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"Why?"

Rhys pointed to a section of thehands on someone in a bed "The Irina have always been healers Before huic and their knowledge to help hue that have passed down in human custoht their ic was evil Some Irina were captured and executed as witches Their fae, killing the ignorant who had murdered their wives Inevitably, innocents were killed, too The council finally made the decision to isolate families so the Irina and the children could be better protected"

"The council?"

The two had stopped near a depiction of an o

"The Irin council is in Vienna" Rhys s "Everyone has their politicians, don’t they? They are ours Once it was ers?"

"Irina" He sic is in their voice The oldest and wisest Irina would sing--" His voice broke "The ine Ethereal Their voices are ic The council was always even, but once they had decided that families needed to stay in the retreats… there was conflict Many of the Irina felt as if they were being punished for their sisters’ deaths Many didn’t want to be isolated in the retreats Eventually, though, it settled down The Irin and Irina ere mated--particularly those with children--would live in retreats Irin without mates, or withthe humans or e" He gestured around them "Like this one The Irin worked here The retreats--ses, really--were for families There were also other Irina compounds where they went to train and study, but Irin weren’t allowed there, so I know little of those I was raised in a retreat in Cornwall"

"And Malachi?"

"He was born near here, actually" Rhys sh I believe his parentsin Ger"

"Yes… the Rending" Rhys nudged her farther down the hall as his inner voice took on a low, desperate tone "One suori attacks in the cities We learned later that it all happened within just a feeeks, but at the time, we had no idea I was in London, about one hundred years old I’d finished uardian work, as we all do The Grigori, who had been relatively quiet for years, started attacking many human women It was unexpected, and we couldn’t keep up We’d let our guard down" He let out a shaky breath "My watcher followed protocol When we needed help, we called for the mated men to come help us They left the retreats to aid us in the city, because that here the threat lay… we thought"

They took another step down the hall, and Ava saw the edge of chaos

She whispered, "But they left the Irina in the retreats alone"

"Irina…" Rhys’s fingers cae of a woures ran toward her "…have frightening ic of their own Powerful Deadly But they were outnumbered, and they had to protect the children" Ava felt the tears wet her cheeks as she watched hie the artist had rendered in frightening detail