Page 44 of The Storm
Apparently Grigori men were the same.
You understand sign, Thawra asked.
“I have a sister who lost her voice during the Rending,” Renata said. “She uses the same sign language you use.”
Zana taught me when we were first together, Thawra said.Before that, I had no speech, though I could read and write a little.
“And Mama and Baba taught me!” Evin, sensing she wasn’t in trouble, had climbed on the back of a sofa. “That was my first language, wasn’t it Mama?”
Yes, little bug.
“But now I speak sign and Arabic, and English, and I’m learning Italian.”
Renata walked over as Thawra tried to get Evin down off the furniture. “You must be very smart.”
“I am. My Baba says I am a clever, clever girl.”
Thawra’s eyes were wary and worried as Renata drew closer.
“I’m not going to harm you or your family,” she said.
Zana says that we must leave after the storm passes. We have nowhere else to go.
Renata sighed. “If you think that’s actually going to happen, you clearly don’t understand Max at all.”
Evin bounced over and sat by Renata. “I like Max.”
“I do too.” She tucked Evin’s hair behind her ear. “You remind me very much of myself when I was your age. Do you know I lived here when I was a girl?”
“You did?” Evin grinned. “Did you sleep in the caves like me?”
Renata felt the pang of guilt, but since the child clearly felt like sleeping in the library was an adventure, she tried not to feel too guilty.
“No, I slept in the house. I had a room there with my parents. There were many families here, and my parents worked here in the library with many people. Clever people like you, who knew lots of languages and stories. I went to school here.”
Evin’s face fell a little. “I can’t go to school.”
Renata looked at Thawra. “What if I told you there was magic you could use to help her block out the voices?”
What kind of magic?
“Irina magic.”
Thawra’s eyes went wide.The singers?
“Have you met any of our kind before?”
She shook her head.Only stories.
“You have angel blood. That means you have the same magic we do. Irina mothers use magic to protect their children when they’re young. You could use the same magic to protect Evin from the soul voices—your other child too, if it’s a girl—but you’d have to speak.”
Thawra eyes were blank.
“Mama doesn’t talk.” Evin leaned closer to Renata and whispered, “The bad people hurt her heart. That’s what Baba says. That’s why she doesn’t talk except for bad dreams. Baba and me sleep by her at night and hug her lots if she cries.”
Thawra clapped sharply.Evin, that’s enough.
The bad people hurt her heart.Renata wondered if Thawra’s natural magic had something to do with empathy. If she were Irina, Renata would say she carried the angel Chamuel’s blood. Those of Chamuel’s blood were unusually empathetic. Some could even heal emotional injuries to others. Conversely, they were some of the most traumatized Irina during the Rending. They lived not only through their own trauma, but also through the trauma of those around them.
