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“Do you hear yourself!” I twist the cotton sheet in my hands, trying to control my annoyance. “Anex said. Anex thinks. Anex wants to see how far he can push you outside your comfort zone and see your tits, Maria. Trust me, that’s all.”

She blinks. Cheeks red, horrified at my words. Women in Serendee don’t talk like this. We don’t use words like this, but all I do is smirk and say, “I’m Regressive, remember?”

“This is what I mean.” She shakes her head. “You’re not the same person I knew—that I grew up with and studied and learned with.”

“You’re wrong,” I say, but then reconsider. “But also right. I am that same girl but… things happened to me after the Ordering. Before really.” The examination by Healer Bloom comes to mind, the truth that I know we weren’t alone in the room. I think about how much Anex loathes my mother, how betrayed he felt, and how that anger has festered into something deep and complicated.

I think about my training. My men, and how they opened up the world to me.

But I never speak those things, not to Maria, not to anyone.

“You were Chosen. How could you give that up?”

“That word doesn’t mean what you think it does,” I tell her. “I know it is impossible for you to understand, but I did everything asked of me.” Like a beacon, the brand itches below my hip, and I fight to scratch it. It’s a constant reminder of who I belong to. How far I was willing to go for approval, forEnlightenment.

“Anex builds mazes,” I continue. “Complicated labyrinths with only one way out. Every turn leads to the same ending—the one he has determined for you.” I look around the grounds, out in the distance to the massive red barn. So peaceful on the outside. Danger and trouble buried underneath. “This is your maze, Maria. It’s only going to end up where he decides.”

Maria watches me closely, the white sheet pulled to her belly. “You think I don’t know that?” she says. “That I don’t accept that his decisions will be the best for me and my baby? He is ourleader, Imogene. Are you saying you don’t trust him? That he doesn’t know best?”

Maria doesn’t know the truth about what he asked me to do, the way he looks at me—touches me—the plans he has that I can’t fully comprehend. She hasn’t seen the Fallen or known about the people Anex plans to trade to men like chattel. All Maria can see is the path he has created for her. One she—and everyone in Serendee—thinks will lead to Enlightenment.

But in reality, it’s a path of doom.

A path none of us can veer off. The walls are too high. Too narrow. I look at my friend and say, “Whatever you think of me, understand I am here for you and your child.”

She nods. “Anex wouldn’t have put you here if he thought you a danger to us.”

I fight a laugh. Anex put me here for monitoring—for Healer Bloom to make me fertile. For whatever perverse plan he has next. He put me here to keep me away fromthem.

“I’m glad you see that,” I say, because even though it’s foolish, it does feel comforting for my oldest friend to trust me.

8

Rex

The rattle of the doorknob startles me from a restless sleep. The door opens before I can swing my legs over the side of the bed, the bright light from the hallway, a glare in my eyes.

“What the fuck,” I mutter, rubbing my eyes. There are no windows in here, no way to tell what time of day it is down in my father’s hidden home for The Fallen. I blink, trying to acclimate to the light and sense movement in the door.

“Jesus, Erik, what happened to knocking?”

“I don’t knock in my house; you know that, Son.”

I turn my head and see my father standing in the doorway, head nodding to the guard outside to shut the door.

“Of course you don’t.” I reach for the bottle of water by the side of the bed and take a gulp. “What did I do to earn the honor of a personal visit?”

Anex has something draped over his arm, clothing from the looks of the way it hangs. He tosses it to the end of the bed. One glance, and I can tell it’s not for work—at least not the manual labor I’ve been doing lately. It’s the kind of clothing I wore when I was still the heir.

“Get dressed.”

I could fight it. Fight him, especially without the guard here, but my father isn’t weak. He’s a strong man who could snap my neck if it came down to it. But I’m barely healed from last time, and I know Erik is right outside the door waiting for a reason to come in. I take a deep breath and think of the conversation I had with Silas. Getting the shit beat out of me, staying locked in this cell, none of that is helping Imogene. If anything, it’s probably making it worse.

It just makes me so fucking angry.

I step to the corner, to the small toilet installed in the wall. I yank my pajama bottoms down and handle my dick. The stream is loud, filling the tiny room, but not loud enough to cover as my father huffs at the human display.

“Sorry, there’s no privacy. The room came this way.” God he’s such a prick.