Check out this beautiful artwork of Iris! You can find the artist on Instagram as @_bumble_art_ and @_light_anarchy_.

Iris~~

Odette's pale face and purple eyes greet me when my blindfold is removed.

"Hello, Iris," she purrs as I hear my name hissed in my head by a multitude of voices, and I know immediately that I'm in the Amoris's base. My Mark prickles, and my wrists are still handcuffed together. Two guards stand at my back.

Odette's black hair cascades around her face. She's dressed in purple, the color of royalty and the Amoris, wearing a flowing skirt that reaches the stone floor, a sleeveless cropped top, and bands of purple wrapped around her wrists and neck. She reminds me of a priestess or a Konkursi.

Odette steps back, letting me take in my surroundings. I'm in a temple carved from stone. It's terrifying in a way that's breathtaking. I don't think it's truly a temple but rather designed to give the impression of one. Great thick columns line the center of the room where I stand, and along the walls, torches burn.

There are no windows, and a slight chill fills the air. These silky pajamas do nothing, and I'm not sure why Odette would plan to wear anything that leaves her skin that open to the cold.

The voices still hiss in my head, and I grit my teeth as the burning in my arm grows. The Amoris don't know they're doing it—they only sense that something is wrong. Once they have grown used to my presence, the burning and hissing will stop, or vice versa.

Odette raises her hand to my face and runs the back of her hand over my cheek, her fingers brushing the cleft under my eye. "We're going to have so much fun together."

My stomach clenches. "Where's Bently?"

"In a cell next to yours. Not as comfortable as my chambers though."

I swallow down the bile that rises in my dry throat. It burns. "I'm only interested in one Preeminence."

She frowns. "He's terribly boring."

"We must have different definitions of boring, you psychotic—"

Odette's hand flies, her palm landing against my cheek, leaving a stinging sensation that for a moment rivals the burning in my arm. "Anastasie."

A young woman steps out from among the columns, the torches casting a glow on her brown skin. She's dressed identical to Odette except she wears shades of red. Her long dark hair sweeps over one shoulder.

"My Beta," Odette says.

"The rest of your Order?"

"My Order is comprised of lae." Three.

"It's not a true Order then."

Her hand wraps around my throat, but she doesn't choke me. The other brushes my hair out of my face. "Have you no regard for your safety?"

"I do care about my safety, but my need to not bend to imposters is stronger."

As her fingers apply pressure, her nails dig into my neck. She moves her other hand from my face and wraps it over my Mark. The burning that follows is so acute that my knees nearly give out.

She snatches her hand away, staring down at her palm. If she managed to burn me, I've gotten under her skin.

"I'm going to learn every one of your secrets, Raggioet. Beta, take her to her cell."

With an almost gentle expression, Anastasie beckons me to follow her, and the guards behind me keep in step. She lacks the cold exterior that rolls off of Isabeau and Odette like a fog. There's a tenderness in the way her lips hold a frown, in the way her purple eyes examine me. I'm not going to trust that it's not farce.

She leads me and the two guards through an archway that takes us out of this temple-like room and into a hallway punctuated with alcoves in the stone that hold torches. I'm reminded of below the Society's Estate.

She remains quiet, but that doesn't mean we're absorbed in silence. Besides for the constant hiss in my head, there are the murmurs of distant conversations being held elsewhere in their underground palace except the torches would be candelabras.

Anastasie brings us to a stop in front of an iron door. Above it, carved into the stone are the words:

Arrete!

C'est ici l'empire de la mort

I suck in a breath, able to read the warning all too well. The warning thatI'm about to enter the empire of death.

Withdrawing a set of keys from somewhere within her skirt, she inserts a long iron key into the lock and twists it. There's a click, and she pushes the door open, revealing a well-lit room again made of stone. Metal bars create empty, exposed cells. I follow her inside, and after passing the door, I can see more cells. And Bently.

His black jeans and shirt are ripped and torn. Blood has dried and clumped onto his clothes and skin. Bruises in various stages pepper his arms. A layer of scruff covers his lower face, and his lip is split open. Blood stains the opening underneath both his nostrils. The skin around one eye is blue and black and swollen, but seeing me, his eyes manage to widen.

I'm glad Odette has an Expiration Date. I only hope it's not for a while so that I can make her suffering last. A long, long time.

"What is she doing here?" he demands.

Anastasie says nothing, opening the cell door beside Bently's. She motions to the guards, and one unlocks my cuffs. I roll my shoulders back, hearing joints pop.

Bently wraps his hands around the bars, his knuckles cracked and dotted with blood. "Where is he?"

One of the guards closes my cell door behind me, and Anastasie locks it.

"We speak Amorian here, Beta," she says calmly in that exact language.

The guards take a step toward him, and Bently unwraps his hands from the bars and again asks his question, this time in Amorian.

She still does not respond. With a glance my way, she leaves, the guards following her.

Once the door shuts with a thud, Bently threads his hands around the bars that separate us.

"Basile. He was here," he says in English. "They took him. I—"

"He's fine. Andrew traded me for him."

Bently swears and then asks, "So you aren't here to rescue me? You're just a veritable damsel in distress?"

Usually I'd smile, but I can't muster the strength. "We've been trying to but . . ." I'm wary of saying more in case we're being listened to.

Bently drops his head. I reach through the bars and gently touch his cheek.

"I hope you're planning to shave for my wedding."

He lays his hand over mine. "There won't be a wedding." He pulls my hand away. "They'll kill you before Jonas can find us."

I don't draw my hand back. "Bently, come on now. You know I'm hard to kill."

He shakes his head, eyelids heavy. "They did this to me because of you."

I snatch my hand back through the bars like I've been bitten. "What?"

"They can't kill me, so they've had to settle. To them, the Society is a disgrace for accepting you."

"But Amoria ruled it was okay."

"They see you as an abomination. Remember how it was before Cinderville?" Back when I sided with the Society to recue Jonas, which meant going against the rebels. But I saved Amorians that day, including Bently's mother. After that, the Society accepted me, and members of the Order stopped trying to kill me. Soon after, Amoria issued a decree allowing me to live.

He runs his hand through his hair. "There were times when I believed I was immune to the thought of death. That it couldn't bother me. I've tortured rebels. I've killed them. The Society is based around death. Do you know what they do here, Iris? They capture a civilian and hold them only long enough that no one has started looking for them and then they kill them right in their cells and Mark them after. I watched them die. Innocent people. Not rebels."

My body trembles, and I press my fist against my mouth. When Odette tires of me, will she kill me in this cell in front of Bently?

Jonas will find us. I found him in Cinderville, like he found me in Nevada. I know he will because I can't imagine a world in which he doesn't. I don't want to.

I lean against the bars that separate us, my back to Bently. "I don't suppose you've thought of any escape plans."