Page 4 of The Silent
Leo grimaced. “You’re not helping. Aren’t you supposed to be working on a new translation of theHokmanAbat?”
The pale British scribe walked to the bread cupboard and reached inside. “Well, I thought I’d take a breakandhave…”
“Don’t do it!” Leoyelled.
“Cake!” Matti squealed. “Want mo’cake,Reez.”
Geron lifted his arms. “Lo!” he shouted at Leo. “Morecake.”
“This is the problem,” Leo said, lifting Geron into his arms. “They gang up on you. And they have… chubby cheeks. And they’re very,verycute.”
“Relax,” Rhys said. “You take minding them too seriously. What’s the fun of being uncles if we can’t make them sick to their stomachs onsweets?”
Matti giggled, which made Geron chuckle. Soon the kitchen was filled with laughter, and Rhys was stuffing more cupcakes in bothchildren.
Leo licked chocolate frosting from his thumb. “If they get sick, I’mblamingyou.”
“I only gave them one cupcake, you gavethemtwo.”
“Three cakes!” Matti yelled, her tiny fist raised intriumph.
“They’re frighteningly intelligent,” Rhys said. “Developmentally, they’re very advanced. Did you see Geron copying Malachilastweek?”
Leo nodded. “He’s so quiet, but he can already write both old script and the Romanalphabet.”
“I wouldn’t think a child would have that much small-musclecoordination.”
“And Matti…” Leo trailed off as the little girl started to sing and dance around the kitchentable.
It was a childish song she’d learned from one of the Irina, a song intended to teach young girls control over their magic, but Matti had already mastered it. As she lifted her voice, the flowers in the vase on the center of the table bobbed along to the tune, dancing and nodding their heads when she called their colorsinturn.
Rhys stared with wide eyes. “I haven’t seen children in so long, I don’t know what’s normal and what’s not. But that seems very advanced forherage.”
“I’m fairly sureitis.”
Leo had no experience with children other than Matti and Geron. His mother had been killed during the Rending, the attempted annihilation of the Irin race, when he was no older than the twins. His father had been lost for years and was never really the same after the loss of his mate. He and his cousin, Maxim, had been lost for a year until they’d shown up at a scribe house in Vilnius. He had little memory of his life before his grandfather had taken him and Maxim in. Leo liked children, but he’d never spent timewithany.
But now there was a baby boom in the Irin world. Leo would give anything to join in the numbers of scribes and singers starting their families, but he wouldn’t be satisfied with any mate. He wanted hisreshon. His soul mate. The woman chosen by heaven to be his partner in life. He hadn’t practiced patience for two hundred years to settle foranythingless.
“What about your ownfamily?”
“I don’t know if that is possibleforme.”
“How do you know it’s not possible if you won’t give us achance?”
“Leo, you don’tknowme.”
“Are you sureaboutthat?”
A loud crash broke through his reverie, and Leo spotted the source of the racket in the doorway to the living room. Matti was sitting on a rug that Geron was pulling across the wooden floor. It was unfortunate that a side table was in their way. The glass lamp sitting on it had notsurvived.
“Oops!” Both children turned wide eyes to Leo before they raced out of the room and up thestairs.
“Come back here!” Leo ran after them just as his phone began to buzz. “Hello?”
“Are you on patrol?” It was his cousin, Maxim. “Are the Grigori hunting indaylightnow?”
“I’m on twin patrol,” Leo said, pounding up the stairs. The two culprits would scatter, of that he was sure. They had excellent evasion tactics. But where would they hide? And did they have any glass shards in their littlebarefeet?
