Cress

Mysteries began to click together in his muddled brain. Cinder. A knife. The bandages on his wrist and neck—his tracking chips. Wasn’t the chip in his neck supposed to be top secret? And a gun, or something embedded in her hand. The lingering sting beside his sternum.

Had she shot him?

Raking a hand through his hair, he turned and wrenched open the door.

He found himself in a narrow hallway, more brightly lit than the room had been. At the far end it opened up into a kitchen of sorts. He could hear voices coming from the other direction. Pulling his shoulders back, he marched toward them.

The hall opened into a huge metal room, cluttered with plastic storage crates. Through a doorway he saw the lights and instruments of a cockpit, and another breathtaking view of Earth.

Two people were seated in the cockpit chairs as he approached.

“Where’s Cinder?”

They spun to face him and the girl launched herself to her feet. “Your Majesty!”

The man, a huge grin spreading over his face, was slower to stand, first grabbing a cane from against the wall. “Welcome aboard the Rampion, Your Magesticness. Captain Carswell Thorne, at your service.” He bowed.

Kai scowled. “Yeah, I recognize you.”

“You do?” The man’s smile grew wider and he nudged the girl with his elbow. “He recognizes me.”

“Where’s Cinder?”

The girl swayed nervously on her heels. “I believe she’s in the podship dock, Your Majesty.”

Kai turned and marched out toward the cargo bay, and yelped.

Another man was sitting cross-legged on top of a packing crate, shirtless, with a needle in one hand, a thread in his mouth, and a pile of bloodied bandages beside him. His torso was marred by numerous wounds and scars, both old and new. He had a black tattoo stamped on his left arm.

Pulling the needle through a gash on his chest, he let the thread drop from his mouth, and nodded. “Your Majesty.”

Choking on his heart, Kai found himself anchored to the floor, expecting the man to leap at him and maul him to death at any moment. He hadn’t yet seen one of the queen’s wolf soldiers in person, but he’d seen plenty of vids. He knew how fast they were—how deadly.

But after an awkward, silent moment, the man simply returned his attention to his wound.

“Um. Your Majesty?”

Starting, he whipped his gaze back to the blonde girl.

“Would you like me to take you to the podship dock?”

He forced his hands to unclench, reminding himself that he was the ruler of the Eastern Commonwealth and would behave accordingly, even among criminals and monsters.

“Thank you,” he gasped. “That would be appreciated.”

* * *

Cinder chewed on her lower lip while she twisted the wires together, fastening them with a wire connector. “All right, try that.”

Iko, flat on her back, cast her gaze downward, then tilted her head to the left. Her eyes brightened and she tried to the right, daring to test the full range of motion. She beamed. “It works!”

Cinder tapped her chin with the end of the fuse pullers. “There’s still a little bit of a bend in that third vertebrae, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. We’ll just have to wait until we can find a replacement piece. Try your fingers again.”

Iko wiggled her fingers, then her toes. She lifted her legs until they were perpendicular to the floor, then kept going so that she was practically kissing her knees. Letting out a yelp of delight, she flipped forward, using the momentum to spring up onto her feet. “It works! It all works!”

“Iko, knock it off!” Cinder scrambled up beside her. “I still need to—”

Before she could finish, Iko pulled her against her bosom, squeezing and swaying and trembling with joy.

An android. Trembling with joy.

“You’re the best mechanic an android could ever ask for.”

“Say that when you don’t have an enormous gaping hole in your throat,” Cinder said, prying herself out of the embrace.

Iko checked her reflection in the window of the podship and flinched. The paneling from the top of her throat to her sternum was flayed open to give Cinder access to her internal workings. Her central processor, wiring, and mobility mechanics were on full display.

“Oh, yuck,” said Iko, trying to cover the hole with both hands. “I hate when my wiring is showing.”

“I know the feeling.” Cinder pulled a pair of pliers off the wall’s magnetic strip. “Come here. I’ll see if I can bend some of that external paneling back into place. A lot of your skin fibers are beyond repair, so it’s not going to be perfect, but it’s all I can do right now. You might have to wear turtlenecks for a while.”

Sighing, Iko came to stand beside Cinder. “Figures that as soon as Captain Thorne brings home this marvelous body for me, those stupid Lunars go and ruin everything.”

Cinder smirked. “Stop talking for a minute while I do this.”

Iko impatiently tapped her fingers against her h*ps while Cinder warped the external paneling into something that resembled the shape of a clavicle.

Behind her, the door hummed open. “Here she is, Your Majesty.”

Cinder stiffened, the pliers still clamped on to Iko’s paneling. She heard footsteps and then Iko screeched and shoved Cinder and her tool away. “Don’t let him see me this way!” she yelled, diving behind the podship.

Gulping, Cinder tucked the pliers into her back pocket and slowly turned around. Kai’s gaze was dark as it swooped over her to the podship—and Iko’s legs beneath it—to the tool chests and power cords fastened to the walls, before landing on Cinder again.

Cress and Thorne hovered curiously by the door.

“You’re awake,” she stammered. Then, realizing that was a stupid thing to say, she attempted to stand straighter. “How do you feel?”

“Kidnapped. How should I feel?”

She rubbed her wrist, tempted to call up a glamour to disguise her cyborg hand. Which was also stupid, of course. And besides, it was something Levana would have done.

“I was hoping maybe you’d feel well rested?” she said, attempting a weak smile.

She was met with no reaction. No smile. No chuckle. Not even a flicker of humor.

She pressed her lips together.

“We need to talk,” said Kai.

Thorne let out a slow whistle. “No one ever likes to hear those words.”

Cinder glared at him. “Thorne, why don’t you go give Iko a tutorial with the cockpit controls?”

“Excellent idea,” Cress chirped, nudging Thorne back out the door. “Come on, Iko.”

Iko was still hiding, hugging herself self-consciously. “Is he looking?”

Kai raised an eyebrow.

“He’s not looking,” said Cinder.

A hesitation. “Are you sure?”

Cinder gestured exasperatedly at Kai. “You’re not looking.”

He cast his eyes to the ceiling. “Oh, for all the stars.” Crossing his arms, he turned his back on them.

Cinder waved at Iko. “All clear. We’ll finish that up … later.”

Braids bouncing, Iko darted to join Cress and Thorne in the hallway. “I’m so happy to see you’re all right, Your Majesty!” she called to his back.

As the door slipped shut, Iko flashed Cinder an encouraging thumbs-up.

And then they were alone.

Sixty

“I can’t believe you kidnapped me!” Kai yelled, spinning back to face her before Cinder could brace herself. “We’re on a spaceship, Cinder. In space!” He pointed at the wall. It wasn’t actually an exterior wall, but Cinder didn’t feel the need to point that out. “I can’t be on a spaceship. I have a country to run. I have people who need me. We are on the verge of a war. Do you understand that? War. Where people die. I cannot be up here, messing around with you and your band of misfits! Do you even know that you are housing one of her mutants up there?”

“Oh, yeah. That’s Wolf. He’s harmless.” She rolled her eyes. “Well, not harmless…”

He laughed, but it was sharp and delirious. “I can’t—how could—what were you thinking?”

“You’re welcome,” she muttered, defiantly crossing her arms.

He glowered, rather ungratefully. “Take me back to Earth.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Cinder—” He huffed. Reconsidered. Softened … just a bit.

The change put an instant dent in Cinder’s defenses, prompting a strange tingle behind her rib cage. She dug her fingertips into her elbows.

“As someone who understands why you did this, and admires your ability to actually accomplish it, I am—pleading with you. Cinder. Please. Take me back.”

She filled up her lungs. “No.”

The softness was gone, instantly. Tipping his head back, Kai strung both hands through his hair. It surprised her how familiar the gesture was.

“When did you become so frustrating?”

She scuffed the toe of her boot against the floor.

“Fine! As your emperor, I command you to return me to Earth. Immediately.”

Cinder rocked on her heels. “Kai … Your Majesty. You may recall that I’m Lunar. And Lunars are forbidden from being granted citizenship in the Eastern Commonwealth. Therefore … you’re no longer my emperor.”

“This isn’t a joke.”

She was surprised at how the words stung. Like before, in the palace, indignation reared up fast and burning. “You have no idea how seriously I’m taking this.”

“Are you? Do you even know what the consequences are going to be for what you’ve done?”

“Yes, actually. I know this is a war. I am aware that more people are going to die before this is over. But we didn’t have a choice.”

“Your choice was to stay out of the way! Your choice was to do nothing! This is my job, my responsibility. I’m the emperor. Let me handle it.”

“By letting you marry her? That’s handling it?”

“It’s my decision.”

“It’s a stupid one!”

Kai spun away, his hands clawed into his hair. Whatever product had been used to style it for the wedding was making it messier than usual, and stars, he looked good.

Cinder smothered the thought, annoyed with herself.

“Please,” he said, his voice strained as he faced her again. “Please tell me this isn’t some … some petty act of jealousy. Please tell me this isn’t all because I asked you to the ball, or that time in the elevator, or—”

“Oh, you can’t be serious. I hope you don’t really think so little of me.”

“You shot me, Cinder, and then you kidnapped me. I honestly don’t know what to think.”

“Well, believe it or not, we didn’t just do this for you. We’re trying to save the whole world from your power-crazy fiancée. I refuse to let Levana become empress. I refuse to give her free rein over the Commonwealth. But we need more time.”

“More time for what? All you’ve done is make her angrier, so that when she retaliates, her wrath is going to be that much worse. Was that a part of your master plan, or are you just making this up as you go along?”

Cinder’s blood began to boil and she desperately, desperately wished she could tell him that, yes, of course they had a grand master plan that was guaranteed to work. Guaranteed to rid them all of Queen Levana and her tyranny forever. But there was no guarantee. Only a string of hope, and the knowledge that losing wasn’t an option.

She swallowed, hard. “I have a plan, to end this for good. But I need your help.”

Kai pinched the bridge of his nose. “Cinder. I hate Levana as much as you do. But she’s the one pulling the strings here. She has this army … it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Those little skirmishes that killed sixteen thousand people a couple weeks ago? Laughable compared to what she’s really capable of. Plus she has an antidote to letumosis, and we desperately need it—you know how much we need it. So while the idea of marrying Levana and crowning her empress makes me want to gouge out my own eyes, I don’t have a choice.”