple plaits or cut short and clean around their faces. One woman stood out to him as the obvious leader.

  “Who is she?” Malachi murmured. “The woman with short hair.”

  “Jerome’s mate.”

  “She’s powerful.” It wasn’t a question. Old magic surrounded her.

  “Constance is also the most outspoken Irina proponent of compulsion.”

  What would lead such a powerful singer to give up so much of her self-determination? And if she was as powerful as she seemed, why wasn’t she on the floor of the Library herself? Though Constance’s youthful features glowed from the magic of her longevity spells, Malachi could see she was a singer of age and experience simply by the way she carried herself.

  “She r
eminds me of Orsala.”

  “They are contemporaries, from what I’ve heard, though she is a daughter of Rafael.”

  “A healer?”

  “A powerful one.”

  They paused at the counter where the papers and inkwells resided to let Damien compose the petition he’d give to Rafael’s secretary. Rafael was the current elder from South America and, according to Damien, one of the swing votes in the council.

  Malachi looked down, realizing what seemed off. “Where are the other desks?”

  When he’d been a boy, the seven desks of the Irina elders had been in the center of the Library under the magnificent dome painted with scenes from Irin history. Now only the scribes’ desks were visible. Skirting the perimeter of the bookcases, the elders worked. But the center of the Library was empty.

  “There.” Damien pointed his chin to seven empty desks tucked into the corners of the Library. “They were moved when it became clear the Irina council had fled. Stay here.” He went to deliver his petition into the soft hands of the bureaucrat standing near the stairs leading down to the floor of the gallery. Unless an audience was granted, no one but the elders and their assistants were allowed on the floor.

  Malachi could see two scribes making their way down the stairs already. One headed for Jerome. The North American elder was waiting for him, pale hands resting softly on the polished desk. Malachi couldn’t help but see smug self-satisfaction on the scribe’s handsome face. He glanced at Constance, who watched her mate from the gallery above with an inscrutable expression.

  The other petitioner headed toward Anurak, the elder from Asia, who stood with a solemn expression and an outstretched hand.

  The other elders continued their work, whether research, study, or manuscript transcription. Until their secretaries sent a petitioner to them, they would remain at their tasks. Quiet and solemn as political machinations twisted above.

  It all looked so wrong. Malachi remembered thinking as a child that the Library floor looked like a star. The Irina desks in the center, radiating the singers’ power out to the edges of the room where the solid desks of the scribes sat. That memory had been a dance of light and song. Had it only been a child’s perception?