The Secret
Page 54

“It’s perfectly good coffee, and there’s one right downstairs from my flat?”
“We’re in Vienna.” He pulled open the wood-and-brass door and the happy scent of roasted coffee, sugar, and flour assaulted him. “If I have to put up with the politics, I should at least take advantage of the coffee.”
“Anything is better than that mud you make at home.”
The waiter looked up from his newspaper and nodded toward a table in the corner. Malachi and Rhys both unwrapped their scarves and coats to hang them by the door. Winter had come with a vengeance, and icy wind bit his cheeks. A few flurries of snow had dusted the sidewalk the night before, but he had a feeling they wouldn’t last.
“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.”