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Iris~~

There's a woman in the cell across from mine.

Her black hair is matted, and her face is red and splotchy with tears.

She wasn't there before I fell asleep. She's must be the Amorians' next victim, just still alive.

"S'il vous plait," she begs. Hands wrapping around the bars, her eyes meet mine. She asks a question in French, and I look to Bently for a translation. He's awake but tucked into the far corner of his cell, his back to the girl.

"Bently?"

"She asked where she is."

"Can you tell her we don't know?"

He scoffs. "Of course you haven't figured out where we are."

My stomach growls in hunger. "Please enlighten me, oh great Bently."

"The catacombs." He might as well be speaking gibberish. "Built to bury the dead."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

Sighing, he rolls his shoulders back, his bones cracking. "I forgot world history isn't a major part of Elleany's curriculum. Tell me, what does the rebel-education system look like?"

"Bently," I warn.

He rests his head against the stone wall. "The Amoris have remodeled, maybe added their own sections even and would have had to close off other sections to remain hidden from the world. When they caught me, they dragged me down a staircase in that hotel before blindfolding me and shoving me down more stairs. We never left Paris. We should have guessed immediately that they were in the catacombs."

The woman speaks again.

"Bently?" I prompt.

He says something in French offhandedly to the woman and then to me says, "Her name's Ines."

The woman asks another question.

"She wants to know why she's here and who's behind this."

A hand clenches around my heart. Do I instill her with false hope and say we're all nothing more than bargaining chips and have a chance to get out? Do I lie and say I don't know, or do I tell the truth, essentially telling Ines her Expiration Date?

She rests her head against the bar, saying something that causes Bently to swear softly.

"She has a baby and husband."

My heart wrenches in two. "What do we tell her?"

"Nothing."

"Bently—"

"Nothing. You don't tell her it's going to be okay. You don't tell her you're going to get us out because you aren't. And if you do have a chance to escape, you take it. You don't come back here for anyone. You get out and you find Jonas and you tell him where we are."

"The woman—"

"I'm not giving her false hope."

I wrap my hands around the bars and meet her eyes. "Je suis désolé. Je suis désolé. Je suis désolé." I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. Over and over again. I don't know much French, but I can tell her this. "Je suis désolé."

*****

Three male Amoris come for me. I've been given two meals since Ines was locked in the cell. The meals are my only markers of time. I'm almost certain it hasn't been a day since Ines was brought here.

The Amoris dragging me out of my cell has Bently spewing threats at them in Amorian that we all know are false.

They bind my hands in metal cuffs and lead me out of the dungeon and through the catacombs. Amoris we pass give me curious glances while I do my best to look like I ignore them, looking past them as I try to familiarize myself with their underground empire.

We enter a bathhouse where steam from the water fills the air and holds a lavender scent.

Four female Amoris approach us dressed similarly to Odette's and Anastasie's attire when Odette greeted me as her prisoner, but these Amoris wear silver and garnet colors instead of purples and reds.

One of the guards passes the key to my cuffs to a woman who wears a thin circlet in her hair.

The guards leave, and the women stand before me, appraising me, though I suppose I am doing exactly the same thing to them.

"Who are you?" I ask in Amorian.

The Amoris crowned with the circlet speaks, "We are Konkursi."

In the Society, Konkursi serve the Amoris and are human or not fully Amorian. But these woman with their various shades of purple eyes are nothing less than full-blooded Amorians.

The Amoris wearing the circlet holds the key toward my cuffs. "Attempt anything and the guards outside the door will interfere." She frees my wrists, and they set to work on me, stripping me of the silky pajamas and my underwear, leaving me bare.

They instruct me to enter the bath, and I descend the steps into the heated waters, grateful there are no other Amoris present.

After spending time sharing a cell wall with Bently, I can guarantee he has not been allowed to bathe. Wherever this is going, I'm not going to like it.

The Amoris wash me, scrubbing my skin and lathering shampoo into my hair. They even go so far as to wax my skin after I exit the bath.

They then secure a white robe embroidered in gold around me and bring me into a side room where they allow me to use an actual toilet and freshen up on my own. It's been mortifying for both me and Bently to have to use a bucket in front of one another to relieve ourselves. If we get out of this, there is no question that we are going to be making each other swear never to speak of it.

The guards escort the five of us to a smaller room filled with vanities, each with a unique, ornate mirror, and draped over a marble bench is a cerulean blue dress.

The women dry my hair and curl it before styling it into an up-do. A silver laurel wreath is laid on my head.

They paint my face with creams and powders and line my eyes in kohl. On my ears they fix silver cuffs that wrap over the top and bottom of my ears.

The Konkursi work in silence. Do the Konkursi serve any Amoris here or do they only serve the Order?

A Konkursi with blonde hair removes my robe while another retrieves the dress.

I step into it, and they pull it over my body before allowing me to stand in front of a floor length mirror engraved with Amorian words in the Amoris' native alphabet.

Vanity

Lust

Anger

Envy

Avarice

Indolence

Gluttony

The seven deadly sins.

Staring into the mirror is like looking at myself the day Erik became Tresais, and I was dressed in a blue toga-like gown and barefoot.

But now I'm older. Different. That day my Mark was covered. Today it's exposed. It doesn't burn like it did that day either. The pain has been decreasing as the Amoris adjust to my presence and I to theirs.

The dress covers my bare feet. A slit runs past my knee.

The top of the dress is a mix of two lines of solid fabric and three of clear mesh. An Amorian symbol is embroidered in silver thread on the parts with mesh, the symbol repeated over and over again until its wrapped around me like a belt on each piece of mesh. I don't recognize the symbol, but it almost reminds me of a sun with triangles around the rim of a circle. Inside, lines cross each other vertically and horizontally, and in the center, the lines make a square with a circle tucked inside it. I wouldn't be surprised if it's a symbol relating to the Expired or death.

I take a deep breath. My reflection is right. I'm not the same girl.

Odette may think I'm her science experiment, but I am the future queen of the Society, of Elleany.

I didn't destroy the Society.

I became them instead.

You get into the heart of them and then you pierce them.

I'll play the obedient prisoner like Odette wants, and then I'll destroy her.

The guards enter the room, and I hold out my wrists for the Konkursi to reattach the cuffs.

You're going to lose this game, Odette.

With the help of a My Style Studio by Klutz that I've had since I was ten, I tried drawing/tracing Iris's dress.