She closed the book and looked at the binding. It was old, but well oiled. The book, whatever language it had been written in, was exquisitely preserved. There were marks in the corners of the vellum and a few pages had been torn at the corner. This was not a museum piece. It had been treasured but used. Finally, she opened it at the beginning.

The first thing she saw was an intricate page of illuminated letters in the unknown language. Text only. Then, there were pictures of men with glowing faces and white robes. Beautiful women embraced them. Ava continued to turn the pages, not understanding the writing, but looking for the story the pictures told. Children were born. The figures showed both joy and sorrow. Then the men with glowing faces left, the women’s arms held out to them in supplication. There were more pictures of children. Pictures of young men building what looked like temples. Houses? More men copying books and building fires. Writing on walls. A room full of scrolls. A library?

There were pictures of women. Breathtakingly beautiful and detailed, the pictures of the women were wrought with infinite delicacy and vivid color. Women holding children. Women putting hands on the sick. Overseeing a building project. Tending and drying flowers. A woman standing in front of an assembly, who looked like she was singing. The faces of the audience, each rendered in detail, exhibited awe.

Ava paged through the book, questions flying through her mind until she got to the last page again. The page with the couple embracing. Tears had come to her eyes. Who were these people? And why had this been out for her to find?

From beyond the closed door, she heard voices. For a moment, it didn’t register. She was so used to hearing it, Ava hardly noticed. But then, she did. She put the book down carefully and walked to the door.

There it was again. It was real. Low male voices spoke in the language she’d heard from her youth. Not whispers. Not murmurs. They were actually speaking it. Out loud.

“I’m not crazy,” she whispered with a smile. “I’m really not.”

Ava cracked the door open and peeked out. Malachi’s bedroom was at the end of a dark hallway, and she could see stairs leading down. The room below glowed with morning light, and that was where the voices came from.

“Don’t chicken out now, Ava.” She patted her cheeks and left the room, walking slowly toward the stairs. The voices began to rise, and she paused.

They were arguing.

She heard Malachi and another man arguing. Another, calmer voice occasionally chimed in, but mostly she heard Malachi.

Beautiful. Rise and fall. The cadence of his voice in the unknown language drew her closer. She reached the stairs and started down. No one halted the argument as she walked. When she reached the bottom, she realized she was in a large open living area with couches and tables. There was even a flat-screen television surrounded by chairs in one corner, but the voices were coming from a room off the main one, a room with a door half open.

Ava walked toward it. The arguing was getting even more intense, but she told herself to be brave. She had to know what was going on. Where the hell was she? Who did they work for? She was assuming she wasn’t a hostage or prisoner, because she could see the front door from where she stood. No one guarded it. No alarms were going off. There was only intense arguing coming from unknown voices. She took a deep breath and walked in.

As soon as she stepped through the doorway, everything stopped. The arguing. Any and all movement. It was as if they had frozen.

She waited for someone to break the silence before she finally lifted a hand. “Hey.”

There were five men. Five very large men. She recognized Leo in the corner as he lifted a hand and smiled. Ava smiled back, relieved that someone was acting friendly. There was another man next to him who looked like he could be his brother, but his mouth only gaped in shock. Ava’s eyes swept the frozen room. Sitting at a desk, a tall, lanky man with black hair and very pale skin watched her with cautious green eyes. He didn’t smile, but he didn’t glare, either. And across the room, which appeared to be a library, Malachi stood with another man, braced for a fight.

The other man was even bigger than Malachi, almost a giant. His hair came down to his shoulders, but she could only see his back and bare arms, arms that were covered in the same intricate tattoos she’d seen in the book.

“Oh! The… the men. The ones in the manuscript? They have the same tattoos!”

Ava looked for Malachi, her eyes alight with curiosity, only to realize that—for the first time—his own arms were bare. He’d always worn long sleeves. Always. But he didn’t now, and the intricate tattoo work that she knew started at his collar crawled down his arms, covering his forearms and biceps. The words were scrawled at odd angles, like they’d been added and crowded into every available inch of skin. She looked at Leo. To the black-haired man.

“Holy shit, you all have them. Just like the men in the book.”

The giant threw up his arms and yelled, “I can’t believe you showed her one of the books, too!”

Malachi said, “Damien, she has to know.”

“Does secrecy mean nothing to you? Does the safety of our race—”

“She’s part of it!”

“She can’t be! We’ve searched the records. We know where she was born. We know who her mother is. There is no trace of—”

“Forget the records and look at her!” Malachi strode over to Ava, who stepped back. He slowed and held up his hands. “Please, Ava. I have to show them.”