The Singer by Elizabeth Hunter Page A

brother.”
    “Thank you.” Leo pointed back to the paper he’d been using. “Your letters are well formed. I really can’t help you any more with them. I can answer any questions you have about the tattooing, but I suspect your muscle memory will hold true in the ritual room, as well.”
    “And you’ll be there?”
    “I’m not your father, but we don’t do our first talesm alone, so yes.” Leo smiled. “I’d be honored to witness for you. It won’t be too much. Just the talesm prim to activate your magic and call on our forefathers’ magic, then the basic protection spells and a few others. You’re a good runner already—very fast—so I’d focus on eyesight, reflexes, and protection from blades. Those would be the most important if we encounter any fighting. After that, you can improvise spells as you need them. You’ll find all the basics in that book.”
    Malachi paged through the book for a moment, then looked up. “Thank you, Leo. You’ve been very patient with all this.”
    “You’re welcome.”
    They both read in silence a bit longer, then Malachi said, “Rhys told me when I first started watching Ava, before I knew she was Irina, that you were the one to help me guard her.”
    “I was.”
    “Would you tell me about her? Can you?”
    Leo smiled. “Of course. I liked Ava very much. Even when we thought she was human.”
    “What is she like?”
    “She’s… unpredictable. She never really does what you expect.”
    Malachi frowned. “Oh?”
    “But then, looking back, you aren’t surprised at all.”
    “Why not?” He listened, rapt to hear any crumb of who this woman was. She’d captured Malachi’s heart without him knowing anything about her. He wanted to. Desperately.
    Leo continued, “I think it’s how she throws people off. By being unpredictable. She likes to keep others off-balance so they don’t look too closely.”
    That made him smile. “She doesn’t like being the center of attention?”
    “No, definitely not.” Leo grinned, then his smile fell. “Ava is, more than anything, a survivor.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “She had to be. She heard voices her whole life—like the Irina do—but she didn’t know what they were. Her parents thought she was mentally ill. I think she still thinks that sometimes. She makes jokes about being crazy.”
    “I think I remember that,” he said, recalling the password he’d typed into her computer.
    “You hated it; I could tell. Max and Damien say she’s actually very powerful. They think it’s because she has so much power bound up from living a life away from magic. I always thought it was because she’s not like other Irina.”
    Malachi frowned. “What do you mean?”
    Leo shrugged. “Her parents are human. We never did figure out where she came from, but biologically, she shouldn’t be Irina. I mean, Irin are not entirely human or angel. We’re different. And Ava is definitely like us, but we can’t figure out how a human could become Irina.”
    The answer seemed obvious to Malachi. “A lion doesn’t become a wolf, Leo, no matter how it might want to be.”
    “So?” Leo crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
    “It means her parents are Irin. They have to be.”
    The blond man smiled. “Our records—everything we could find about them—say they’re not.”
    Malachi frowned. “But humans don’t give birth to Irin children.”
    “No, they don’t.”
    “So if they produced Ava, then they’re not human.”
    “But they’re not Irin. We have a record of every Irin child ever born. If there’s one thing we’re good at, it’s keeping records.”
    “You’re forgetting something,” Malachi murmured.  
    “What’s that?”
    Malachi looked around the room filled with scrolls and tablets. Books and boxes were hidden in every corner. He turned back to Leo and said, “We’re an ancient race of angel and human hybrids that has lived under the nose of humanity for thousands of