A hi-tech desk ran the length of another wall, covered with keyboards and video game controllers. Monitors hung above. Different video games had been paused mid-action.

In front of a cushy gamer’s chair sat a plate with a half-eaten Hot Pocket beside a can of Coke.

“So this is your dukedom. You sit in here and play?” While everyone else in the world was fighting for survival? How did the least deserving assholes on the planet score these digs?

“We play when we’re not practicing our craft. Or being interrupted,” he said with an annoyed look at me. Sensor in hand, he dropped into that chair. “In a way, our lives are video games. We send our avatars into the world, and the Shrine is the big boss cave.”

Vincent was a monster—and yet he sounded like an excited teenager when he said, “We’ve turned it into a house of horrors! We’ve got carnates patrolling every floor and Baggers in the basement to guard our treasure. Congratulations, Empress, you survived our little prank explosion, so you got to this secret bonus level. But you only have one life left.” He cast me that vile grin.

Vincent Milovníci had microwave snacks galore but had apparently never seen a toothbrush. I turned from his smile, frowning at those clothes near the trashcan.

Were those Selena’s?

Yes, that was her shirt, coat, and boots—to be discarded with the food packaging. Because the twins believed she’d never need them? “Where is Selena? What have you done to her?”

In a perplexed tone, he said, “We loved her.”

Fury erupted inside me. “You raped her?”

“Me? Cheat on Vi? Are you crazy?” He was so aghast I believed him.

I never thought I’d be relieved to learn that Vincent was faithful to Violet. “You said you’d take me to see Selena.”

He pulled on his collar again. “What’s your rush? We have all the time in the world.”

“Are you embarrassed for me to see her? To see your sick kicks?”

He grinned again. “Our lovesick kicks.”

I cast him my best Selena impression. Really?

His black brows drew together. “We’re proud of our work, Empress. We always have been.”

Work?

“If you’re so eager to be enlightened . . .” He pressed a button on the desk. A wall panel folded back, revealing a torture chamber. The air from within wafted over me like a foul breath, and I nearly threw up again.

This area made the Azey South tent look like amateur night. All the devices from before were here, with new ones too. A pillory, a rack, and a real-live guillotine.

Shackles hung from beams. Gore-covered mallets and cleavers lay atop a work bench. A pegboard displayed various metal masks, crank contraptions, hacksaws, and pruning shears.

A large fire burned within a vented pit, a rack of pincers and pokers at the ready.

One corpse rotted on a chair with spikes; a second decomposed in a suspended cage.

“My supply of victims has gotten smaller and smaller.” Vincent sighed, as if embarrassed by the lackluster amount of carnage. “But now that you’re here, with your regeneration, you’ll be like a video game that never ends.”

There was a bed with twisted sheets. The twins slept in here, amid the bodies and stench. “Where is Violet?”

“She’s always close.”

“If you and your sister have Wonder Twin powers, why would you not go everywhere together?”

“Our talents are . . . evolving.” He seemed to think that was hilarious.

All the way to my right, I saw a bloody wood stump with an ax embedded. Someone knelt in front of it.

“Selena?”

39

She was motionless, her dark eyes staring blankly.

Her long hair tangled around her face. She wore only her jeans and a bra, and she looked like she’d lost twenty pounds in just days. Every inch of her bared skin was covered in bruises.

“Your arrival interrupted us.” Vincent’s tone was peevish. “We were just about to take the Archer’s hand—”

I ran for her, dropping to my knees beside her. “Selena!” Behind a wicked-looking ax blade, her arm stretched across the surface of the stump.

Oh dear God, they’d hammered a rusty nail through her hand to hold her in place. Was that what sent her over the edge?

I tugged her hair from her face, pulling it over her shoulder. A crusted brand marked her chest, two overlapping triangles, bisected with arrows.

Rage boiled up inside me. Another body vine grew from my neck and split behind me. Not a green aura this time; it felt like a cobra’s hood.

Vincent shuddered with disgust. “You can’t comprehend how repulsive you are to us.” He raised the sensor. “Easy, Empress. Now that we have you, we don’t need the Archer as much.”

Damn that sensor! I could control my rage. I gritted my teeth, forcing the vine to collapse onto itself.

Gradually it retracted. Once it’d slipped beneath the surface of my skin, I turned back to Selena. “Please say something.” She didn’t react. “Selena, answer me!” Nothing.

I leveled my gaze on Vincent. “What the hell did you do?”

He sat on a trunk at the foot of the bed. “While we waited for the Archer’s arm to heal, we kept her in a standing sweat box with a noose around her neck, forcing her to balance on her toes atop a heating plate.” His attitude was as la-di-da as his carnate’s had been. “Mortals break after just a couple of hours, but she endured for days, without food or water. She emerged, a blank canvas for us to work with.”