The Secret (28 page)

“I guess everyone’s in on the toga party,” she whispered.

“Shh,” Sari said.

The scribes’ chests were bare, black
talesm
on display down the center of their robes, and Ava was relieved that Malachi’s had mostly returned where they’d be visible. She had a feeling that more
talesm
equaled greater badass, and she didn’t want her mate at a disadvantage.

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.”

Renata said, “Did you hear that, Mala? We’re like animals.” She leaned over the couch and grinned. “Good. I like having teeth.”

Constance’s eyes narrowed. “Do not mistake bravado for strength. We have our own influence here. We’ve been working behind the scenes for years, trying to protect our sisters while you’ve been out throwing tantrums and killing angel spawn.”

“What’s wrong with killing Grigori?” Ava asked. “If they’re attacking human women—”

“War is a scribe’s job,” Helen said, her voice crisply accented.
 

Renata stepped forward. “You ignorant little—”

“Enough!” Sari said. “I don’t know what my grandmother was thinking. You know
nothing
. You pretty birds sit in your gilded cages and play at politics while a war happens on the other side of the door. I have nothing to say to you when you are blind to reality.”

Constance’s chin lifted. “We have a good life here. If singers would accept the protection of their scribes, they would have a good life too. A
safe
life.”

Childish chatter came from the hallway a moment before the door opened. A small girl, no more than five or six years old, bounced into the room, her honey-brown curls pulled into two pigtails on the sides of her head.
 

“Mama!” she cried and climbed into Constance’s lap.

Ava saw the transformation immediately. All coldness fled from the woman’s face.

“Lexi, what are you doing back from the park?”

“I was too cold. And we have visitors!” the little girl said, turning her sparkling eyes to Sari and Ava. “Hello.”

Sari’s yearning was an aching thing beside her.
 

“Hello,” she said.

“Did you bring any children?” Lexi said.

“I’m sorry,” Sari said softly. “I don’t have any children.”

“Oh.” The girl’s disappointment was clear. “Miss Helen’s son comes to play sometimes, but he’s so much older than me. Mama”—she turned in her mother’s arms—“I want to see a baby. Does anyone have a baby I can play with?”

Constance ran a hand over her daughter’s hair. “I’m sorry, Lexi. No babies are visiting today.”

Lexi turned and confided to Ava, “I have lots of dollies, but babies are better, aren’t they?”

Ava leaned forward, transfixed. “I suppose so.”

“Go with Anna,” Constance said. “We need to talk about grown-up things for a little longer.”

“Okay.” Lexi scrambled to the floor. “But come back if you have babies!” she called out as she left the room.

Silence followed her exit.

“There are still so few,” Vania whispered.

“I understand,” Sari said.

“I highly doubt that,” Helen said.

Sari’s voice was hoarse when she spoke again. “I was pregnant when our retreat was attacked,” she said. “My mate was hundreds of miles away. I had… I’d lent him my power so he could fight in Paris. When the attack came, I was injured. My body could not—”

“They killed my son in front of my eyes,” Constance said in an icy voice. “The Grigori animal sliced his throat in front of me and he bled over my kitchen floor while his friend held me down, choked my voice silent, and raped me. Thomas was seven years old, and the last thing he saw was animals raping his mother. Do you understand that?”

Ava’s body was frozen in horror.
 

Vania reached for her friend’s hand.

No one spoke.

“I only survived the Rending because of my mate. And Jerome was near death when he found me. He said the prayers for our son alone because no one else was left, and my voice was so damaged, I could not sing. I said nothing for twenty years. Nothing.”

Sari closed her eyes. “Constance—”

“If I can save
any
mother from seeing that—save any child by rebuilding the retreats. Make them stronger. Make them safer—”

“There is no such thing as total safety,” Sari said. “We both know that.
We
have to be stronger.
We
have to defend our children. Defend ourselves.”

“We aren’t capable of it. Are you so proud that you cannot acknowledge the truth?
We are not as strong as the scribes.
”

“Our power is different, not less.”

“Don’t you understand?” Constance stood. “Nothing can bring them back. No revenge will ever be enough. No blood can repay what we’ve lost. Don’t you think I’ve wanted to hunt the animals who killed my son?” Her voice rose. “I could stop their hearts in their chests and pull the blood from their veins. I am a singer of Rafael’s line. I could do those things and more. But that will not bring Thomas back.”

Renata said, “You should be able to hunt them if you want. You have the right.”

Constance shook her head. “Alexis is a miracle. We never thought…” She dragged in a breath and put a hand over her belly. “No one thought I’d be able to conceive another child.”

Sari stood to face her. “And I may never have the opportunity to be a mother again. But if I do, I don’t want my daughter growing up in fear.”

“Your mate is a
legend
. Damien of Bohemia was a Templar knight, for heaven’s sake! Don’t you trust him to protect you?”

“It’s not about trust,” Renata said from the back of the room. “It’s about using our own power. It’s our job to protect them too.”