Page 26 of Dawn Caravan
“I know.”
“Does she ask everyone to see their fangs? I find her ease with vampires disconcerting.”
Ben pushed through the swinging kitchen door. “Sadia has no fear.”
“That explains her fascination with Tenzin.”
Ben wiped a hand over his face and paused at the foot of the stairs. “Can I just go even one night without her being thrown in my face? I’m about ready to go back to Kashgar.”
“Is that where you were?” Gavin nodded. “Good choice. What made you come out of hiding?”
“A woman.”
Gavin lifted an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Not like that.” He walked to the second floor. “She was watching me. She knew my name. Left me a note.”
“Ah. Which said?”
“‘Answer your fucking mail.’ That’s it. No name. No address. Just answer your fucking mail.”
Gavin laughed as they walked into the library. “What did she look like? Little pixie of a thing with big eyes and too much hair?”
Ben froze. “How did you know that?”
Gavin took a seat near Chloe, who was sitting at the library table with Beatrice. Chloe had her laptop open, and Beatrice was pointing to something on a tablet.
“I would bet you a case of sixty-year-old Macallan that the woman watching you in Kashgar was Kezia. She’s Radu’s sister.”
“Biological or immortal?” Giovanni spoke from the other end of the library.
“Maybe both,” Gavin said. “The Poshani tend to keep the same bloodlines in the terrin.”
Ben sat down near the fire. “And now you’re speaking a completely different language.”
“Yes he is.” Giovanni walked toward them, holding a book he handed to Ben.
Ben looked at it. It was written in a Cyrillic alphabet. He handed it back to Giovanni. “I don’t read Russian.”
“It’s not Russian; they just borrowed the alphabet. It became more accessible than the original Brahmi script.” Giovanni sat across from him.
“Brahmi?” Ben asked. “As in ancient Indian?” He pointed to the Russian book. “And the connection between Cyrillic and Brahmi would be…?”
“Poshani.”
“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”
“No,” Beatrice chimed in. “Not unless you’d spent a lot of time studying immortal history in Eastern Europe.”
“Fancy that,” Ben said. “I haven’t.”
Giovanni said, “A now-obvious hole in your education that I’ll have to correct with Sadia.”
That poor girl.Ben winced on his baby sister’s behalf.
Giovanni continued, “Gavin confirmed something for me that I suspected about Radu but wasn’t sure.”
“Which is?”
