“It would, Your Majesty.”
“Then it can wait. The cyborg is our top priority.”
He bowed. “We will keep you updated on further developments.”
Aimery gestured toward the door. “That will be all. Thank you for the report.”
The thaumaturge swept away, but another figure was standing inside the elevator when the doors opened.
Levana straightened at the sight of Jacin Clay. There was a shadow across his face, a loathing that he normally worked so hard to disguise. Levana’s gaze slipped down to his hands. They were covered in blood. There was a stain on the knee of his pants too, dried black.
He stepped off the elevator, but Jerrico stopped him in his tracks, a palm on Jacin’s chest.
“Sir Clay?” she said.
“It’s done.” His tone carried all the horror that the simple words concealed.
A smile tickled Levana’s mouth. She spun away to hide it—an act of generosity. “I know it could not have been easy for you,” she said, hoping sympathy carried in her voice. “I know how you cared for her, but you have done the right thing for your crown and your country.”
Jacin said nothing.
When she could school her face again, Levana turned back. Aimery and Jerrico were impassive, while Jacin looked like he would rip out Levana’s still-beating heart if he had the chance.
She took pity on him, choosing to forgive these rebellious instincts. He had loved the girl, after all, hard as it was to fathom.
“What did you do with the body?”
“I took it to the menagerie’s incinerator, where they take the deceased animals.” None of his anger faded as he recounted the task, though he made no movement toward Levana. Still, Jerrico did not relax. “I killed the white wolf, too, to cover the blood, and left the wolf’s body behind. The gamekeepers will think it was a random attack.”
Levana frowned, her mood dampening. “I did not tell you to destroy the body, Sir Clay. The people must see proof of her death if she is no longer to be a threat to my throne.”
His jaw tightened. “She was never a threat to your throne,” he growled, “and I wasn’t about to leave her there to be pecked apart by whatever albino scavengers you keep down there. You can find some other way to break the news to the people.”
She pressed her lips against a sour taste in her mouth. “So I shall.”
Jacin swallowed, hard, regaining some composure. “I hope you won’t mind that I also disposed of a witness, My Queen. I thought it would be contrary to your objectives if word got out that a royal guard had murdered the princess. People might question if it was under your order, after all.”
She bristled. “What witness?”
“The Earthen girl. I didn’t think anyone would miss her.”
“Ah, her.” With a scoff, Levana brushed her hand through the air. “She should have been dead weeks ago. You have done me a service by ridding me of her.” She tilted her head, examining him. It was amusing to see so much emotion revealed when it was normally so impossible to aggravate him. “You’ve exceeded my expectations, Sir Clay.” She placed a hand on his cheek. A muscle twitched beneath her palm and she tried to ignore the glower searing into her. His anger was expected, but he would soon realize it was for the best.
If he didn’t, she could always force him to.
Levana felt lighter already, knowing she would never have to see her stepdaughter’s face again.
She dropped her hand and floated back to the windows. Beyond the curved dome she could see the barren landscape of Luna, white craters and cliffs against the black sky. “Is there anything else?”
“Yes,” said Jacin.
She raised an eyebrow.
“I wish to resign from the royal guard. I ask to be reassigned to the sector where my father was sent years ago. This palace holds too many memories for me.”
Levana’s face softened. “I am sure it does, Jacin. I am sorry that I had to ask this of you. But your request is denied.”
His nostrils flared.
“You have proven yourself to be loyal and trustworthy, traits I would be remiss to lose. You may take leave for the rest of today, with my gratitude, but tomorrow you will report for your new assignment.” She grinned. “Well done, Jacin. You are dismissed.”
Thirty-Two
Cinder was losing her mind. They had been hiding in Maha Kesley’s tiny shack for days. Wolf and his mother, Thorne, Iko, and herself, all crammed into little rooms, tripping over one another every time they tried to move. Though they didn’t move much. There was nowhere to go. They were afraid to be heard through the small, glassless windows, so they communicated mostly in hand signals and messages tapped out on their one remaining portscreen. The silence was horrendous. The stillness was suffocating. The waiting, agony.
She thought often of Cress and Scarlet and wondered if either of them was alive.
She worried about Kai as the wedding loomed ever closer.
There was guilt too. Not only had they put Maha in danger by being there, they were also eating far too much food, having already burned through the measly packs they’d brought with them. Maha said nothing about it, but Cinder could tell. Food was strictly rationed in the outer sectors, and Maha was barely able to feed herself.
They spent their days trying to rework their plan, but after all the plotting they’d done aboard the Rampion, Cinder was disheartened to be back at square one. The video they’d recorded remained unused—copies of it downloaded not only to the portscreen, but to Cinder’s and Iko’s internal computers too. It didn’t matter how many copies of it they had. Without Cress being there to tap into the broadcasting system, the video was useless.
They discussed starting a grassroots movement. Maha Kesley could spread the word of Selene’s return to the laborers in the mine and let the news spread from there. Or they could send messengers through the tunnels, scrawling messages on the tunnel walls. But these were slow strategies, with too much risk for miscommunication and little chance the news would spread far.
There was a reason Levana kept her people isolated from one another. There was a reason no one had attempted a cohesive rebellion yet, not because they didn’t want to. It was clear from the government-sanctioned propaganda that Levana and her ancestors had sought to brainwash the Lunar people into a belief that their rule was righteous and fated. It was equally clear from the tunnel graffiti and the people’s downcast eyes that they no longer believed it, if they ever had.
Any spark of defiance may have been starved and threatened out of them, but the more Lunars Cinder saw, the more she believed she could reignite them.
All she needed was a way to talk to them.
Maha had gone to the maglev platform to wait in line for her weekly rations, leaving the rest of them staring at a holographic map of Luna. It had been over an hour, but few suggestions had been posed.
Cinder was beginning to feel hopeless, and all the while, the clock was ticking. To the wedding. To the coronation. To their inevitable discovery.
An unexpected chorus of chimes made Cinder jump. The map faded, the feed overridden by a mandatory message being broadcast from the capital. Cinder knew that the same message would be playing on a dozen embedded screens on the dome outside, making sure that every citizen saw it.
Head Thaumaturge Aimery Park appeared before them, handsome and arrogant. Cinder recoiled. The holograph made it seem as though he were in the room with them.
“Good people of Luna,” he said, “please stop what you are doing and listen to this announcement. I am afraid we have tragic news to impart. Earlier today, Her Royal Highness, Princess Winter Hayle-Blackburn, stepdaughter of Her Majesty the Queen, was found murdered in the royal menagerie.”
Cinder’s brow furrowed and she traded frowns with her companions. She knew little about the princess, only that she was said to be beautiful and the people loved her, which must mean Levana hated her. She had heard of the princess’s scarred face, a punishment inflicted by
the queen herself, or so the rumors went.
“We are reviewing security footage in an attempt to bring the murderer to justice, and we will not rest until our beloved princess is avenged. Though our devoted queen is devastated at this loss, she wishes to proceed with her wedding ceremony as scheduled, so we might have joy in this time of sadness. A funeral procession for Her Highness will be scheduled for the coming weeks. Princess Winter Hayle-Blackburn will be missed by us all, but never forgotten.”
Aimery’s face disappeared.
“Do you think Levana killed her?” Iko asked.
“Of course I do,” Cinder said. “I wonder what the princess did to anger her.”
Thorne folded his arms. “I’m not sure you have to do anything to earn Levana’s wrath.”
He looked ragged, unshaven and weary, even more so than the day Cinder had met him in New Beijing Prison. Though no one had dared to talk about abandoning Cress, Cinder knew he was taking her loss harder than any of them. She’d sensed from the moment they were reunited in Farafrah that Thorne felt a responsibility toward Cress, but for the first time she was beginning to wonder if his feelings didn’t go deeper than that.
Wolf’s head suddenly snapped up, his eyes locking on the fabric-covered window.
Cinder went rigid, ready to load a bullet into her finger or use her Lunar gift to defend herself and her friends—whatever this unseen threat called for. She felt the tension rise around her. Everyone falling silent, watching Wolf.
His nose twitched. His brow drew closer, doubtful. Suspicious.
“Wolf?” Cinder prodded.
He sniffed again and his eyes brightened.
Then he was gone—hurling himself past the group and tearing open the front door.
Cinder jumped to her feet. “Wolf! What are you—”
Too late. The door slammed shut behind him. She cursed. This was not the time for her mutant wolf ally to start running around and drawing attention to himself.
She yanked on her boots to chase after him.
* * *
Scarlet landed the ship in a tiny underground port that had only two ancient delivery ships already inside. Once the chamber had been sealed, two blinding lightbulbs lit up the ceiling, one of them with a sporadic flicker. Scarlet got out first, scanning every corner, inspecting beneath each ship. Empty.
There were two enormous freight elevators and three stairwells leading to the surface, labeled RM-8, RM-9, RM-11.
Every surface was covered in dust.
“You coming?” she called to Winter, who had made it so far as opening the podship door. The princess’s hair was a tangled mess and her skirt crusted with blood. The tablecloth they’d stolen had slipped down around her shoulders. Whereas the escape had filled Scarlet with adrenaline, it had left Winter drained. Her head bobbed as she pulled herself out of the ship.
Scarlet planted her hands on her hips, her patience stretched to near breaking. “Do I have to carry you?”
Winter shook her head. “You don’t think we were followed?”
“I’m hoping no one has figured out we’re missing yet.” Scarlet read the signs again, the letters almost undetectable beneath the dust. “Not that we have a whole lot of options at this point, even if we were followed.”
Scarlet turned back and tightened the tablecloth around Winter’s waist so it looked like an ill-fitting skirt, covering the blood, then she unzipped her hoodie and helped Winter into the sleeves. She tucked the princess’s voluminous hair back and pulled the hood over her face as well as she could. “Not great, but better than nothing.”
“Do you think he’s dead yet?”
Scarlet paused in the middle of zipping up the hoodie again. Winter peered back at her, looking small and vulnerable.
She sighed. “He’s smart and he’s strong. He’ll be all right.” She tugged the zipper up to Winter’s throat. “Come on.”
When they emerged on the surface, protected beneath the enormous dome, Scarlet paused to get her bearings. She had looked up the Kesley address on the ship’s database, though the series of numbers and letters made no sense to her.
The spaceship port was meant for freight and this entrance was situated between two warehouses, one wall lined with carts that were heaped to overflowing with chipped black rock. Not far away was an enormous cavern opening up into what looked like a mine or rock quarry. Regolith Mining, the sector map had said.
Were Wolf’s parents miners? Would Wolf have become a miner, too, if he hadn’t been conscripted into the army? It was impossible to imagine a life in which he lived here, on this moon, beneath this dome, and never came to Earth. Never met her.
“This doesn’t appear to be residential,” she muttered.
“Residences are usually in the outer rings of each sector,” said Winter.
“Outer ring. Right.” Scarlet scanned the squat warehouses. “Which way is that?”
Winter pointed up at the dome that encapsulated them. Even with the surrounding buildings, it was clear where the dome’s highest point was and where it rounded out toward the edges.
Scarlet turned away from the dome’s center.
As they walked, she tried to cobble together a plan. First, find where the people lived. Second, figure out how their homes were addressed and find the home of Wolf’s parents. Third, stumble through an awkward conversation in which she tried to explain to them who she was and why they had to shelter her and Winter.
When the industrial buildings gave way to ramshackle homes, Scarlet was relieved to see address numbers painted on the concrete in front of each building, faded from years of foot traffic. “A-49, A-50,” she murmured to herself, quickening her pace. The next circle of houses were labeled with Bs. “Easy enough. The Kesley house was D-313, right? So we’ll head to the row of Ds and…”
She glanced back.
Winter was gone.
Cursing, Scarlet spun in a full circle, but there was no sign of the princess. “You can’t be serious,” she growled, backtracking her steps. She’d been so immersed in finding the house, she couldn’t recall hearing Winter beside her since she’d left the warehouses behind. She’d probably wandered off, strung along by some hallucination …
Scarlet paused, catching sight of the princess down an alley. She was wedged between two factories and mesmerized by a metal shaft that poked out of one of the buildings. Broken white rock tumbled out of it into a cart below.
The red hood was still pulled over the princess’s face and a great cloud of dust was billowing around her, but she didn’t seem to notice.
Huffing, Scarlet squared her shoulders and started marching toward her, ready to drag the crazy girl away by her hair if she had to. She hadn’t crossed half the distance, though, when Winter’s head snapped around, away from Scarlet.
Scarlet’s pace slowed, dread pulsing through her as she, too, heard the footsteps. Pounding footsteps, like someone was running at full speed toward them.
She reached for the knife Jacin had given her.
“Winter,” she hissed—but either she was too far away, or the noise of the clattering rock and machinery was too loud. “Winter!”
A man barreled around a corner, heading straight for the princess. Winter tensed half a second before he reached her. Grabbing Winter’s elbow, he yanked back the red hood.
Scarlet gasped. Her knees weakened. The man stared at Winter with a mixture of confusion and disappointment and maybe even anger, all locked up in eyes so vividly green Scarlet could see them glowing from here.
She was the one hallucinating now.
She took a stumbling, uncertain step forward. Wanting to run toward him, but terrified it was a trick. Her hand tightened around the knife handle as Wolf, ignoring how Winter was trying to pull away, grabbed her arm and smelled the filthy red sleeve of Scarlet’s hoodie, streaked with dirt and blood.
He growled, ready to tear the princess apart. “Where did you get this?”
So desperate, so determined, so him. The knife slipp
ed out of Scarlet’s hand.
Wolf’s attention snapped up to her.
“Wolf?” she whispered.
His eyes brightened, wild and hopeful.
Releasing Winter, he strode forward. His tumultuous eyes scooped over her. Devoured her.
When he was in arm’s reach, Scarlet almost collapsed into him, but at the last moment she had the presence of mind to step back. She planted a hand on his chest.
Wolf froze, hurt flickering across his face.
“I’m sorry,” said Scarlet, her voice teetering with exhaustion. “It’s just … I smell so awful, I can hardly stand to be around myself right now, so I can’t even imagine what it’s like for you and your sense of sm—”
Batting her hand away, Wolf dug his fingers into Scarlet’s hair and crushed his mouth against hers. Her protests died with a muffled gasp.
This time, she did collapse, her legs unable to hold her a second longer. Wolf fell with her, dropping to his knees to break Scarlet’s fall and cradling her body against his.
He was here. He was here.
She was crying when she broke away, and part of her hated that, and part of her felt like it was long overdue. “How?”
“I smelled you.” Wolf was grinning so wide she could see the sharp teeth he normally tried to hide. It had been a long time since she’d seen him so happy.
Actually … she wasn’t sure if she’d ever seen him so happy.
She started to laugh, though it was born out of delirium. “Of course you did,” she said. “I really need a bath.”
He pushed a lock of Scarlet’s dirty hair away from her cheek, following the gesture with his eyes, still beaming. He ran a thumb across her shoulder, down her arm, and lifted her hand—the one with the bandaged finger. A moment of fury dulled his smile, but it was brief, and then he was examining her face again. “Scarlet,” he whispered. “Scarlet.”
With a sob, she settled her head into the crook of his neck. “If this is a Lunar trick, I am going to be furious.”
A thumb brushed against her ear. “You called them swine.”
Her brow furrowed. “What?”
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