More often than she would like, Tommy invited Justin to dinner at their house.
More often than she would like, her husband and her brother ended up sequestered in the small study making plans without her.
Tonight, all the planning and plotting had been done earlier, in a room at the main house crowded with politicians, leaving just the three of them sitting around the table in their kitchen.
Iris tried and failed to be interested in Justin's musings on the merits of various stained-glass designs for the sanctuary.
She frowned and dropped a hand to her belly.
"Something wrong?"
Justin's eyes were fixed on her.
She shook her head and dismissed the question with a laugh: "He's just moving."
Tommy reached over to pat Iris's stomach and grinned.
"He's been kicking up a storm the last couple of weeks."
"You wouldn't be so amused by it," Iris scolded, swatting his hand away and smiling, "if you were the one constantly being pummeled."
Justin's knife scratched against his plate as he sawed through a piece of steak.
"I'm thinking we really should go with a local artist."
She saw Justin to the door instead of Tommy.
She raised up on her tiptoes as if to kiss him goodnight, taking her brother by surprise-she hadn't broken her self-imposed rule, not in all these months. Instead of kissing his cheek, she whispered, "Don't act like a petulant child, Alexsei. You gave your favorite toy away. I even got you a new one."
He sulked for days after that dinner, made everyone around him miserable, until that part of Iris that had always spoiled her brother, the part of her that would have given him a houseful of children instead of paving the pathway for a Prophet if only he had asked, gave in.
"Don't make me regret this," she warned, taking his hand in hers and laying it over the place where the baby's movements seemed to concentrate.
"I don't feel anything."
His tone was still sour, but he hadn't managed to entirely hide the disappointment in his eyes.
"It's your voice," Iris explained. "Start talking."
Her brother looked at her incredulously.
"Recite something."
With an expression that said he was humoring her, and certainly not indulging a private fantasy, Justin bent to one knee to be closer to her belly. He stroked his hand along its underside, before settling it where Iris had directed earlier.
Glancing up at his sister once more, he stared down into the swell that stretched the navy fabric of her dress.
"Journey down from the dens of lions, From the mountains of leopards. You have made my heart beat faster, my sister."
Iris's hand fell to cover Justin's; she closed her eyes and listened to the deep timbre of his voice speaking Solomon's words.
"You have made my heart beat faster with a single glance of your eyes, With a single strand of your necklace. How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride. How much better is your love than wine-"
Just as she had predicted, the baby fluttered, a foot or elbow jutting out as it moved.
By the look of awe on his face, she could tell that Justin felt it too, couldn't resist running her fingers through his hair and saying, "He likes the sound of his father's voice."
Justin's voice fills the room but his lips are moving out of sync with the words. Every bit of him is inside her, warm and hard and made to fit just there, and she's going to split apart from it if he moves. One ink-stained hand is claiming her hip, holding her steady, but the other is busy mapping the curve of her stomach, where taut skin stretches even tighter in his wake. A hand presses to meet his father's; a face like a doll's-the hollow of an eye socket, the curve of a cheek-appears in relief against her skin. Her hands that had been so firmly linked through the branches on her brother's chest slip around his throat. His voice continues but his lips stop. A foot no bigger than her thumb kicks out against her belly and almost brushes his father's still stomach as Iris leans over, shifting all her weight to her hands. Justin's lips are blue and cold when she finally kisses him. She thinks, how much like that night at the river this is, kissing his cold, pale cheeks.
"And why shouldn't he?" Justin teased, teasing his hand up her stockinged thigh. "It certainly used to make his mother squirm in her seat every Sunday."
"I wonder if it still has the same effect."
"Don't-"
It did, he discovered, but she backed away, shoving his hands away and looking so terrified that he let her go.
The next day he singled her out at the tail-end of a meeting, calling her back with a curt, "Iris."
"The new girl's not working out. See if you can find someone else, will you?" His voice lowered to a whisper as he added, "A redhead maybe."
The maid, Celeste was her name, huddled silent and naked in the corner of Justin's bedroom.
Iris couldn't help but feel both pity and revulsion at the girl's obvious weakness-a bit of guilt at the hapless pawn sacrificed to their whims.
The call to the hospital was easy to make. Feeble excuses suited the facility fine as long as the payment, delivered from Iris's pocket to the attendant's, was in cash.
It was an annoyance mostly. One more chore in a day already brimming with them.
"I didn't know you had company, Justin."
It was an obvious lie and the look Justin gave her confirmed it.
"Yes. This is Wilfred Talbot Smith—a historian of sorts." He seemed unusually preoccupied as he spoke. "Wilfred, my sister Iris."
"It's nice to meet you."
She held out her hand and slipped easily into the role of doting sister.
The little man looked nervously at her before taking her hand in his clammy one.
"Mrs. Dolan."
He stared at her swelling figure intently, righting his glasses on the bridge of his nose, for a better look.
She felt like a bug on a pin under his gaze.
She looked from Smith to her brother and back.
"Forgive me," she said. "But I can't help but wonder what need my brother has for a historian."
"Nothing to concern yourself about, dear." His voice wreaked of false sincerity; his attention seemed drawn to a book lying on his desk. "Was there something you needed?"
"It can wait."
"I'm tired of all of your secrets. I'm tired of being sent out of rooms and dismissed like one of your lackeys."
"Calm down."
He grabbed her elbow and she hissed, "Don't touch me," jerked away like he'd burnt her.
Tommy was used to her slipping out of bed in the middle of the night. The pregnancy was a convenient excuse: she simply couldn't get comfortable.
She couldn't remember the dream this time, not exactly, just that it had ended as all the others had-with Justin dead and her alone.
"Hello?"
He answered the phone himself.
Between maids, she thought.
She had woken him up out of his bed, safe at home. He was fine. Not bleeding, not dying. She could see him clearly in her mind, hair tousled from sleep, standing in his pajamas, trying to wake up and focus on what she was saying.
"I'm sorry." It seemed so childish now to have given into the compulsion to call him.
"Iris? It's after three," he muttered. "What's wrong?" Awareness gave his voice an edge it had lacked a moment ago.
"I'm sorry. I just needed to know that you were alright."
"Another dream?"
"What does this mean?" Justin slammed the worn volume down in front of this self-appointed expert.
The lines on the page in question were smudged from worry.
Wilfred Talbot Smith adjusted his glasses, read the passage again as if he hadn't committed the entire Gospel of Matthias to memory within weeks of it coming into his possession.
This part was surprisingly straightforward.
"They go mad," he said. "It breaks them."
The cold fury in the would-be Usher's eyes left him no choice but to continue: "Certain sacrifices are necessary."
"But surely if she's one of these Vectorum ," Justin began. He rubbed at the bridge of his nose as if he had a migraine. "We have the same blood."
"She's merely a vessel. Once she's served her purpose-"
"No!"
Smith was yanked up from the chair by his lapels; his back hit the trunk of the tree with enough force to drive the breath from his body. Around them the sky burned. He blinked up into the Usher's black eyes.
"You find a way or there won't be a corner of hell deep enough to hide you from my wrath."
"Alexsei, let him go."
The tree on the hill faded to Justin's study.
Smith scrambled away as the Usher focused on his sister, now standing in the doorway.
"It's already happening," she said evenly. "There's nothing he can do. There's nothing you can do."
The Usher slumped against his desk, heeling to a mere Vectorum; as disgusted as he was, Smith took the opportunity to flee from the house while he still could.
Iris caught Justin's face in her hands, held his stare until his eyes returned to normal and met hers.
"She drug us across continents, Alexsei, listening to voices that weren't there. Angels whispering to her about assassins in every village, every city. She was mad."
"Vy ne nasha mat'." You are not our mother.
"No. But she wasn't always like that. You don't remember, but I do."
She didn't have to add, It started when you were born , because they both knew.
"There has to be a way."
No amount of prayer had kept the visions, the nightmares, at bay.
Justin's "scholars" had been equally ineffective.
She doubted even God would intervene when the time came.
If idle hands were the devil's workshop, an idle mind was his playground, so she kept busy.
Today she was organizing the volunteer rotation for the migrant camp. There was so much to do but she was distracted by the heat. Her hair stuck to the back of her neck and she could feel a bead of sweat slowly making its way between her shoulder blades.
She'd ask Justin to open the windows in the study, but the air was just as oppressive and still outside as it was in the house.
The way he was watching her every time she looked up from the papers spread around her on the sofa didn't help.
He watched her now in a way he hadn't before. Her pregnancy had become a source of both fascination and fear for her brother.
She flexed her toes, her shoes cast off an hour ago, to combat the ache that constantly throbbed in her swollen feet.
She fanned herself with one of the papers, pulled at the neck of her thin cotton dress to let some of the air waft against her chest. She wasn't sure how Justin was standing the temperature in all those layers.
She looked over to see him staring at her again.
"Is there something on your mind, Justin?" she snapped.
He smiled at her and openly let his eyes wonder over the contours that'd had his attention all afternoon.
"Just wondering what happened to my skinny sister," he mused.
Iris looked self-consciously down at herself. Her midsection had doubled in size over the past few weeks. It still took her by surprise every time she looked in the mirror.
She resisted the urge to cross her arms over her chest.
"Justin," she warned. "I'm tired. I want to get this finished so I can go home."
A cold bath might help, she thought.
She'd finished penciling in the last name for breakfast duty, when he stalked around his desk without warning and pulled her up to stand in front of him.
"I want to see you."
"What?"
"I want," he said slowly, his fingers, lightly trailing down her side, "to see you."
She narrowed her eyes at him and swatted his hand away. "No, don't be absurd."
"Why not?"
"Oh, let's see. It's the middle of the afternoon. We are standing in your study. Any number of people—including my husband—could walk in at any moment."
"The door is locked."
She narrowed her eyes at the very nerve of him.
When he shrugged his shoulders, she said, "I can't. You promised."
"I just want to see you. I used to know your body so well and now, it's so changed."
"Stop it, Justin."
"Please, Irina. I'm curious."
She moved for the door only to be blocked by a solid wall of cassock-ed chest, her brother's bright blue eyes and charming smirk.
"This isn't funny. Get out of my way."
She shoved at his arm.
"Where are you going?" he teased.
"I'm leaving. Move."
"No."
She finally shoved past him, hand reaching for the door knob.
His arms came around her and pulled her back against his chest; he surrounded her like a shadow.
He held her hands in his, held them together against her stomach. He whispered hotly in her ear, "Please show me, 'Ira. Show me where our son is growing."
The slump of her tensed shoulders signaled his triumph, but he was in a rare mood, preferred to coax rather than to take today.
"The door to this room is locked," he explained. "The house is locked up tight too."
At Iris's raised eyebrow and frown, he said simply, "We've had to increase security lately."
"Is that what you call those rough necks outside? Security?"
He maneuvered her back towards his desk, trusted her to stay where he left her, as he pulled the curtains closed over the window.
"There. I've pulled the curtains."
He came back to her and lifted the damp hair from the back of her neck.
"We are alone."
He threaded his fingers through her hair.
"Just you and me."
He found the pins holding it up off her shoulders and pulled them loose.
"When was the last time we were this alone?"
"Justin-" It sounded more like a plea than a warning even to her own ears.
"May I?" he asked, his large fingers fiddling with a delicate button on the collar of her dress.
She nodded, too tired and hot to fight.
She had missed him more than she could say, had missed them.
That they would end up back like this was as inevitable as the madness awaiting her.
One by one, carefully and slowly, Justin undid the pearl buttons down the front of Iris's dress, until it could easily be pulled over her head. She caught the fabric in her fingers and started to lift it but he took over the task, pulling it over her head and off her arms, laying it carefully aside.
She wasn't wearing stockings in deference to the heat and her slip clung to her skin from the humidity.
"Satisfied?" she asked, but didn't wait for his answer because she knew her own.
Her hands disappeared beneath her slip to trail her panties down her legs and kick them off.
She turned her back to Justin.
When she pulled at her slip, it stuck momentarily at her belly. She felt Justin's fingers fumbling with the clasp of her bra at her back.
Bra and slip were discarded to the floor with the rest of her clothes.
Finally naked, she turned to face him.
She watched his eyes darken, not to black but to a deeper blue, as he took her in.
He stared at her ripe breasts, knew they would be heavier in his hands now, her widened hips, the swell of her belly and all its glorious complexities. It was framed by the stripes of stretch marks, her naval shallower than it had been. A strange, faint line bisected her belly.
She was like an animal that had changed its skin.
Even the freckles over her knees and along her upper arms, the ones that dappled her chest, were darker now despite how pale her skin remained.
He trailed his fingers reverently along the side of her breast, down to the curve of her hip.
Finally, he said, "There he is," and laid his palm over the curve of her abdomen.
He fell to his knees in front of her.
"Vasha mat' krasiva," he whispered against her skin. Your mother is beautiful.
Iris's hands fell to run her fingers through his hair; she'd almost made herself forget how comforting it was to do that.
"She's going to complain and she's going to protest," Justin continued. "To be stubborn and willful, but I'm going to lay her over my desk, spread her thighs, and fuck her properly because I know that's what she really wants."
She gladly walked backwards the few steps to his desk, let him lift her up and settle her against the polished wood, the papers and books. When she looked down, she saw her naked thigh against the blueprints for the temple.
She knew her brother well enough to know how much he would enjoy worshiping at his own personal temple atop the temple that was being built just up the hill. Their child and that building-monuments to his hubris both.
He took off his cassock and threw it over a chair. He slid his suspenders down his arms, unbuttoned his cuffs, then his collar, unbuckled his belt and finished the buttons on his shirt.
Her fingers itched to help as he hunched his hips to undo his zipper, shoving pants and boxers down his hips. She settled for echoing his earlier sentiment-"Vash otets tozhe krasivaya" -as he toed off his shoes and socks until he was just as naked as she was. "Your father is beautiful too."
They were going to ruin the Architect's carefully drawn plans.
He started with her swollen feet, rubbing his long fingers into their arches until Iris sighed. His hands swept up her calves; his mouth dropped to nip at the freckles over her right knee. His hands kneaded into her thighs and spread them further apart.
He lifted her by the hips and brought her closer to the edge of the desk.
She propped herself up on her elbows, met him just short of halfway when he kissed her, dropped her head back when he said, "I've missed you."
Her words were stolen as a finger slipped inside her.
Instead of adding another, he stared down at her, concerned.
"'Ira, do you have a fever?"
Instead of answering, she canted her hips forward, impatient.
She watched the laugh swell in his Adam's apple and would have tasted it with her tongue, but leaning forward from her prone position proved more difficult than she had anticipated.
"Help me up." She reached out a hand to him but he just kissed her palm and dropped it back to the desk.
His hands were busy then, reaching between them until they were perfectly aligned.
He pushed slowly into her until they were completely joined and she could lock her legs around his back, holding him there.
His eyes were closed in prayer or pain.
"You're burning inside."
He moved with a careful, deliberate pace, touched her like she was a fragile thing, a wonderful thing.
It was so like those early times.
She wondered how he couldn't see the terrible thing she had become.
She grabbed the back of his neck when he came close enough, made sure he was looking at her when she rasped, "I want you to treat me like one of them."
His brow furrowed; he shook his head.
"Hollow imitations." He trailed the backs of his fingers down her sternum, between her breasts. "False idols."
"Fuck me like you mean it."
Her words had the desired effect, the flaring of his nostrils, his hands rough at the small of her back, even as he helped her to sit up.
"I always mean it, sweet sister."
When they kissed, she pulled his lower lip between her teeth and bit down.
He pulled back with a groan and wiped at the blood that welled up. He looked down at the red stain on his fingers then back at her.
She said, "Please," and for once he obliged.
Afterwards, she was bleeding and sore and bruised-but so was he.
She was almost certain the bite on his shoulder would scar.