Max reached for Renata’s hand under the table.
Thawra tapped the table and signed, Zana is very gifted. He was more than a carpenter. He was an artist. He sold a table for one hundred forty thousand pounds once.
“What was that?” Max asked. Renata translated for him.
Zana laughed ruefully. “It’s a good thing I changed our money to gold. That much in Syrian pounds wouldn’t even buy the lumber for that table anymore.”
Max asked, “Where you able to bring some money out?”
Zana nodded. “I have some savings. I always kept gold. I’ve lived too long not to know how quickly things can change. But we have no papers, and I’m sure any gold I exchange would not be the correct value on the… informal market. So I’ve tried to save as much as possible.”
Max glanced at Renata. “I think we can help fix the papers situation.”
She nodded. “Max is very good at that. Scribes need new papers regularly for brothers who have outlived their current documents.”
Thawra and Zana’s eyes went wide. “What?” he asked. “You can get us papers?”
“I’ll give you Austrian citizenship,” Max said. “They’re an EU country, so you’ll have options. I have plenty of connections in Vienna that can help. And health insurance cards, of course.”
Thawra slapped a hand over her mouth but couldn’t stop the choking gasp that came from her throat. Tears of relief fell from her eyes and she started to shake.
Evin cried, “Mama, what’s wrong?”
Zana threw his arms around his mate. “Thawra, shhh.” He looked at Max with fierce eyes. “I can pay you.”
“You don’t need to pay him,” Renata said. “Your family needs help. We can’t solve the problems of the whole world, but we can do this. With papers, you’ll be able to find work. Carpentry is a skilled trade. You can get Evin in school. Thawra can have proper health care for her and the baby.”
Max squeezed her hand. “Save your money, Zana. This is simply the decent thing to do.”
Renata noticed Evin close her eyes and press her fingers to her temples. Her little face was scrunched up.
Poor thing.
Not only hearing voices, but also the emotions of those around her. No child should have to sort through the complex emotional maze in the kitchen. Renata rose and held out her hand.
“Evin, come with me for a moment, will you?”
Zana asked, “Where—?”
“Don’t worry. I am going to teach her a simple shielding spell I learned at her age. One little song. It will help with the voices. It might also help shield her from emotional waves. I don’t know for sure as I’m not an empath, but we can try.”
Evin’s small forehead was furrowed. “What’s an empath? I don’t know that word.”
Thawra signed, Are you sure?
“About the voices? Yes. It’s very simple. I’ll work on more complex spells for you and the baby later. But for now, I can teach her a children’s song that will help with the voices. The emotional shielding, I’m not sure about, but I’ll look.”
It was past time she refreshed herself and delved into the well of memory she’d spent half her life developing. She knew there were spells she’d learned for Chamuel’s daughters. That was part of an archivist’s job. She just had to find the trigger to remember them.
Renata led Evin back to the library and sat next to her on the couch.
“Okay, I’m going to teach you a little song, and I want you to sing it just like I do. It has to be exact. Do you think you can do that?”
Evin nodded. “I’m very clever.”
Renata smiled. “I know you are.”
Even reached out and took her hand. “You’re loud.”
Renata blinked. “What?”
“You’re very loud. You have…” Evin squeezed Renata’s hand and sucked in a breath. In a heartbeat, her little face crumpled. “They hurt your heart too,” she said as tears ran down her face. “Like Mama. They hurt your heart too.”
Evin’s small hand clutched hers, and Renata was torn between pulling back and comforting the child, who had started to sob. A moment of hesitation and Renata pulled Evin into her arms, wrapping herself around the little girl who cried as if her heart was breaking.
“Pull back, Evin. Do you know how to pull back?”
Evin pressed her cheek to Renata’s and whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Renata gasped as the pain struck her chest. Without thought or will, the past rose up and stabbed her, sucking her into a howling storm of memory as the child clutched her neck.
There was laughter and the smell of cinnamon and pine.
Lights and singing.
Then the screaming came.
Her mother’s gut-wrenching sobs.
“The children! Renata, where are the children?”
Wails and the sickening scent of sandalwood and blood. Her father’s groan of anguish.
“It can’t be. It can’t be. No, it cannot be.”
“We were gone.” Balien’s hollow voice. “I left them. I left them alone.”
Her father’s soul.
Silent.
Her mother’s soul.
Silent.
The last roar of her lover’s voice.
“Renata, you must run!”
Then silence.
Silence.
Silence.
Silence.
Let me die. I do not want to live. Let me die with them. Let me die and go to them. Give me peace.
A sickening whisper in her mind. “There is no peace now.”
Renata felt the scream rip from her chest as raw sorrow sprang from her mind and into the dusty air of the library. In the distance, she heard running steps and could only think of Grigori running up the stairs. She fell to the ground and felt the little girl crouch beside her.
“I’m sorry,” the little girl whispered again. “I’m sorry.”
10
Max burst into the library and came to a halt, not understanding what he was seeing before him. He’d heard the child crying. Heard Renata’s screams.
His lover was writhing on the ground, curled into the fetal position as the little girl knelt beside her. Evin had her hands on Renata’s cheeks, and tears poured down her face, which was set in grim determination. The child looked up as soon as Max and Zana ran in.
“Evin, what are you doing?” Zana yelled at his daughter.
Max knelt and lifted Renata in his arms, but Evin kept her hands on Renata’s cheeks.
“The sick”—she sniffed through her tears—“it had to come out. Her heart was hurt.”
Empath. Max could see the little girl’s skin growing pale even as her golden eyes glowed brighter and brighter.
He said, “Evin, her hurt is too much. You need to stop.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I can make it better. Someone has to make it better.”
Max heard someone else come in the library, but he couldn’t turn from Evin’s eyes.
“Let her go.” It was a woman’s voice, rasping and unused. “Evin, let go.”
The little girl shook her head. Max held Renata in one arm and gently took Evin’s small hand from Renata’s skin.