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“Your Majesty, we… you were usurped. We wanted to restore your glory.”

“And what about your friend, Jordan?” Melchom circled him as he spoke. Dove thought he could see dried blood on Jordan’s clothes, but it was too dark to be certain. “What was your plan for him?”

“Where is he?” Jordan swallowed.

It was the first sign of vulnerability Dove had ever noticed in him.

“He’s here.” Melchom said nonchalantly. Dove wished he could be as collected as him while his heart was breaking. “What do you have to say to him, human?”

It hit him, the disdain when Melchom spat that word. As much as it had bothered him when that was the only way Melchom had addressed Dove, that disdain had never been there.

Not really.

“This was his purpose all along.” Jordan held Melchom’s gaze. Dove wasn’t sure how he did it. “I didn’t know it at first, but then it clicked. He is meant to be here, beside you. He wasn’t happy on Earth, but he had a chance here.”

Dove froze. How long?

“So when did this nonsense start?” Melchom leaned against the wall. Dove felt the solid rock behind them even if he didn’t really see it. “When did you accept your friend’s life was worth the gamble?”

“It was…” Jordan paused, but it didn’t look like he was regretting anything. He was just thinking, trying to recall the moment Melchom had asked him about. He’d always had a terrible memory. “Two years after I met him. I’d joined the Society a month before when my leader saw him picking me up.”

“Just like that?”

Dove gulped down. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be here anymore.

Trust me.

He nodded. He hoped Melchom saw him, but another part of him hoped he didn’t and this all stopped. It had to stop—before he was even more broken.

Dove felt himself propelled forward. One blink, and he was in a different room. Looking down, he saw himself, wearing that same corset his brain had somehow conjured when he’d first woke up inside this… place. Reaching out with his hand told him he had that same flower crown, too.

The room he was in looked like what he assumed a bank safe would look like. Pristine and metallic, with well labeled tiny doors filling the walls. A bench sat in the middle of it.

Jordan was there.

A rush of wind, and Melchom materialized too. It was instinctual when Dove reached to hold his hand. Dove gripped it tight. If they weren’t here, he’d worry about hurting him. But then, he didn’t think hurting Melchom was possible. At least, not physically.

Well, this is disappointing.

Where are we? Jordan and Dove asked at nearly the same time.

Dove refused to acknowledge that synchronicity.

Jordan’s head. I figured you’d want him to see you.

Dove glanced around to the different safes. It looked nothing like his head did. It was so orderly and secure.

Show him, Dove didn’t know what pulled him to ask that. If–if you can do that, show him. What happened to me. Everything I’ve gone through.

It will be my pleasure.

Jordan didn’t get a word in, but Dove saw when images started to assault him. His body sprung, his eyes widened, pupils moving quickly as if tracking every frame and movement.

Dove was deep in thought. Another day, he would’ve felt bad about putting his friend through this. Were they friends, though? He replayed Jordan’s explanation. Dove must’ve been twenty when Jordan had turned on him, but he couldn’t remember any shift in their relationship. That year, Jordan had joined a book club. Dove guessed book club was code for the satanic cult Melchom had mentioned.

Dove had sometimes walked there with him, or picked him up so they could go have bubble tea at a shop near the old bookstore. It had never made complete sense, why Jordan had joined and seemed so invested in a book club. Dove had never thought of him as the nerdy type. At the time, he remembered thinking Jordan must be trying to get someone’s attention, or maybe he was insecure about not being as smart as his siblings. Dove could understand that—all of Jordan’s siblings were doctors and engineers. Jordan had once confessed to feeling like the black sheep in his family because he was only a PE teacher.

It had hurt, back then. It was why he’d always had an excuse ready if Jordan’s family was visiting, or they invited him somewhere. If they’d thought their son was a disappointment, Dove didn’t want to guess what they’d think of him. Now he had to wonder—had he rejected the notion of a family based on a lie? Because Jordan knew what he was going to do to him?