The large living area narrowed to a hallway that led to several locked rooms, a cozy music room with instruments hanging on the walls—including a finely carved guitar Max itched to play—and the downstairs washroom. As promised, there was running water, but the taps were cold. He’d have to boil water for a bath later. Renata led him past the wood-paneled hallway and beyond a heavy oak door.
“The renters don’t get access to the caves,” she said.
“Do they ask?”
“Most don’t. If they do, the manager tells them it’s storage.”
An ancient iron lock hung on the door. Renata unlocked it and pulled the door open. Max could feel the temperature drop the moment they stepped through. His breath frosted in the air as Renata shut the heavy door and handed him a lamp. He lit it and held it high. There were torches affixed to the walls. Renata walked to them and whispered something. One by one, the torches lit and a smooth passageway of polished rock was revealed.
“It gets warmer once you go deeper into the mountain,” Renata said as they walked. “There are thermal springs. If I keep the door open, the house will heat this hallway, but it seems like a waste of energy most of the time.”
Max ran his hands across the polished limestone in the tunnel. “Are there any scrolls left?”
“No. There is still magic in the caves though. The spells carved on the rocks weren’t defaced. They were cut too deeply. I doubt the Grigori knew what they were to begin with.”
As they walked, Max began to see the magic scribes had cut into the rock. Like the ritual room in Istanbul, the carved words in the Old Language were familiar, though the style of the writing was not. Max recognized spells meant to protect the caves and the knowledge within. Saw other, more practical spells, to ward off humidity, cold, and ice. He felt the passage grow warmer, but the air remained fresh and dry.
“Ventilation?” he asked.
“Extensive,” Renata answered. “The caves probably took centuries to perfect. Even today, if you wanted to live in them, they wouldn’t be uncomfortable. Chilly, but not freezing. The Irina builders used the air from the thermal springs to heat the rooms but allowed enough ventilation that the library never became too damp.”
“Amazing.”
“Yes.” She opened another heavy door, this one wasn’t locked, and lifted her lamp high. Then Renata walked to the center of the room, took a box of matches from her pocket, and lit a central hearth. Within seconds, the fire and a series of mirrors along the walls lit the room with a warm gold glow.
Max turned, taking it all in. It was a round cave with deep alcoves cut to hold scrolls and for storage. Wooden bookshelves had been made to line the walls, but they lay empty save for a few volumes that looked more human-made than Irin. Heavy wooden scribe tables sat empty, their inkwells long dry. A light coating of dust marked the benches and chairs. A well-worn sofa and reading chairs sat near the hearth.
“Who keeps it?” Max asked. The room was deserted, but it wasn’t a wreck.
“Me.” She walked around the room. “We didn’t have time right after, but eventually Mala and I came back here and she helped me. I burned most everything that was left.”
Max tried to imagine what it must have been like, clearing out the wreckage of a home and the remains of her dead community. Though their dead turned to dust, Irin still bled. There would have been blood and empty clothing. Furniture would have been wrecked and broken. Food left to spoil. Animal remains. She had cleared out the wreckage of a destroyed home with the help of a single friend. Max would have to remember to kiss Mala in gratitude the next time he saw her. She’d probably stab him, but that was fine.
Renata walked back to an arched hallway, taking her lamp with her. Max followed her as she pointed out different rooms. Storage. Humble sleeping quarters for Rafaene scribes. A playroom for the children. A ritual room where the sacred fire would have been tended before it had been snuffed out by violence.
“The caves were probably where the first Irin lived,” Renata said. “Long before the house was built. Look at this.” She entered a large alcove with intricately carved designs decorating it and turned to face Max with a smile. “Go back to the reading room.”
He raised an eyebrow but turned and did what she said.
When he arrived, he turned. “I’m here!” he shouted.
“Can you hear me?” Her voice was soft. She hadn’t shouted, but the sound had carried to every corner of the reading room.
“I can.” He spun around the room with a smile. It was as if the sound of her voice surrounded him. “What is it? Speaking tubes?”
“Acoustics,” Renata said, still at the end of the hallway. “When we—when my mother would sing a history, she would stand here so everyone could hear her. The acoustics of the hall carried it. The angles of the reading room magnified it. When my mother sang, she didn’t sound like a single voice. She sounded like a chorus.”
Max sat on the edge of the table. “Sing to me,” he whispered.
“What?”
He walked back toward her. “That must have been incredible.”
“It was.” She stepped out of the alcove and turned right, stopping dead in her tracks as the hallway branched.
“What is it?”
She held up a lamp. “This is the hallway where the classrooms were.”
“Let’s look.” Max took her hand and lifted his lamp, intrigued by a scent he’d caught in the air coming from the hallway.
Renata didn’t move.
“Reni?”
“This is where the children ran,” she said. “We found their clothes in the room at the end of this hall. There were six children here when they came. Four girls and two boys.”
He didn’t try to make her move. “And they ran to their classroom.”
She nodded.
Max didn’t wait for permission. He enfolded Renata in his arms and held her tight. She was frozen, but he kept holding her.
“Did you ever let yourself grieve?” he whispered.
“There wasn’t time to grieve.”
“There hasn’t been time in two hundred years?”
“It’s useless,” she said, pulling away from his arms. “After a while… it’s useless.”
No, it wasn’t, but it would take time for her to see that. Max was starting to understand Renata’s walls. She’d never really allowed herself any kind of family after losing this one. She’d become part of the Irina community in exile, but only peripherally. She had a few friends—a very few—but she didn’t live with them. She worked constantly, rarely staying in one place, even her own flat, more than a month.
“Our time in Vienna,” he asked quietly, “was that the first time?”
She frowned. “What?”
“Was that the first time since the Rending that you’d shared a home with someone?”