If Kyra had tried imagining Leo’s grandfather, she would have imagined an older, white-haired, bushy-bearded version of her mate. And her imagination would have been very close to reality. Artis of Dunte, elder scribe and master smith, sat in a round chair facing the sun. He was a tall man, his long legs stretched out in front of him. He was a little stooped by age and displayed no apparent signs of sickness.

But Kyra could see what the others could not. Artis was not sick; he was tired.

She had seen the same look on countless Grigori and kareshta faces in her life. Unlike the Irin, who could harness magic to prolong their lives infinitely, children of the Fallen all died eventually. They lived longer than humans, but with no Forgiven magic to prolong their life, they were mortal. They persisted in perfect health, untouched by old age, until one day they simply ran out, like a toy whose workings had broken from too much use. Sometimes they lingered in a coma for a few days or their heart would give out suddenly. Then they would return to the heavens, a swirl of dust rising in the air.

If Leo had not mated with Kyra, sharing his magic with her, it would have been her own fate as well.

Artis opened his eyes and turned his face from the sun as Kyra entered the library with a tray of warm bread spread with butter and mugs of fresh milk. The corner of his mouth turned up. It reminded Kyra of Max.

He said, “The food of the angels.”

“Bread?”

“Bread.” He rose and walked to the table. “Fresh bread and milk.”

“Turkish people consider bread sacred, but they eat so much meat.” Kyra set the tray on the table. “I’m not accustomed to it. I prefer bread.”

“Turks are a herding people,” Artis said, sitting down in the smooth wooden chair. “Herding people eat meat. We are farming and fishing people here. We eat fish and what we can grow.”

“And milk.” Kyra sat across from him and raised her mug.

Artis lifted his mug to her. “And milk. The best milk in the world.”

It was delicious milk. She’d visited the market in town their first afternoon at the farm to gather supplies. Eggs, milk, and all the vegetables they could eat could be found at the farm, but they needed flour to bake bread. Oil to cook. A bit of meat, though Leo and Max—normally heavy meat eaters—were happy to eat the egg-and-vegetable frittata Renata had baked the night before supplemented by the smoked fish Peter had caught.

“This place reminds me of a farm we stayed at in Germany. There were apples in the cellar and cabbage in the garden.” Kyra had explored everything, including the path that led from the woods and meadows down to the ocean. “I was young then. My father had a compound there.”

“Barak?” Artis’s lip no longer curled at the name. “Did you stay there with your brother?”

“Yes.”

“The Grigori?”

“Yes, my brothers are all Grigori,” Kyra repeated. “Free Grigori.”

Artis grunted and bit into his bread. The night before when Leo had told his grandfather Kyra’s parentage, the reaction had been involuntary and instant. It hadn’t surprised Kyra, though Leo and Max had been offended. Barak was one of the Fallen, a sworn enemy of the Irin scribes, and she was his daughter. Even if her sire had redeemed himself in his death, Artis had lived for hundreds of years seeing Barak’s children as deadly enemies.

“We get news,” he said. “We do get news up here. That young watcher in Riga forces it on us. Visits once a month whether we want him or not. So I know what you are.”

Kyra leaned her elbow on the table. “I know what you are too.”

“A stubborn, narrow-minded old man?”

“My mate’s grandfather,” she said. “And… the monster in the night.”

Artis sat up straight. “We weren’t the monsters.”

Kyra shrugged. “My sisters and I didn’t know that. The only ones who protected us were our brothers. Sometimes they went out at night and didn’t come back because of the scribes. I didn’t know why. I only knew they were gone and it was because of the tattooed men.”

“Hmm.” Clearly Artis hadn’t thought of life from Grigori perspective. He peered at her from beneath bushy eyebrows. “Do his talesm frighten you?”

“Leo’s?” Kyra was surprised. Artis was the first scribe to ever ask her that. Even Leo hadn’t thought of it. “At first they frightened me very much. All of them did. But not anymore. I love Leo, and his talesm are part of who he is.”

“As it should be.”

His gruff response belied the thoughtful look in his blue eyes. They were the same blue as Leo and Max’s. Vivid sky blue that always made Kyra feel as if she were sitting in sunshine when Leo looked at her.

“Leo and Max have your eyes.”

“Both my grandsons look very much like me.” Artis set down his milk. “Leo is broader like his father, and Max is thinner like his.”

Kyra thought of all the questions she and Renata had discussed between them when Leo and Max weren’t around. “Who was Max’s father? We know his name but not who he was.”

“He was a troublemaker!” Artis coughed out a laugh. “And wasn’t he the perfect match for my Stasya? I always wanted her to find a steady one like Lauma found with Peteris. Thought it might calm her down. But Ivo’s father ordered a sword from me and Ivo came to fetch it.” Artis’s hand slammed down on the table, making Kyra jump. “And that was that. Reshon. I could see it in the both of them the first time they met. Stasya and Ivo were both wild things. Wild for each other. Wild for life.”

Artis closed his eyes at the memory, and Kyra watched his face droop. The man who could be so vital when he spoke looked frail and ephemeral in silence.

“How long have you been fading?” Kyra asked.

Artis opened his eyes. “I stopped my longevity spells the day Leo and Max left for the academy.”

“A hundred years?”

He cleared his throat. “More.”

Once he had stopped his longevity spells, Artis had begun to fade just as Kyra’s Grigori brothers did. It made sense. Artis was old, but he still appeared in near-perfect health. His soul was aging, not his body. The truth was in his eyes.

Kyra decided to change the subject. “What about Leo? Were his parents reshon too?”

Artis shook his head. “I don’t know. They didn’t speak of it if they were. Peteris was so quiet. He was sent from Riga to apprentice with me. Did he tell you that?”

“No,” Kyra said. “He doesn’t speak much.”

“He doesn’t speak at all.” Renata walked in from the kitchen with her own plate. “Unless he’s talking about the farm or swords. Kyra, this bread is delicious.”

“Thank you for making the butter.”

“Eh.” Renata sat down. “I made Max do it. He was out of practice.”

The old man cackled.

“Don’t tell me you know how to churn butter, old man,” Renata said. “You were probably just like my father. Pathetic at household chores.”

“And you’re like my Stasya,” Artis reached over and pinched the air in front of her. “Bite, bite, bite. But I know how to make butter. I know how to do everything to keep young boys fed.”

Of course he did. There hadn’t been anyone else.

“Keep telling stories,” Renata said. “Heaven knows Max and Leo haven’t told us anything.”

From what Kyra could tell, Max and Leo didn’t know. They didn’t speak about the past in this family, but age and impending death had loosened Artis’s tongue.

He said, “I don’t think I heard Lauma and Peter say a dozen words to each other in the year he was working with me.” Artis let out a weak cough. “But then Lauma marches in here—this very room—and says, ‘Tēti! Peteris and I will be mated in two weeks. Be sure to send the letter to his family.’ And that was that.” He shrugged massive shoulders. “Peter was the same solemn scribe he’d ever been, but he smiled at Lauma and Lauma adored him.” He nodded at Kyra. “She looked at him the way you look at Leo. So yes, maybe they were reshon. How to make sense of it otherwise?”

“You had two daughters,” Renata said. “No other children?”

Artis’s eyes lost focus. “How could we have asked for more? With blessings like those two? We tempted fate, I think.”

“Why?” Renata asked. “Because they died? Many died. My whole family died. You had two grandsons remaining. And a son-in-law. You were luckier than most.”

Artis raised his eyebrows. “You have a sharp tongue.”

“And?”

“Keep a whetstone handy. You’ll need a sharp tongue with Maxim.”

Renata laughed, and Kyra couldn’t hide her smile. Renata reached for Artis’s empty plate. “I’ll get you more.” She rose and left the room.

“I’m not hungry,” he said. “But I do enjoy being fussed over.”

“Shall I get you more milk?” Kyra rose, but Artis grabbed her wrist. It startled Kyra, and she felt a jolt of energy move from her skin to his. “Artis?”

He released her immediately. “So much power,” he said, flexing his hand. “Do you burn him when he touches you, daughter of the Fallen?”

Kyra bit back her first response. He was an old man, set in his ways. “I would never hurt Leo. He is the other part of me.”

Artis raised his eyes. “You have gold eyes like my Evelina. Even brighter than hers.”

“She had Leoc’s blood?” Ava had told her only those with Leoc’s blood retained the amber gold color of angelic eyes.

Artis’s eyes narrowed. “She had a touch.”

It was more than a touch. Kyra said, “You said she was a baker.”

“She was a baker because she wanted to be a baker. But she saw things too. Her parents didn’t want her leaving the village, so they didn’t force her into seer training.”

“But is that why she was killed? Because she was a seer?”

Artis drew back. “They were all killed. Not for any reason. Simply to break us, I think.”

She could see him drawing into himself. He turned his face back into the sun that filled the corner of the room and closed his eyes. She felt the weight of his grief like an old wound. It no longer bled, it ached, begging to be relieved.

A week. If that. Kyra had seen those weary eyes before.

Artis would be gone within a week.

* * *

Renata couldn’t find Max in the house, so she went out to the woods and followed the trail that led down to the sea. She stepped on the worn path, letting the breeze surround her, and followed it down a small hill toward the sound of water and seagulls.

When the sun touched her skin, she could feel the summer warmth, but more often she walked in the crisp cool of the pines. She hadn’t found any occupied houses for miles. There seemed to be a few vacation homes along this stretch of the coast, but they were all empty.

Forest gave way to rolling dunes covered in grass and low green shrubs. Max sat on a rise of sand, his hands braced behind him, staring at the tide washing out. The ocean was grey that afternoon. In the distance, the deeper blue of the water gave way to a bright, cloud-spotted sky.

She walked behind her mate and sat down, stretching her legs on either side and wrapping her arms around his back. Max leaned into her, loosely holding her hands over his heart.

Renata leaned down and whispered, “Did all the butter-churning wear you out? I promise I’ll be more gentle next time.”

Max’s chest rumbled with a laugh. “Woman…” He sighed. “You give me peace.”

“I love you.” It still thrilled her every time she said it. She pressed her cheek to his temple and let him lean on her, borrowing her strength.

They’d made love silently the night before. Quiet tenderness as she wrapped her arm around his shoulders and pressed her lips to his neck. They had eased each other into release, falling asleep with arms and legs entwined, holding on to each other even as they slept.

Max was so brash. So confident. But not in Dunte. Not in the shadow of his uncle and grandfather, who lived with the ghosts of their people.

“Artis is fading,” Renata said. “Kyra said it will be a week at most.”

“And when he dies,” Max said, “Leo will be the last of my family.”

“Peter?”

“Is not my blood,” he said. “Has never been my blood. He barely tolerated me when I was a child. I don’t know why. Then again, he’s not much friendlier to Leo.”

“Your father’s people?”

“I don’t know who they are. My father’s name was Ivo and he was from Normandy, but that’s all I know.”

“Have you looked?”

“Yes. There are very few records. It doesn’t matter. Even if I found them, they aren’t my family. Only Leo is.”

“And me.”

He hooked his arms around her knees and pulled her closer. Renata leaned into his back and rested her head on his shoulder.

“You are my heart and soul,” he said. “But no one will ever know me like Leo. No one else knows what it was like to grow up as we did, strangers in our own house, a shadow hanging over us. Why did we survive when our mothers and the rest of the village didn’t? Who saved us? We’ll probably never know.”

“Kareshta?”

“I told you, I remember a boy.”

“But,” she reminded him gently, “you were a baby—truly an infant—when the Rending happened. Perhaps your memory—”

“It’s real,” Max said. “He was real. And the wolves. Wolves have a scent, and it’s different from dogs. I recognized it as soon as I smelled it as an adult. I was in the woods in Russia and I smelled wolves, and I knew. I knew because he kept them in the house.”

Renata said nothing more. Max was as stubborn as she was. It was ridiculous to argue with him about something that had happened over two hundred years ago. It didn’t matter. He’d lost his mother and father before he could remember them. He was losing his grandfather now.

“You’re sad,” she said.

“Yes. And… angry.”

“Why?”

He ran his hands up and down her arms, stroking from her wrists to the tender skin at the curve of her elbow. “Why did he only send for us now? I sent him a letter when we mated. Leo sent his father a letter when he mated with Kyra. He’s sent Artis a letter every time we’ve moved posts. There was never a response. But now he calls us back for this? To watch him die?”

“There are songs,” Renata said. “Songs for the dying. For those who are ready to return to our fathers. Think about how many scribes have lived without those songs at the end of their lives. For thousands of years they have been part of our passage, but so many missed them. Perhaps Artis overcame his fear of the past so he could leave the earth as his ancestors did.”

“Artis isn’t afraid of anything.” Max’s voice hardened. “But I do think you’re right. He didn’t send for me and Leo. He sent for you. For Kyra.”

“Max, that’s not what I meant.”

“No? It makes sense.” He closed his eyes and lay back, settling into the curve of her body. “If I were him, I’d call for you too. You’re a much prettier view.”

“Max—”

“Can we not talk about it?” He closed his eyes and turned them toward the sun. “For a while, can we just be?”

She took a deep breath and hugged him tighter. “Yes.”

* * *

Kyra walked up the stairs, carrying a tray of bread and meat she’d bought in the village the day before. She could hear the rhythmic ticking of a grandfather clock in the hall and muttering from the bedroom she and Leo shared. She tapped on the bottom of the door with her foot.

“What?” Leo called. He sounded cross.

“It’s me. I brought some food.” Leo hadn’t come into the house for lunch. He’d been trimming hooves with his father that morning, then helping with the afternoon milking, then working on an outdoor water tap Artis had mentioned was leaking.

He opened the door with a frown and a smudge of dirt across his forehead. “Kyra, you shouldn’t be…” He grabbed the tray. “Everything up here is a mess.”

“You need to eat something.”

“I’m not very hungry.” He set the tray in the window seat and turned back around. “Sorry.”

She stepped into the bedroom to see boxes stacked in the corner and odds and ends spread on the floor. There were books, a painted shield, and a wooden sword. A pine box was cracked open with sea glass spilling out. Papers and more books. A few clothes and an instrument that looked like a round guitar.

So many small swords. It appeared as if wooden swords and daggers were the only toys allowed.

Leo shoved some of them to the side as he walked back to the door. “Be careful.”

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Since my father refuses to say more than a dozen words to me, I thought I’d go through the things I had in storage here. I have some things…” He glanced at her. Glanced at his feet. “Some things I thought we might want for… the future.”

Kyra sat on the edge of the bed and watched him shove the clutter into semiorganized piles. His eyes were sad even though he tried to put on a cheerful face. Her mate was confused. For the thousandth time, she wished she could do more to comfort him. Ava was teaching her the songs she would need for the mating ritual, but it had been a slow process. Until then, there was no magical comfort she could offer.

“Did you tell your grandfather?” she asked.

Leo paused what he was doing and walked over. He knelt at her feet and spread her knees so he could lean into her. “No. I thought about it. But I haven’t told anyone, not even Max.” He spread his hand over her belly and kissed the space between her breasts. “You said you weren’t sure you wanted them to know.”

“Only at the beginning, but we’re past the most uncertain time. It’s your family. It’s up to you. Would the idea of a great-grandchild be a comfort to Artis or a burden? He is dying; I’m sure of it. Even his soul-voice is quiet.”

“Children were never very interesting to my grandfather,” Leo said. “We were annoyances until we could hold a sword and help on the farm. So I don’t think he would care either way.”

“I think you’re not giving him enough credit.”

“Trust me, I am. Artis isn’t a soft man. He talks more than Peter, but he didn’t kiss our bruises when we were children. Usually he was the one administering them.”

“What?”

“With a sword.” He kicked his foot out at a stack of wooden swords. “Usually with the back of a sword. Or an ax. He preferred fighting with an ax.” Leo took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t know what kind of father I will be, Kyra. I will have to ask Malachi many questions. He had an excellent father.”

Kyra’s heart was full to bursting. The fact that Leo doubted what kind of father he would be tore her heart in two.

“You will be the best father.” She ran her fingers through Leo’s thick blond hair as he laid his head in her lap. “Even better than Malachi. I do not know a more caring, gentle, and thoughtful man in the world.”

“Do you think so?” He arched into her hand. “What if I close up like Peter? Maybe he was a good father before my mother died. Do you think Artis was a good father?”

“I know he loved your mother and your aunt very much.”

Leo looked up at her. “Did he talk about them?”

“A little. He said your mother and Peter decided to get married even though Peter hardly spoke. He didn’t even know they liked each other.”

Leo said, “That sounds right for my father.”

“And that Max’s parents, Stasya and Ivo, were wildly in love and wildly suited and wildly…”

“Wild?” Leo said. “Well, that explains Max.”

“And that they were reshon. Like us.”

A slow smile spread over Leo’s face, and he slid his arms around her bottom. He opened his mouth and sank his teeth into the soft flesh of her thigh. He reached down to her ankles and tickled the skin there before he lifted her long skirt, shoving it up to reveal her legs. “You’re wearing too many clothes, mate of mine.”

She whispered, “Artis is downstairs.”

“Is he sleeping?”

“Yes, but—”

“Don’t be shy.” Leo stood and went to latch the hook on the door. Then he walked back to the bed and lifted her, tossing her higher on the pillows. “Didn’t you say I needed to eat something?”

She felt her face heat up. Would she ever become accustomed to his teasing? “This wasn’t what I had in mind.”

“No, but you have to admit”—he stripped off his shirt and reached for her skirt—“my idea is much, much better.”