FRANTIC NEWS REPORTS FROM DIFFERENT PAPERS across the country all said the same thing. The Great War that had swallowed up Europe had seemed to come to a halt, but not because some armistice had been achieved between national leaders. Soldiers were disappearing across the continent.
No, not just soldiers. Villagers. Men, women, and children. Vanished from their homes.
“The British papers are only paying attention to the happenings in Europe, but similar tragedies are befalling different parts of the world, my lord,” said Fool, who sat next to Adam in the carriage, his top hat lowered to cover his harlequin mask. “Two other Fools have been tracking her on Bellerose’s orders. North and South America. Asia. All over the world, the same strange disappearances.”
“Then Iris must have found a way to travel quickly across great distances.” Adam pulled up his black gloves. “My father mentioned it once in one of his papers. That ancient civilizations devised methods to bend the rules of space and time. It’s possible. Anything’s possible when Iris is involved.”
“Do you wish to ask your John Temple, my lord?”
Adam considered it. But the thought of seeing his father an emaciated corpse, barely animated in his bed, made him shudder. “No. Just tell me where she is now.”
“The South of France, the last I tracked.”
The South of France it was. “Get my travel accommodations ready.”
But Fool was silent. “Millions have died thus far, my lord,” he said. “Even Bellerose has noticed. She’s using it as a way to stir her guests to begin traveling to Africa. The Fools have sent out word that the end is near.”
“So the Ark should be full. Iris’s return to form certainly benefits Bellerose.”
“Iris is now Hiva. She can no longer be swayed or controlled. If you see her, my lord, she may kill you—”
A backhand sent Fool’s head twisting in the opposite direction so fast and so hard, Adam thought he’d heard his neck crack. Perhaps he’d hit him too hard. It didn’t matter. The Fools couldn’t die, not as long as their primary body, Dr. Heidegger, still lived.
Fool adjusted his neck. His mask did not budge one inch. It couldn’t.
“Iris will respond to me. She is mine, after all.”
“You’re right,” said Fool. “I’m sorry, my lord.”
He’s mine, and I’m his, came Tom Fables’s voice, followed by his frantic giggles echoing in Adam’s mind. No. They were not the same.
Adam loved Iris. And indeed, Iris would reciprocate. Now that she was truly who she was always meant to be: at his prodding, she would come to see that they were meant to be together. It was fate, the same that had brought them together in that exhibit more than ten years ago.
And so Adam traveled to the South of France.
Fool had tracked the trail of death across the winding medieval streets of Montpellier, the ancient castles on the French Riviera, the estate and gardens of Gourdon, and the villages above the rocky hills.
“She’s up there, my lord,” Fool told him as they stood upon a green hilltop. He pointed to a quiet hamlet strung together by white, rocky roads. “I saw her enter the home next to the tavern. She has not, as far as my eyes can see, left.”
“Very good, Fool. I’ll find her from here.”
The roads were empty as the sun sank beyond the hills. Each click of his boot heel upon the asphalt drew eerie echoes that joined with the hooting of owls in the evergreen trees. Every once in a while, Adam would spy a pair of shoes by a potted plant, a skirt fluttering across the street like tumbleweed, a jacket hanging on a street sign. A children’s toy or two.
Adam closed his eyes and soaked it in. The death. Only with cleansing could something new emerge. He’d dreamed of this. Wished for this. Started a war for this. And now his work had finally yielded fruit.
No, not yet. First he had to see her.
There could be only one end to this story.
Wind battered the tavern sign against the filthy window: LE FAUCON ET LE CORBEAU. “The Hawk and the Raven.” The home next to it was run-down and yet still somehow quaint, with its tiny little chimney, rustic white brick, and black sloped roof. A light was on in one of the square bedroom windows. One flickering light in a dark void under the stars.
Iris. He followed her there.
Carefully, he closed the door behind him. There was only one gray room with no lighting. A pail of water had been knocked over. Streams of water wound around rickety chair legs. Small pots of soup—still hot, judging from the smoke—had been placed upon the table. Adam picked up one of the used spoons. The pants and undergarments slumped across the seats belonged to one adult and two children.
Adam thought of his mother, the Baroness, and his siblings, Abraham and Eva. What they could have been had they lived in a better world. Now there was a chance. A chance to build up what must first be torn down.
His heart thumped as he gazed up the staircase. Sucking in his breath, he ascended them quietly so as not to scare her.
But when he opened the door to the room, he knew there was nothing that could scare this woman, this creature of magic and wonder.
Iris. She sat upon a hard bed with white sheets. She sat with her back straight and her eyes unblinking. With her arms placed gingerly upon her knees, she stared at the full-length mirror against the wall directly opposite herself. She gazed into it without emotion, with nothing to even prove she was sentient but for the steady rise and fall of her chest.
She did not stir when Adam closed the door behind him.
“You ran so quickly from me, my love. I wonder, what was the cause?”
He said it gently, but he couldn’t hide the accusation in his voice. His right arm still throbbed. She’d broken it. But it must have been in a fit of confusion. The Iris who didn’t accept herself despised him. He wasn’t a fool; he knew that much. But the Iris that was Hiva, the Iris that accepted her reason for existence, would not—could not—refuse him. He knew that as surely as he could feel the excited blood pumping through his veins.
“How does it feel?” he asked her. “To accept the necessity of death without fear? To stare into the void and let it overtake you? Does it stir you as it does me?”
He took a cautious step toward her before silently admonishing himself. What reason did he have to be cautious? Iris wasn’t a stranger. She was not even apart from him. She was of him. It was he who had carried her crystal heart to her skeleton and given her life. It was his face that had been the first she’d looked upon in fifty years while her heart mended itself from the brutality of Seymour Pratt’s experiments. No words could ever be sufficient to describe the closeness of their relationship, except that they were fated.
Adam took two more steps toward her, quick and brazen, before he noticed something next to her on the bed. Furrowing his eyebrows, he inspected it before the realization flooded over him. A crystal heart. Not white crystal. It was a pale peach color, but it looked the same as the one kept in his father’s safe for so many years.
A crystal heart. Hers? No. It must have been the other Hiva’s. There was a great crack in the surface. Adam suspected it was this damage that kept that Hiva’s body from reforming once again. Of course—just like her heart so many years ago. Had Iris done it herself? If so, then she was knowingly keeping it dormant, knowingly keeping the other Hiva at bay. She would only do so if she had no other means to kill him for good.
Did that mean Iris wished to be the only Hiva to lay waste to this world? The thought sent Adam down a spiral of speculation. But he kept himself calm. He wouldn’t embarrass himself in front of her.
“Iris, speak to me.” This time he closed the distance between them. Taking off his black jacket and throwing it to the ground, he touched her cheek. “Did you battle the other Hiva? Did he try to harm you?”
She did not respond. No. She did not even look at him. It was if he were part of the scenery. The air one never noticed. As useless as the broken lamp upon the clothing cabinet.
He pursed his lips and waited for an answer, the heat rising from his head. And then, when the answer did not come, he forced her head around roughly and made her look at him.
She didn’t look at him. She looked through him.
And then she turned back to the mirror as casually as if she had brushed off a mosquito.
“Why?” Clenching his teeth, Adam stood up straight, his eyes taking in the dirty floral carpet underneath the bed, spread haphazardly over the wooden floor. “Why do you ignore me?” He thought back to that night. Her utter lack of interest. “Do you not see me as important?”
No answer. His fists began to shake.
“My name is Adam Temple. I lost my family, but I gained you instead. I gained a guardian angel. Proof of God’s existence. I gained a purpose. And in turn I gave you your life again.” He could feel his fingernails digging into his hot palms. “Iris, what do you call the one who gives you life? Your mother? Your father? Your maker? Your master? Aren’t there many words for it? They’re all just words, but in the end, there is a connection between you and me, no? One impossible to ignore, because without me, you would not be here. Without me, you would be rotting away inside a safe or on a cold experiment table for scientific study. Or maybe in a museum. An exhibit for all to see.”
Iris’s eyelashes fluttered with disinterest. It infuriated him.
“Do you hear me, Iris?”
Silence. Adam let the silence roll into minutes. How many had passed? He couldn’t tell. It felt like he stood for an hour without uttering a word, without drawing Iris’s attention. If it were out of malice, then Adam would understand. Indeed, he’d relished the hatred Iris would point in his direction in the old days, her sharp tongue like a bloody knife ready to strike. He would be just fine with her malice. Her desperation. Her anger and pain.
No, it was not out of malice that she ignored him. It was not some game she was playing to rile him up and drive him mad.
She simply did not care.
That. That was what drove him mad.
As easily as she batted a firefly away, Iris stood from the bed and turned to leave.
That was his breaking point.
He tackled her to the bed, the other Hiva’s crystal heart flying off the sheets and crashing against the ground. As it rolled on the wooden planks, Adam pinned Iris down with one arm, the other one screaming in pain, but he ignored it. He brought his face close to hers. He forced her to look into his eyes and to see his love. To accept it. To accept his presence. To accept him.
My name is Adam Temple. And I need you. Please… need me too….
He kissed her. He felt her soft lips against his, then ran his across her cheek and down her neck. He kissed her protruding collarbone. Then he kissed her stomach. Whatever cloth she was wearing tasted and felt like the air.
“You really are wrapped in the heavens, Iris,” he whispered as his heart pounded, as the blood rushed down to his legs and he felt his pants tighten. “You are mine. I am yours.”
He kissed a line from her stomach up to her chest, then to her cheek, but just before he kissed her lips once again, he chanced a look. He didn’t want to. It is a risk, something from within him screamed. Don’t do it.
He did it. He looked.
Iris’s expression had not changed. She was not looking at him but at the ceiling.
She didn’t care.
He had spent his childhood thinking of her. He’d killed for her. Started a war for her.
And she just didn’t care.
He was nothing to her. Not an object of hatred or revenge. Not a partner. Not even a human to incinerate.
He was nothing.
Adam’s hand found her throat. And he was squeezing so hard, saliva began to drip from his mouth.
“You are mine. I own you. I created you. You dare, you dare, treat me like this? You? You, who were once put on display like a filthy animal?”
And he cursed at her. He cursed at himself.
“I come from a line of knights and lords. My power can shake mountains and move the nations of this earth. I gave you your life. And yet you…”
And yet she was the god, not him. She was the one with the power he’d desired since childhood. The power to punish his enemy: humanity.
His power could shake mountains and move the nations of this earth, and yet it still paled in comparison to hers. It was only in this moment he realized just how infuriated this made him.
He envied her.
Finally her lips began to move. Adam held his breath, blinking back tears. She was forming a word. She was speaking to him. The word was coming. With an exhale of breath, it would soon be here. What would she say to him? Thank you? I see you? I love you?
“Ji… nn…”
Adam’s left hand went numb. Iris pushed him off her, not with annoyance, but with a polite expelling of breath. She brushed herself off. And without a word, she left the house on the green hill next to the tavern.
What happened to him next, Adam wasn’t sure he could describe it. He lay down upon the bed for hours. He stared at the ceiling and thought of Tom Fables paralyzed in a hospital, abandoned and yet still crazed with devotion over a god who’d left him behind. He listened all through the night to his own heartbeat and to the owls and crickets, his eyes open, until the sounds together drove him mad.
Adam’s world turned a harrowing white.