Cress (48 page)

Cinder clenched her fists, but as his angry words settled, her eyes caught on something over his shoulder. The enormous picture window overlooking the Eastern Commonwealth. Her expression became distant. Calculating.

She took another step toward him. Kai flinched.

“I’m on
my
side,” she said. “And if you want what’s best for the Commonwealth, and this entire planet, you’d better be on my side too.” She held out her hand, palm up. “Now give me your wrist.”

He curled his fingers. “My responsibility is here. I have a country to protect. I’m not running away from that, and I’m certainly not running away with you.” He tried to lift his chin, though it was difficult when Cinder’s glare was making him feel about as important as a grain of salt.

“Really?” she drawled. “You’d rather take your chances with
her
?”

“At least I know when she’s manipulating me.”

“News flash: I have
never
manipulated you. And I hope I never have to. But you aren’t the only one with responsibilities and an entire country of people who are relying on you. So I’m sorry,
Your Majesty,
but you are coming with me, and you’re just going to have to figure out whether or not you can trust me when we’re not so pressed for time.”

Then she raised her hand and shot him.

Fifty-Two

Within seconds of the dart hitting Kai’s chest, his eyelids fluttered closed and he collapsed into Cinder. The adviser yelped and stood, but Iko intercepted him, pressing the man back as Cinder eased Kai’s unconscious body onto the floor.

For a moment, she was paralyzed, her mind reeling from the things she’d just said—at what she’d just done.

“Cinder? Are you all right?” said Iko.

“Fine,” she muttered, trembling as she propped Kai against the table and pulled out the dart. “He’s going to hate me when he wakes up, but I’m fine.” She couldn’t help glancing up again, at the big picture window hung with heavy silk drapes. At her own reflection looking back at her. At the girl with one metal hand and messy hair, wearing the uniform of a servant.

She let out a slow, head-clearing breath, and pulled Kai’s hand toward her.

“What are you going to do to him?”

Cinder paused long enough to look over at the adviser. His face was red with fury.

“We’re taking him somewhere safe,” she said. “Somewhere Levana can’t get to him.”

“And you think there won’t be repercussions for that? Not only for you, but for everyone on this planet. Don’t you realize that we are in the middle of a
war
?”

“We’re not in the
middle
of a war, we’re at the very beginning.” She fixed her gaze on him. “And I’m going to put an end to it.”

“She
can
put an end to it,” said Iko. “We have a plan. And His Majesty will be safe with us.”

Strangely embarrassed by Iko’s confidence, Cinder refocused on Kai’s wrist. She’d cut out so many ID chips in the past weeks she was almost used to it, though the first incision still reminded her of Peony’s limp hand and blue fingertips. Every time.

A thick drop of blood welled up on his skin and Cinder instinctively tilted his arm so that it would roll down his fingers without soiling his white shirt.

“He believes that you’ve found the lost Princess Selene.”

She paused and, after a beat, glanced up at Iko, then at the adviser. “He … what?”

“Is it true? Have you found her?”

Gulping, she refocused on Kai’s wrist. Waited until her hands stopped trembling before she removed the small chip from his flesh.

“Yes,” she said, her voice wary as she fished some clean bandages from her calf compartment and wrapped them around the wound. “She’s with us.”

“Then you also believe she can make a difference.”

Her teeth clenched, but she forced herself to relax as she secured the bandages. “She
will
make a difference. The people of Luna are going to rally around her. She’s going to reclaim her throne.” Retracting the knife blade, she met the adviser’s glare again. “But if this wedding goes through, it won’t matter. No revolution on Luna is going to nullify a marriage and a coronation. If you give her this power, there’s nothing I or anyone can do to take it from her. And I know that you’re smart enough to see the repercussions of
that.
” With a sigh, Cinder rolled down her pant leg again and stood up. “I understand that you have no reason to trust me, but I’m going to ask you to anyway. I promise, no harm will come to Kai while he’s with us.”

She was met with silence and a simmering glare.

She nodded. “Fair enough. Iko?”

Iko stooped and grabbed Kai’s elbow. Together, they hauled him up, an arm over each of their shoulders.

They dragged him four, five steps toward the door.

“He has another chip.”

They paused.

The adviser, still seated on the couch, still glaring, sneered as if irritated with himself.

“What do you mean?”

“There is a second tracking device embedded behind his right ear. In case anyone ever tried to kidnap him.”

Allowing Iko to take the brunt of Kai’s weight, Cinder tentatively reached for his drooping head. She brushed his hair out of the way and pressed her fingers into the indent between his spine and skull. Something small and hard rested against the bone.

She nodded at the adviser. “Thank you,” she said, ejecting the knife again.

He grunted. “If anything happens to him, Linh-mèi, I will hunt you down and kill you myself.”

*   *   *

A drop of sweat snaked its way down Cress’s spine, but her hands were too busy to swipe at it. Her fingers flashed over the screens, skimming along lists and coding, triple-checking her work.

The closed-circuit security system was down, including all cameras, scanners, identity-encoded software, and alarms.

Both backup systems were disabled, and she could find no evidence of a third backup waiting to rise up and ruin all her hard work as soon as she turned away.

The connection to the Lunar spyware had been severed.

She’d ensured that all digital locks in the north tower were disabled, along with any doors in between this security control center and the research facility wing. She’d been extra diligent about disrupting the radar technology embedded in the rooftop’s decorative
qilin
sculptures, so they wouldn’t detect the Rampion’s approach.

All of the elevators were at a standstill except the single elevator in the north tower that was still stationed on the fourteenth floor, waiting for Cinder and Iko to make their escape.

Which was taking
forever.

She inched her fingers away from the master screen and looked up. The dozens of screens surrounding her had gone black, but for the repeating gray text:
SYSTEM ERROR.

“That’s it.” She sat back. “I think that’s it.”

No one was around to hear her. The glass wall separating her from Wolf and the rest of Sublevel D was soundproof, bulletproof, and probably many other types of proof that she didn’t even know about. She pushed herself away from the desk.

Wolf was out in the small lobby, leaning against the wall by the stairwell door. At some point he’d removed his tuxedo jacket and bow tie, unbuttoned his collar, and rolled up his sleeves. His hair was no longer neat and tidy, but sticking up at odd angles. He looked bored.

At his feet, scattered across the lobby floor, were at least thirty palace guards.

He met Cress’s gaze just as the door to the stairwell burst open and a guard charged through, gun raised.

Cress screamed, but Wolf just grabbed the guard’s arm, bent it behind his back, and targeted a precise hit to the side of his neck.

The guard crumpled and Wolf slid him neatly onto the pile of his peers.

Then he held his palms toward Cress, as if to ask what was taking so long.

“Right,” she murmured to herself, heart thumping. She inspected the screen with the elevator status reports one more time, and saw that only one elevator was moving. Descending from the fourteenth floor in the north tower.

A smile tickled her lips, but was restrained behind the avalanche of anxiety. Leaning over the control panel, she attached her portscreen to the main input console and set the timer.

*   *   *

Dr. Erland watched the small screen on the machine’s panel as it spit out a stream of data, documenting the stability of Thorne’s stem cells, each step of the automated procedure, and the details of the chemical reaction that was happening on a cellular level inside the tiny plastic vial fitted into place. It was taking ages, but they weren’t in any rush. Not yet. Behind him, Thorne was sitting on the lab table, kicking his heels against the side.

The data stream lit up.

S
OLUTION
COMPLETE
. R
EVIEW
PARAMETERS
BELOW
.

He made a quick scan of said parameters before allowing himself to feel pleased.

Ejecting the vial, he reached for an eyedropper on the counter. “Finished.”

Thorne pulled the blindfold down around his neck. “Just like that?”

“Your immune system will have to do the rest. We’ll need to saturate your eyes four times a day for a week or so. Your vision should start returning after, oh, six or seven days, but it will be gradual. Your body is practically engineering a new optical nerve, which doesn’t happen overnight. Now—can you be a big boy and do the drops yourself?”

Thorne frowned. “Really? You want us to come all this way just so I can stab myself in the eye?”

Sighing, the doctor dipped the dropper into the vial. “Fine. Tilt your head back and keep your eyes open wide. Three drops in each side.”

He reached forward, the clear solution bubbling up at the tip of the dropper and hovering over Thorne’s wide-open eyes.

But then Dr. Erland’s attention caught on a bruise on the inside of his wrist. He froze and twisted his hand around to examine it.

The bruise had formed around a dark red splotch, like blood puddled beneath the surface of his papery skin.

His stomach dropped.

Suddenly shaking, he inched away from Thorne and set the vial and the dropper on the counter.

Thorne lowered his chin. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Dr. Erland murmured as he reached for a drawer and pulled out a face mask, snapping it on over his mouth and nose. “Just … double-checking something.”

He grabbed a sterilizer wash and wiped down the vial and the eyedropper, then wrapped them up in a cloth. He was feeling weak already, but that was no doubt all in his head.

Even with the mutated disease, victims still survived anywhere from twenty-four to forty-eight hours after showing symptoms.
At least.

But he was an old man. And he’d been overexerting himself all day, with the walk through the escape tunnels and rushing through the palace. His immune system may already be strained.

He glanced at Thorne, who had begun to whistle to himself.

“I need to take a blood sample.”

Thorne groaned. “Please don’t tell me something got messed up.”

“No. Just taking precautions. Your arm, please.”

Thorne didn’t look happy about it, but he rolled up his sleeve nevertheless. It was a quick test, one Dr. Erland had done a thousand times—drawing the blood and running it through the diagnostic module to check for letumosis-carrying pathogens—yet he found himself distracted by the warmth of his breaths as they caught inside the face mask.

Thorne. And—if he returned with the others—Cinder.

And his Crescent Moon.

He gripped the side of the counter to keep his hands from shaking. Why hadn’t he told her the truth before? He’d assumed they would have time. He’d believed there would be years, after Selene was crowned and Levana was gone. Years to tell her the truth. To embrace her. To tell her how much he loved her. To apologize again and again for ever letting her go.

He stared down at the bruise-like rash. Only a single bruise so far. It wasn’t spreading, at least not on his arms. But his analytical brain, having seen this same rash on the wrists of so many victims, had already set a timer ticking.

He was going to die.

The module dinged, making him jump.

L
ETUMOSIS
R
ESULTS
: N
EGATIVE

He shut his eyes in relief.

“How’s everything going over there, Doctor?”

He cleared his throat. “I’ve … I’ve determined it would be best to let the stem cell solution sit for a few hours. You can apply the drops when you’re back on the ship.” He picked up a stylus and began to type a message into the portscreen. “I’ll put the instructions on this portscreen. Just in case.”

“Instructions for who?”

His gut twisted as he wrote. “I won’t be returning with you.”

There was silence, punctuated by the tapping of the stylus and his own breaths, suddenly labored.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m too old. I’ll just slow you down. When the others arrive, I want you to go on without me.”

“Don’t be stupid. We have a plan. We’re sticking to it.”

“No. You’ll be leaving me behind.”

“Why? So Levana can get her hands on you and torture you for information? Great idea.”

“She won’t have time to torture me. I’m already dying.”

The words pinched something inside him and suddenly his spectacles were steaming up. There wasn’t time. After all these years, there was never enough time.

“What are you talking about?”

He didn’t respond until he’d finished typing into the portscreen. Shoving the stylus behind his ear, he walked over to the door and peered through the small window into the laboratory corridor.

Outside, dozens of guards had crowded into the hallway, stretching out in each direction with their guns raised.

“All is indeed going according to plan,” he muttered.

A hand landed on his shoulder and he pulled away so fast he nearly collapsed into the counter. “Don’t touch me.”