Iris

If not for the chain that attaches both of her wrists to the wall, one would think that she's just sleeping.

In the great room beneath the tunnels, I watch her while her chest rises and falls, and Cal stares at her too, eyeing the girl from his chair by the fireplace. His foot taps against the floor, once for every time that she breathes. I think that the fire in the sconces pulses with her breathing, too.

Everything, all of our little schemes and tricks have worked too well. Skill, luck, or Jon, I'm not sure, nor am I sure if I'd like to know.

The walk back from that desolate hallway was silent, as Evangeline and I walked behind Cal, watching as he never faltered, never flinched in holding her unconscious form, no matter how many steps he carried her down, turns in the passages that he made certain to keep her head from hitting.

There aren't actual cells in the safe house beneath the tunnels, but Cal's found other methods of... imprisonment. The word leaves a stain on my tongue, though I haven't said it. She rests on her side against the stone wall, hands bound behind her back with chained manacles-he got in the weapons room-attached to a circular anchor poking out from the stone. Upon closer inspection, they're all over the place, little but infinitely strong pieces of metal, infused with Silent Stone.

Just like the hatch leading out of here, so that any Whispers or Bloodhounds couldn't sense us, but not strong enough for them to notice when walking past. Another flawless part in the flawless design.

And oh, yes. How she's going to scream at him, cry, perhaps when she wakes up, realizing what he's put around her wrists. Though she did the exact same to us, caging us in stone cages for ten days, put those same manacles around our wrists when we went to Davidson for negotiation.

With gleaming and wet platinum hair, Evangeline comes out of hallway leading to the bathing room and bedrooms, though her usual arrogance is replaced with something else. Now dressed in basic fighting gear, she bears a grim face, gloved hands scrunched up in contemplation. Usually she wears heaps of metal with her armor. And tonight is no different. She just hasn't found the right metal yet.

"It's dawned on me that my brother is more than likely gone from the dungeons and moved to a separate holding unit."

"More than likely, yes," I say.

"But I imagine she knows," Evangeline says, nodding to Mare. "Let me talk to her before Iris and I leave. You have all night to play with her." She watches Cal with glimmering eyes.

Cal's face contorts into a cringe before he wipes his hand down his face. Firelight hits his profile as he shifts, watching a section of the wall that Mare isn't chained to now. He's tired. Like me, though the nights have been harder on him than they have on the rest of us. Still, he looks handsome in the fire and shadows, like a Haven with their abilities to look perfect in any light. Almost like the fire favors him in that sense, never allowing him to look anything short of masterfully handsome.

"You want to torture her? No," he says.

"You're not hurting her," I say quietly, remembering the words she said in Cal's room. "It's two against one, so find another way to get Ptolemus's location. She wouldn't answer you anyway, no matter how much pain you may inflict. It would probably be a relief," I say, loud now.

Cal turns his head to us with dulls eyes, propping a foot on his chair. "We're not talking about what she said to Maven in my room, or what he said to her. I don't want to hear it from either of you."

I swallow, glancing at her again. Still limp, eyes firmly shut. Before I pinched the nerve in her neck, I had never rendered somebody unconscious that way before.

"I'm going to shower before I leave," I announce, making my way for the bathroom.

The water should calm me and my churning thoughts of Mare, Rosalyn, and Bart, and even as I sense the puddle of warm water Evangeline left in the shower's basin, my shoulders droop a little. The hallway is lit with candles on narrow shelving, lighting the way in warm colors, more wood at my feet and sides. Here, there's fire everywhere, enough to engulf this entire safehouse in a matter of seconds. There aren't any real lights, and we're underground, so only a Burner could ever really live in these rooms.

As nice as the bedrooms and couches are, this place was never designed for the sake of comfort or glamour. No, no. It was indeed created for a Burner king and his closest of closest allies, and nobody else.

The little pools of water in the shower guide me to the bathing room at the end of the hallway, a surprisingly small facility compared to everything else. A sink, a toilet, and a shower on cold tile, various candles littered on the sink counter and more shelves.

I slink out of my dirty clothes and step into the shower with the honest intention of casting aside my thoughts of the little lightning girl and her woes.

But as the hot water runs over my skin and into my pores, massaging the dirt off my face and onto the shower floor, I cannot help but think about what she said as I hid under that wretched bed with Evangeline and Cal.

Mare Barrow is no conniving and heartless bitch. She certainly looks the part, with bloody red jackets and faked smiles and speeches to magnetize thousands. And a part of me already knew that she wasn't, part of me understanding in why she did it. There's no apology that she owes to Evangeline or Ptolemus or any of the other Silvers who have ever evilly destroyed her in some way.

She wouldn't owe Cal anything either, had she not done anything-whatever she did-with him the night before the wedding.

But when she took herself up onto the stage and stood in front of that podium the afternoon of Evangeline and Cal's wedding, that hurt. My first instinct before I felt the pain was to tell Bart to run, because I saw the armed Reds and Newbloods coming at us. But after that, as I knelt before my chair with my hands placed ever so carefully on the cushion, then I could think.

I would have wept had I not faced those hundreds.

Now she compares herself to Maven, allows herself to understand him because he's the only one left that really understands her. Their conversations are so different from the talks I've had with Maven over the months, typically long tracks of quiet interlaced with short rants. They could talk for hours if they wanted, about their old lives, the sacrifices they've made for the things they care about more than anything else. They ridicule and laugh at one another, but those are only guises to cover bone-deep pain. Then there are those moments when they share genuine laughs between vexations, a real truth. Those were the hardest to hear.

I do not hate her. I pity her for all the decisions she's been forced to make.

And I know now that it was never her intention to become my friend. Perhaps it was an accident or a scheme that Davidson put her up to. But there was something there.

Then there's Rosalyn, somewhere across the city, waiting to plunder it all for me. I tell myself that it's because her allied country has been taken over, but it isn't. It's only for me and me alone.

I can barely stand that fact, knowing the soldiers she's amassed only for me, how she surely intends to gut Davidson and his leaders. Lakelanders and Nortans alike will die by the end of the week.

But Rosalyn... I haven't seen her in months, tied up with my promise to help Cal and Evangeline during their engagement.

She's coming.

Another secret Mare and Maven divulged to us in that room.

When I at last feel clean, I step out of the shower and into a clean pair of fighting pants I set out for myself earlier. The shirt comes next, then the boots that I take care to double-knot. I draw the water out of my hair, dropping it back into the shower basin.

The walks I take down the hallway are hesitant with the knowledge that she might very well be awake by now, or at least any minute.

But when I shove open the door to the main room, she still rests on her side, not having moved a bit. When she does wake, I'm not sure if it'll be sudden; a jerking from a bad dream. Or a slow waking, gradual enough that she'll be able to pretend to sleep; to listen to whatever she wishes, to plot and plan how the hell she's going to get out of here without any help.

Evangeline has taken her spot back at the desk, papers laid on the wood neatly. It could be for amusement, or maybe she's actually looking for something useful for Cal. Somehow, I imagine it's the former.

"You should go bathe, Cal," I say, going towards the other side of the room. "You look horrible, and it'll be better if I speak to her first when she wakes. I can tamp her down if she starts screaming or trying to break the chains."

"Okay," he says, and a I own half the wit to question him. Without complaint, he rises from his chair and heads towards the bathing room, closing the hallway door on his way.

"Wise words, Iris," Evangeline says, tucked away in her corner. "But I doubt she'll start screaming or trying to break the chains. For what the uneducated little Red girl is worth, she's learned by now when to keep her mouth shut. She waited six months to escape from Maven."

It's not the same, though, and I don't respond. When Maven took Mare hostage, she knew what kind of man he was. This is different, lover to lover, betrayed to betrayed, surrounded by fire and chains. And tonight of all nights, with another impending war on the brink of the horizon. All the lies and the masks are discarded at the ground now, with nothing left but air between them.

"Do you have any idea where your brother might be?" I ask, meaning to clear the atmosphere.

She shrugs, picking up another document and pretending to read it. The words probably don't register in her mind. "I know where he isn't. He isn't anywhere in the Bowl of Bones holding cells, not when Jon got down there so easily when there's supposedly only one entrance. There are other holding places throughout the palace, or maybe Davidson's keeping him close in a room nearby his. Not to say that I know where Davidson is."

"And if we can find Elane and Bart, we can get out on stealth. Our powers are brute, and we're just going to end up chopping down guard after guard until they manage to take us down."

Evangeline shrugs again, and the motion gets on my nerves. So nonchalant and uncaring, though I know she's anything but. "I would like to chop down some Red guards very much right about now. But you're right," she amends, saying, "slaughtering dozens of skilled Reds and Newbloods wouldn't be a very good idea."

"You should find Elane first. She'll be your best bet when it comes to finding your brother."

The Magnetron just smiles, not longer looking at me but the space to my side. She raises her eyebrows, raising a finger towards the wall.

I quirk my brow in response, already knowing what's happening. I turn anyway, and notice the slight movement in her hands, assessing the damage.

"Or maybe I should just threaten Miss Barrow over there, who appears to be waking. Tiberias and you may have prohibited torture, but I see no reason why I can't use a bit of leverage. When I was in a cage, she told me that she'd tell the name of the Whisper if I promised I wouldn't kill it, in exchange for Tolly's safety. But I could make a similar deal now."

The hands playing with her chains go still, though what's been seen can't be undone.

Water descending onto the shower floor echoes in the background, just having been turned on.

"I don't know where he's being kept," she says, but not in the harsh voice I was expectant of. In time and with limbs that must ache, she struggles up into a sitting position, shoulders pushed back from the way that her wrists are tied to the wall. She slouches into the stone wall, hair strewn over her face.

Evangeline tuts, but doesn't rise from her desk. She wouldv'e made a great queen. "Why should I believe you?"

Even with the hair over her eyes, I sense the emptiness within her. "You shouldn't."

I open my mouth, but closing it, I sink into one of the chairs around the table. She doesn't bother in attempting to brush the hair out of her face, though she's hardly able. And she's quieter than a prisoner should be, with defeated posture and fingers that continue to pick at her chains, trying to understand how they work.

She sprawls her legs out in front of her, but quickly retracts them into her chest, like some sort of scared child. No more appearances tonight, at least not for me or Evangeline.

"You have no idea where he might be?"

"No," she says.

"Very well," Evangeline says. "I'm going to gather new weapons and then we're out of here."

"Very well," I reply as she leaves the room.

But I don't let the silence of the room take over, instead moving my body so that I sit on the floor with her, tucking in my legs like her, if only to have something in common. I don't sit close enough for her to ram a leg out and into my chest, though.

"It was so quiet in the cells. I couldn't stand it, and whatever we are now, I don't want you to endure that silence either. So I'll talk whether or not you wish for me to talk," I say. "We were friends, Mare. Don't give me any reason to doubt that. Because whether you intended to become friends with me in hopes of gaining an insider's ear to Cal's court, or because you and I... we were just friends... there was something there. Don't tell me otherwise."

She shakes her head firmly. "We were friends. Our walks and talks were never for some stupid political gossip. We were friends, Iris."

I nod, feeling the prickle of tears at my eyes. "Then know that I forgive you. Because as somebody who was raised for no more of a purpose than to protect her country, know that I know what's it like to prioritize. It's not vicious; if anything, it's more human than anything else. Making those conscious decisions that you know will hurt those you love more than anybody else."

"You shouldn't."

"I forgive you, Mare Barrow. We may not be on the same side, but know that you did nothing wrong in my eyes, despite whatever I said before."

"Thank you," she says, and I smile down at her sadly as I get up. Evangeline comes from the weapons room, knives of every sort bedecking her arms and legs. She's made armor out of the blades she found in the room, making a full outfit for Evangeline Samos.

The Magnetron hardly looks at the girl before she begins her ascent up the stairs. I expect another crude comment from her, but she continues up the steps.

Braving near, I brush the hair from her eyes. She doesn't meet mine, staring straight ahead towards the fire on the walls. What a hollow girl.

"If we never see one another again, little lightning girl, then I'll promise you this: I won't hurt your Whisper." I think it's the most sentimental goodbye the steel-hearted girl can manage.

I say nothing more as I too climb up the stairs, heave myself out of the hidden chamber and begin to walk by Evangeline's side.

"Hello, lover," a voice purrs from thin air as Evangeline and I stride through the tunnels that has me jumping back, nearly cutting myself on the wall.

I flinch as Elane appears, swearing under my breath. Even as she fades into existence, the edges of her body are faded, her black shirt and pants and vivid red hair fading into nothing.

And I turn away as she pulls Evangeline into a kiss that lasts longer than I'd like, and I nearly start to walk down the tunnels without them. Rather, I splatter them both with a bit of water, pulling up my lip a bit. "Do you really want them finding us because you couldn't resist your urges?"

Evangeline rolls her eyes, fingers lacing with Elane's. "I doubt you'd be arguing if Bart were here."

"But he isn't," I say, crossing my arms.

Elane smirks, starting into a walk between me and Evangeline. "He's upstairs, prowling the hallways, if you're curious."

"Take me to him," I breathe. My sister can wait for now. Just for a moment, I promise myself, yearning to see her just as much.

"Only if you say please," she says, though a wide-open smile.

The door to the room where Elane and Bart have been hiding out for the past week opens softly, and he's on his feet in an instant.

Bart's eyes meet mine, and I surge across the room, our arms wrapping around one another. I breathe in his familiar scent.

His strokes against my back are calming and scream of sorrow for what I went through, but I shake my head in the crook of his neck, then grab his face between my hands.

"I told you to run," I say slowly, looking deep into his eyes. "Do not blame yourself and do not be angry with yourself. You couldn't have surpassed my guards in the Bowl of Bones. I have been through worse. Do not blame yourself."

"I know," he says, though he doesn't mean it.

"I love you," I say, crushing my lips against his.

Time seems to stretch and strain as I kiss him, and I hardly notice or care when Evangeline and Elane leave, hardly notice anything but Bart.