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Iris~~

Jonas and I stand before the stone staircase. He's dressed in black slacks, and his white button up shirt his untucked, the buttons at his wrist and collar undone. On his head is the silver laurel wreath he wore on my first night here. He's barefoot like me.

He's also Expired, but I'm trying to push that to the back of my mind for later.

Jonas took me to the "supply closet" about an hour ago. The Society's seamstresses are expected to make clothes even when they don't have requests. So now I'm dressed in a blue toga-like dress that cinches around my waist in an X pattern.

"Colton told me you came down here."

I tense. "I assumed he would."

"Did you feel the burning?" his voice is low.

"Slightly. I wasn't down there for long."

"We'll be down there for a while, and you'll most likely feel it. A lot. So it's your choice; if you want to change your mind and not come, you can."

"But you can't change your mind."

He looks down. "No, I can't. But it doesn't usually bother me as much anymore."

"If you have to deal with it for the rest of your life, then I think I can deal with it at least once."

Erik's down those steps, at the very bottom. I haven't seen him yet today. Jonas said I would watch from a side room because it's not safe for me in the ceremony room.

"We should go then."

I step down.

Iris.

"I don't suppose you heard that?" I ask him.

"The voices? No. They're probably tired of greeting me." They.

As we descend my Mark starts to burn. The farther we go, the more it does. I bite back the pain. Jonas holds it in well. I can only tell something's wrong by the occasional wince between his cheek and eye. I'm not going to let him upstage me in silently suffering.

We reach the bottom floor where the members of the old Order, some of the new, including Colton, and four women dressed like me but in different colors are gathered. Unlike me though, they have ornate laurel wreaths in their hair. They must be the sisters of the new Order. Gwen is one of them and speaks with her father in a corner. The floor down here is no longer stone, but rather a mosaic of tiles. The room is round with an imposing set of wood doors embedded in the wall across from me. A narrow hallway runs to my right. Since I don't know where it leads, it seems my only escape route is up the stairs.

I haven't spoken to Colton since our conversation last night. If it can even be called a conversation. I saw him in spread-out moments at the party, but that was it.

He doesn't need to waste his time with someone like you.

Jonas stands beside me, and Colton is right, but not in the way he meant and that has been bothering me. Colton doesn't think I'm good enough for his brother. What would he think if he knew I was trained to be a rebel? More importantly, what would he do?

I spot Erik talking to two of the women, one in a red dress, the other in black. He looks up, his eyes narrowing on me. Without a word to the women, he storms toward us. I do mean storm. Erik is not a force with which to be reckoned.

"What is she doing here?" His tone is harsh as he directs his question to Jonas, not bothering to address it to me despite me standing right here.

"I thought you would want your friend to see this."

"You mean you want her to see me trapped for the rest of my life."

"That's not what I'm trying to do."

Erik steps toward him leaving no more than a few inches of space. His chest swells, and he pins Jonas with a glare. "Stop trying to use her against me."

Jonas flexes his hands. His mouth turns up in a sneer. "I wish that was what I'm trying to do."

Erik looks like a wrathful, mad prince with his bronze laurel wreath resting on his head as a crown. A prince who has it in him to face off against his king. "Stop lying to me. You're my Preeminence after all." His eyes turn on me, the anger on his face transforming into pain. "Leave. Please." He walks away, making his way through the other attendees. His only goal seeming to be to get away from us.

He leaves me feeling an immense amount of guilt. And shame. I should have known he wouldn't want me here. I feel ridiculous in this dress with no shoes standing at the bottom of the Society's Estate. How did I get so caught up in the Society that I wound up here? I'm far too friendly with the Preeminence. I pushed past the pain in my Mark so I can see a ceremony of the Society. What happened to destroying these people around me? Is it because they're human? Is that why I don't think I can do it anymore?

Is it because I think I trust Jonas more than Erik?

"I need to go."

"I can't take you all the way back up. The ceremony starts in minutes."

"I'm perfectly capable of walking myself up stairs."

Jonas looks around the room before grabbing my hand, pulling me into the hallway. "I know you are, but not these stairs. If your Mark burns too much, you'll collapse, and they'll find you."

"They?"

"Those of us who are able to know your Expiration Date from birth."

The ones who imprinted my Mark on me when I was born. The ones who ruined my life. No one knows how the Society knows or what they use or—for those believing that Expiration Dates are assigned—how they make them work.

"You're not doing a very good job of earning brownie points."

He gives an exasperated laugh. "You'll be safe where I planned to bring you. Please." He squeezes my hand. "Let me take you there."

I glance at Erik and see he isn't paying attention. "Okay."

Jonas lets go of my hand, and I follow him down the hall. He pulls a key from his pocket and unlocks a door on the left. Inside the room the walls are painted in silver, and silver accents are all over the room. A sliver of a window looks out into an enormous cavern. Looking closer, I see it's shaped like an old cathedral, narrow and tall.

Jonas hovers in the doorway. "It's a one-way mirror."

From what I can see, there are other mirrors placed on this half of the ceremony room. A bowl of fire stands in the middle of the room.

"I feel so much guilt right now."

"One of the things I've learned as Preeminence is that you can't always make someone happy and you can't always be happy yourself."

Toward the other end of the ceremony room, I can see the ceiling lit up in what looks like "Stars?"

"If you haven't noticed yet, my family loves them."

I remember the glass ceiling above the stairs and the one the ballroom has as well. Their insignia has twelve stars. And silver, there's so much silver in the Estate.

I turn to face him, knowing he has to leave any moment now. "Why?"

"Don't you love the stars?"

One time I wished on the stars to change my life. Nothing happened, and that was before I started going to church. The people there were the only ones who didn't treat me differently because of my Mark. They talked to me. Laughed with me. I didn't know how much I craved those things.

When I don't give an answer, he says, "Do not let anyone in save for me."

Once I nod, he leaves. I hear the lock clicking into place. All right then—I wipe my palms on my dress—Erik's really becoming Tresais. For some reason I feel like I'm to blame even though I had nothing to do with him ending up here. I was just a passenger in his car. I trail my hand over the back of the couch. While I can unlock the door from this side, I know there's no leaving this room until Jonas returns after the ceremony ends. I scratch at the bandage, at the burning that has leveled out. Is it selfish to hope that it's not a two-hour long ceremony?

*****

It turns out it was rather short. Maybe thirty minutes. People filed in to stand in a half circle. I couldn't see what happened in the circle or hear what was said. I didn't even see Erik become Tresais. Which is exactly what he wanted anyway. When everyone was leaving, Jonas spared a glance at my mirror, and inexplicably, I smiled.

The doorknob rattles, and someone fumbles with the lock. I grab a heavy looking book from a shelf and step to the side of the door in the case it's not Jonas on the other side. I hold the book to my chest.

The door swings open, Jonas grasping onto the knob. "Close the door." He lets go of the knob and hits the floor.