The Scribe (18 page)

“How old are you?”

“Biologically?” He smiled. “Around thirty. But I’ve lived for over four hundred years.”

Her eyes were saucers. “Wow.”

“And you will live as long or longer than that.” He tried not to think about it. Tried not to see the gold letters forming under his fingers as they trailed down her spine to the small of her back. Tried to block out the rush of desire the image brought. “The magic is shared by Irin couples so they can age together.”

“Oh.”

Ava stared up at the stars, her skin pale and milky in the moonlight.

“What did I do to piss you off, Malachi?”

“Nothing,” he choked out. “You didn’t do anything, Ava.”

“Are you sure? It seems like you’re mad at me, but I don’t know why.”

“I’m not mad at you. I’m… trying to be your friend.”

“My friend?”

“Yes.” He forced a smile. “You told me once we were friends, didn’t you?”

“I guess I did.” She turned her eyes to him, and Malachi wondered whether those dark pools could see through him. See through to the longing inside. “I guess, I thought there was something… I was probably imagining things, right?”

He cleared his throat. “You have so much to think about. So much to consider and learn. It’s not that I don’t want—”

“Are we here?” Rhys yelled from the back of the Range Rover. The door creaked open and he climbed out, unfolding his long legs from their cramped position. “Oh, Ava, love, do you need help with your bags?”

Malachi bristled. “I’ve got them, Rhys.”

“Good man.” His friend slapped him on the shoulder before he grabbed his own bag and hoisted it out.

Malachi saw some Irin walking through the old gates. An elderly scribe raised a hand and waved.

“Ms. Matheson?”

Ava stepped forward and held out her hand as Malachi and Rhys stopped to watch. Watch the old scribe take her hand delicately, then more confidently, his face breaking into a huge smile. Most of the Cappadocian scribes were older, having stopped their longevity spells after the Rending, but a few of the younger men gaped at Ava as Malachi and Rhys followed her into the scribe house with the luggage.

Rhys was still groggy. Sadly, he was also talking.

“She was pressed against me in the car, Malachi. Heaven, I’d forgotten what that felt like. Just to have the weight of a woman—”

“Really!” he burst out. “Just… shut up, Rhys.”

Thirty-three. There were thirty-three ways Malachi could kill him.

Chapter Ten

He was avoiding her. It was the only explanation for the fact that Ava had been at the scribe house in Cappadocia for almost a week and had seen Malachi a grand total of two times. Fine. Whatever. If he was avoiding her, she refused to be sorry about it. She had other things to do.

For the first few days, she slept. For once in her life, sleep seemed to come easily. There was something about the inner voices of the Irin scribes that soothed her. Though none had the resonance that Malachi’s did, the combined chorus of their souls blended into a soothing tapestry, almost like the white noise of ocean waves. She dreamed vivid dreams where she wandered in a dark wood. Nothing about it was frightening; it was profoundly peaceful.

Her days were spent with Rhys and the oldest scribe at the house, Evren. She’d met Evren the first night, and he seemed to take Ava under his wing. He told her he was seven hundred years old, but he looked around seventy. His dark hair was sprinkled with silver and curled at the neck. His skin was olive-toned, but pale. Ava suspected he spent most of his time among the books.

“And your mother’s maiden name?” Evren asked quietly, taking notes with a pencil as Rhys typed on a computer in the library. Small windows, high in the walls, were the only bit of the outside world she saw. Like much of the oldest parts of the scribe house, the majority of the library had been dug underground into the soft volcanic rock.

“My mom was born Magdalena Russell. Lena.”

“Ethnicity?”

Ava shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know. Her family has been in America for ages. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her talk about relatives in another part of the world. I think I’m a mix of all sorts of stuff.”

Evren nodded patiently, taking more notes she couldn’t read. They were in the same rough script that marked his arms and the back of his hands. She could see similar markings peeking out from the collar of the loose shirt he wore. All the scribes were tattooed with what Rhys told her were spells to enhance different senses and control magic.

“You said she was from South Dakota originally. And your mother’s mother?”

“Just her mom?”

Evren folded his hand in a way that reminded Ava of one of her favorite undergraduate professors. “When researching the Irina, it is the female line that is important. Irina power stems from their mother’s magic. Even when tracing Irin bloodlines, we always start with the Irina. Irin scribes are the preservers of magic and knowledge, but Irina hold the creative force in our race.”

“Oh. Okay, my mom’s mom was Alice Cook. Her maiden name was Rutner. She was from Missouri. I think. I don’t know much about her. My mom and she weren’t close.”

“Your mother’s grandmother?”

“I think her first name was Sarah, but I’m not sure. We’re not big on family history. Do you need to know about my dad?”

“Probably not.” Evren smiled. “Though I’m sure that seems backward to one used to human tradition, where male bloodlines are more thoroughly documented.”

“I hadn’t really thought about it, to be honest.” At least they didn’t need to know about her dad. Jasper’s family was a total mystery.

Evren cocked his head. “Do women still take a husband’s surname in America?”

“Not always, but it’s pretty common. My mom did with Carl. That’s why I’m legally a Matheson. He adopted me after they got married.”

“Hmm.”

Ava squirmed, feeling like she was under a microscope. “How about you guys? What’s your last name?”

Rhys turned from the computer. “We don’t have surnames in our culture.”

“Isn’t that confusing? I mean, you guys live a long time.”

Both men chuckled.

“Well, I suppose it helps that we don’t have many children,” Evren said. “They’re quite rare. If we were more prolific, I suppose it could be.”

Rhys said, “We have our own ways of keeping track of family history.” He reached down and pulled off the T-shirt he wore, then he rolled his office chair toward Ava and showed her his back, which was marked with more strange writing along with the first decorative tattoo work Ava had seen. Without thinking, she reached out and traced the intricate knot work that showed a distinct Celtic influence.

“This is beautiful.” She felt his warm skin shiver underneath her fingertips, but she didn’t take her hand away. Like any casual touch from one of the Irin, the contact was calming. “What is this? Is it magic, too?”

“Yes and no.” Rhys cleared his throat. “The writing on my back is the only work I haven’t done myself. My father did it. The names down the center are my family’s. Mother first—”

“Always the mother first,” Evren said. “Because we are protected by Irina magic when we are born.”

Rhys continued. “Then my father’s name. Then my maternal grandparents and then paternal.”

“So it’s like your whole family tree, written on your body. And the design?”

“From my mother.” His voice was quiet. “It was her gift to me.”

Evren said, “An Irin mother always designs something of beauty to add to her son’s
talesm
when he leaves for his training at thirteen, then his father does the tattoo. It goes on his back, over the heart. To be matched on the front of his chest when he is mated as an adult.” Then Evren’s face fell a little. “Though my son has neither, as he was only a child when his mother died.”

The look of sorrow on Evren’s face was enough to make Ava’s heart weep. His silent voice groaned at the mention of his wife as Ava waited for the words.

Vashamacanem,
his soul whispered.

At least, that’s what it sounded like. Ava had come to think of it as the universal mantra of the grieving. She didn’t know what the phrase meant, only that she’d heard the same words from countless people around the globe. Funerals. Hospitals. It was one of the few phrases that was completely universal.

She pulled her hand away from Rhys’s back and squeezed Evren’s hand. “Where is your son? Does he live here, too?”

Evren squeezed her hand back and took a deep breath, forcing a smile. “He lives in Spain now. In a scribe house near Barcelona.”

A young man walked into the library, staring at Ava with the tentative awe she’d come to expect from most of the men. He bent down and whispered to Evren, who nodded and turned to her.

“We will have to take more notes later, Ava. I do apologize, but there is something I must tend to this afternoon.”

“Of course,” she said. “Don’t let me keep you.”

“Is there anything you need before I go? There is an English section in the library. Not large, but there are some books about local history that might interest you.”

Rhys said, “I’ll show her around, Evren.”

“Are you sure? I can find where Malachi—”

“I’m sure Rhys can keep me entertained.” Ava said, winking at the young scribe, then turning to Rhys who offered her a mischievous smile. Evren smiled knowingly as he and the young man turned to go.

When they were alone, Rhys said, “You know, scribe houses are almost as bad as sororities when it comes to gossip.”

“I’m counting on it.”

“Bad, tempting woman, you are.” He shook his head before he pulled on his shirt. “You’re going to get me stabbed. Malachi is not a man accustomed to sharing.”

“Well, then I guess he should be the one to keep me company. And you know about sororities, huh?”

“Sadly not through personal experience.” Rhys grinned. “But modern movies can be quite the education.”

“That was never my scene. Sorry. The popular girls don’t hang out with the crazy ones very often. Unless it’s to make fun of them.”

“Ava, Ava,” he muttered, throwing a casual arm around the back of her chair as they sat next to each other at the library table. “Don’t you know you’re not crazy? You’re special.” She felt him toying with an errant curl. “You’re magic, love. Someday you’ll understand how much.”

A beam of light came through a high window, flooding the room with sudden light and illuminating a mural on the other side of the library. One old man sat in the far corner, staring at the beautiful scene depicting a village bustling with life. In the six days she’d spent in the library, Ava had seen the old man do nothing else. He looked to be in his eighties or nineties, though like all the Irin, she knew he must be far older. Suddenly, she knew exactly what she wanted to do.

“Rhys?”

“Hmm?” He was staring at the mural, too.

“Will you tell me about the Rending?”

“There’s a human saying: You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. We Irin should have that tattooed on our foreheads.”

Rhys led her past the mural, toward a long hall lit with candles. On the dark wall, more images flickered from a mosaic of intricate design, made with shards of glass and pieces of pottery. Bits of stone, both precious and common, interspersed with paint and cloth and plaster. It was a confusing mixture, but as Ava stepped back, the images became clearer. She said nothing, waiting for Rhys to speak.

“It happened in the early 1800s. Things had been turbulent in human years. Wars. Revolutions. Political and social uprising. But for the Irin…” He shrugged and took a step down the hallway. “It had been an oddly peaceful few decades. Time has always moved more slowly for us. We exist among humans, but separate. We had become isolated in our own communities, for the most part. The council decided it was necessary after the madness of the medieval period in Europe.”

“Why?”

Rhys pointed to a section of the mosaic where a long-haired woman was laying hands on someone in a bed. “The Irina have always been healers. Before humans developed modern medicine, the Irina used their magic and their knowledge to help humanity. Herb lore. Wives’ tales. Those little bits of knowledge that have passed down in human custom. Much of it came from the Irina. Sadly, many humans thought their magic was evil. Some Irina were captured and executed as witches. Their families were devastated, and their mates often took revenge, killing the ignorant who had murdered their wives. Inevitably, innocents were killed, too. The council finally made the decision to isolate families so the Irina and the children could be better protected.”

“The council?”

The two had stopped near a depiction of an ominous Gothic building.

“The Irin council is in Vienna.” Rhys smiled and nodded at the Gothic building. “Everyone has their politicians, don’t they? They are ours. Once it was made up of seven scribes and seven singers—”

“Singers?”

“Irina.” He smiled again. “Their magic is in their voice. The oldest and wisest Irina would sing—” His voice broke. “The most beautiful, powerful music you can imagine. Ethereal. Their voices
are
magic. The council was always even, but once they had decided that families needed to stay in the retreats… there was conflict. Many of the Irina felt as if they were being punished for their sisters’ deaths. Many didn’t want to be isolated in the retreats. Eventually, though, it settled down. The Irin and Irina who were mated—particularly those with children—would live in retreats. Irin without mates, or with mates who were in study and meditation, worked among the humans or manned the scribe houses that preserved ancient knowledge.” He gestured around them. “Like this one. The Irin worked here. The retreats—small villages, really—were for families. There were also other Irina compounds where they went to train and study, but Irin weren’t allowed there, so I know little of those. I was raised in a retreat in Cornwall.”