The Silent(14)

Kyra said, “I don’t know why I’ve lived as long as I have. Any time—”

“None of us are guaranteed time.” Sura stopped and Kyra realized they’d reached her cottage. “You have to live while you can, Kyra. Not a single one of us is guaranteed tomorrow. We cannot predict the future. Trying to do so only leads to arrogance and selfishness. Exist in the present. Live in the present. If your heart is leading you to someone, it is a gift, not a burden.”

Kyra blushed. “Sura, I know he’s your brother, but I don’t think my feelings for Niran—”

“I wasn’t talking about Niran.” Sura smiled. “I think I would like to meet this scribe friend of yours. Tomorrow night, maybe?”

Kyra narrowed her eyes. “Are you trying to cause trouble?”

“Trouble is life made interesting, isn’t it?” Sura said, backing up the path. “So yes. Maybe I’m trying to cause trouble. Sleep well, sister. I’ll calm Niran down by morning.”



Kyra stopped a block away from the hotel.

“What are you doing?” Sura asked. He frowned, his hands in his pockets. This night, he wore loose linen pants and a white dress shirt. With his head shaved, he still looked monk-like. “This is the way to the hotel. I’ve walked past it before.”

“I’m…” Nervous. Excited. Confused. Eager. Unsure. Kyra cleared her throat and tried to stop her heart from pounding out of her chest. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“You trust this scribe?”

“Yes.” Of that she was certain. Never had Leo given her any reason to distrust him.

Sura paused. “I think you are hesitating because of feelings you may have for him as a man. However, we also need to ask him what interest the Bangkok scribe house has in us. I’ve wondered for some time if they would be suspicious of our practice of Sak Yant on Grigori because it helps us control our magic.”

“But it makes you less violent. Controls your instincts.”

“Exactly,” Sura said. “Which is good for our city, but also could make us a greater threat in their eyes.”

That hadn’t even occurred to Kyra. Would the Irin scribe houses actually sabotage free Grigori to keep them from harnessing their magic for good?

Kyra started walking again. “Sirius has complained that the Irin will not teach free Grigori their magic, but I cannot imagine they would keep the Grigori completely at the mercy of their basest instincts.”

“I’m sure the most honorable of them—like your Leo—would not.” Sura sidestepped a large family exiting a restaurant. It was nighttime again, and the lanterns strung across the street glowed with cheerful red light. “But not all Irin are honorable.”

“You’re talking about the ones who tried to take Prija?”

Sura had told Kyra about the attempted abduction that morning at breakfast. Prija often wandered, but she usually stayed in the forest. This particular time, she’d walked toward the human village and the small temple where the locals worshipped. No one was certain whether the Irin scribes had been looking for Grigori or if it was purely a coincidence, but two men with heavy tattoos on their arms had tried to grab Prija and take her toward a car. She had screamed, causing both the men to bleed from their ears and run back into the forest. It took four days to find her. Some of the humans in the village had told Niran about the episode when they heard a girl had gone missing.

Sura said, “There are good and bad people everywhere. The Irin have a culture that promotes honor. We can learn from that. But that doesn’t make them perfect, just as our birth doesn’t condemn us to being demons.”

Kyra saw the sign for the hotel. Having a list of questions helped Kyra conquer her nerves, but the butterflies in her stomach didn’t settle completely. “So we need to ask about why the Bangkok house is watching you.”

“And also find answers for Prija if possible.”

“That happened over a year ago,” Kyra said. “He might not know anything about it.”

“But whoever is with him would.”

“Leo said he was alone.”

“No.” Sura smiled a little. “Niran said he claimed to have no other scribes with him.”

“You mean…”

“The Bangkok house is well known for their female warriors,” Sura said. “I’m surprised it escaped Niran’s attention. There.” Sura pointed at a high, nondescript gate across the road. “This is where we must knock.”

“But the hotel sign is here.”

“That is only for show. This hotel is very discreet.” Sura knocked at the wooden gate. “This is where he will be staying.”

Within moments, the garden gate cracked open and a short woman with neat silver hair offered Sura a polite wai in greeting. They exchanged a few words of Thai, and the woman shook her head. Sura spoke again, this time in a longer string of words. He motioned to Kyra and said something else. Seeing Kyra turned the woman’s face from polite reluctance to cheerful welcome. She opened the gate and waved them inside, offering another wai before she escorted them across a small bridge and toward two low houses that sat on the other end of a garden.

More lanterns burned there, along with candles and the distinct tang of mosquito coils and lemongrass. Sura spoke to the hostess, who nodded and walked away, leaving them in the candlelit garden where a bubbling fountain was the only background music.

“She says our friends are the quiet sort, but they told her they might have visitors, though they only mentioned you.”

“I’m glad she didn’t kick you out.” Kyra rubbed her palms on the long flowing skirt she wore. She’d told herself not to take extra time with her appearance, then utterly failed and checked her reflection at least a dozen times.

She’d lost weight since she saw him in Rěkaves. The past year had been stressful, and she often forgot to eat. Her face was thin and tan, and her hair was bleached from the sun. She looked like one of the girls on the beaches of the Black Sea who came and stayed on the sand for too long, though her skin was still soft and didn’t resemble leather like theirs.

“You look lovely,” Sura said quietly.

“It’s not important.” Kyra shook her head. “It’s never been important.”

Sura looked at her.

“What?”

“It bothers you,” he said. “Being beautiful.”

Kyra had known from a young age that she was far more beautiful than most women. It was an accident of angelic blood, yet she was given respect and privileges for no other reason than her looks. After living with her own beauty for so long—being the object of lust for so many while constantly sensing their true thoughts—superficial beauty felt like a burden she would happily lay down given the chance.

“It’s nothing I’ve done,” she said. “I’m like a pretty, useless vase bought to decorate a shelf. An object.”

“I think you are unfair to both yourself and to the vase.”

She scoffed. “I’m being unfair to the vase?”

Sura looked up. “Look at these lanterns. These flowers. Creating more beauty in the world is never a bad thing if it is offered freely and accepted with grace. There is something beautiful about desiring to please another when it is not an obligation. It can be a gift we give those we love.”

His perspective humbled Kyra. “I’ve never thought about it that way.”

“I’m sure Leo sees what I see,” Sura said. “A gifted woman with a generous heart. That is the most beautiful thing of all.”

“I’m sure he sees—”

“You.” A voice came from the other end of the garden. Leo stepped out from the shadows. His face was glowing. “I see you.”

Her heart seized again, just like it had at the market the previous night. Would he ever stop having this effect on her? It was very disconcerting.

“Sura,” Kyra said, “this is Leo. Leo, please meet Sura, Niran’s brother.”

Leo blinked and tore his eyes from Kyra. “Sura,” he said, walking toward them with an outstretched hand. “It is a pleasure to meet any friend of Kyra’s.”

“I feel exactly the same way,” Sura said. “Join us for a beer?”

“You must be the calm one.” Leo grinned. “I’d love to.”



“That’s the reason I came,” Leo said, talking loudly to shout over the band playing at the end of the street. “They knew you were here and they knew you were patrolling the city regularly. They want to open a dialogue. See if you’re open to cooperation.”

Sura nodded. “And this is something you have practice in?”

“Leo and his cousin Maxim have coordinated with my brothers for years now,” Kyra said, leaning over the table. “They seem to work well together.”

“Not that Kostas can stand me,” Leo said. “He doesn’t like anyone who is too interested in Kyra.”

She blushed, but Sura answered as if Leo had said nothing extraordinary. “Kyra’s brothers reached out to us asking for information. We wanted something in return.”

“Which was?”

Kyra said, “They have sisters of their own. Four of them. The youngest is only thirteen. They’d heard that I could teach them to shield their minds.”