“Nor should it,” Kostas said, looking at Malachi.
He tensed, realizing the man had heard his thoughts. “You’re telepathic?”
Kostas shook his head. “Not truly. I hear whispers of thoughts every now and then. Barak’s children sometimes do. If I’d had training from my father, I might know more.”
“They offer you no teaching at all?” Malachi could hardly believe it. Knowledge was revered in Irin culture. Training started before children could speak. It was given in playful verses and songs from the time they were born. The teaching of magic was an Irin parent’s primary responsibility.
“They do not teach us, or they cannot,” Kostas said. “We don’t know. I’m certain they wouldn’t, even if they could. It would make us more powerful. And if we were more powerful—”
“You might be harder to control,” Malachi said. “But why are your sisters considered more dangerous than their brothers?”
“They hear things,” Kostas said, his voice low. “Sometimes they say things. Dangerous things they have no idea how to control. Many are unwell in their minds. Tormented by—”
“Voices,” Malachi said, glancing at Ava. “If they are like our women, they hear the soul voices of humanity.”
“Obviously your women have a way to control it. Ours do not. My sister… I try to keep her as isolated as I can. She wanted to come and meet your mate, though I advised against it.”
“Ava was the same.” Malachi offered that one comfort. “Before we found her. She survived.”
Kostas took a deep breath. “I love my sister. I cannot remember a time when I did not. Even when my father was alive. Barak was… negligent. He didn’t kill his daughters, but they were sent away. He had places that were mostly prisons. Those who escaped were left alone, but then they were at the mercy of the humans. Yet his negligence was still better than most of the Fallen. Many infant daughters, even if they aren’t killed, die of neglect when their mothers give birth to male children.”
“Why?”
“Because we kill our mothers,” Kostas said. “Simply by existing.”
Malachi tasted acid at the back of his throat.
“Don’t you understand?” Kostas continued. “Your ancestors were forgiven because they recognized the truth: Angels don’t belong here. Their children—all of us—never should have existed. We are abominations. They left because they knew that, so the Creator had mercy on the Irin. My people?” Kostas leaned back. “We received no mercy. We don’t deserve it. We’re all murderers before we can speak.”
The man’s self-loathing was so evident Malachi had a difficult time condemning him further.
Max leaned forward and said, “You fight to make things better, my friend.”
Kostas gave him a rueful smile. “I would call you my friend, Maxim, but for your willful ignorance of the truth.”
“It’s not ignorance. I simply don’t judge you as harshly as you judge yourself.”
“I saved Kyra,” Kostas said to Malachi. “I have been able to save a few others. I protect them. That is my penance for the lives I’ve taken. The harm I’ve done.”
“How many women?” Malachi asked. “How many do you protect?”
“I don’t trust you that much, Scribe. No matter who you are mated to.”
“When I finally discovered it,” Max said, “I knew I had to tell you. For Ava.”
Malachi narrowed his eyes at Max. “You think Ava is Grigori?”
“No. Yes?” Max said. “I don’t know. I see more in common than different.”
Malachi’s eyes turned to Ava and Kyra. He could see it, see the similarities, but he could also see profound differences. Ava didn’t look inhuman, as Kyra did. Her skin wasn’t as pale or as luminous. Her eyes were the same, but she was no ethereal creature. His mate had a delicate, yet earthy, beauty.
“I don’t think she is, Max.”
“There’s something…,” Kostas said. “Her eyes drew me at first. But I agree. Your mate does not look like our women.”
“She’s at least half human. Her mother is fully human, but her father is not. That may be the connection.”
“Is her father Grigori?” Kostas asked. “Some of us are able to father children with human women. Some have enough control.”
“He doesn’t smell it. Or look it. Though there is something different about him.”
“Reed’s mother,” Max said. “That has to be the connection. Ava’s grandmother must have Grigori blood.”
Malachi said, “We’ve been trying to find her, but we haven’t had much success. Could she be one of yours?”
Kostas took a deep breath and frowned. “If she is, I’d have no way of knowing without meeting her. No records are kept in our world, particularly for females. The ones who survive are mostly in the human population because they’re safer there.”
“Safer?” Malachi asked. “Among humans who think they’re insane?”
“They can’t hurt humans as the males do, so they can often blend in. It’s better than what faces them among the Fallen.”
“Do you have any idea how many might be out there?” Malachi asked. “How many… Grigora?”
“The Fallen call them Grigora. They call themselves kareshta. The silent ones.”
“Silent ones?”
“Those who make it through childhood learn to be silent. Not to use their voices. It’s their only chance of surviving in our world.”
Kareshta.
Kostas continued, “I would estimate only two—maybe three births in ten are female. The Fallen tend to create male children. Some have no daughters at all. Whatever genetics are in play, women are rare.”
“Only four in ten Irin children are female,” Max said. “We have no idea why. It’s always been that way.”
Kostas said, “Of that twenty percent, more than half are probably killed at birth. There could be hundreds. Thousands, counting all the minor angels. We have no way of knowing. Most of them are in the human world. Free Grigori like us who shelter the kareshta will only shelter those whose fathers are dead.”
“What?” Malachi asked. “Why?”
“Security,” Kostas said with a grimace. “If our sires are alive, they can find us. It doesn’t matter where we go. Only those whose sires are confirmed dead are allowed. Almost all the women I shelter are my sisters. I cannot risk them. Too many of the Fallen are trying to kill me.”
“Why?” Malachi asked. “Barak is dead. Why do they care what you do?”
“My mere existence is heresy. I’m the one telling the Grigori they can live without reducing themselves to murderous animals. That there is another way.”
“But not a way the Fallen are happy about.”
“How could they be?” Kostas asked. “In order for the Grigori to be free, the Fallen must die.”
“I’M not kareshta,” Ava said later as they lay in bed. “I thought at first that I was, but I’m not.”
They’d avoided the scribe house in Sofia, not wanting to explain their presence if it might compromise Max’s promise of secrecy to Kostas and Kyra. Instead, they’d found a small hotel near the highway and taken two rooms. They were threadbare, but clean.
“You’re not kareshta, but…?”
“There is something. Kyra feels familiar. Her voice sounds right, if that makes any sense.”
“Her magic feels the same as yours.”
“Yes, I think that’s it.”
Malachi hadn’t said anything, but he’d sensed the same thing. More, Kostas’s sister gave off the same nervous energy that Ava had been drowning in before she’d learned to shield herself from the soul voices of the humans around her.