She and Thorne would go off to the palace, while Cinder, Iko, and Jacin tried to save Winter and Scarlet and organize the people who would soon be infiltrating Artemisia.
She didn’t want to leave them. She didn’t want to say good-bye.
But Thorne’s arm was over her shoulders, comfortable and solid. When he tugged on his lapel with his free hand and told the others, “We’re ready,” Cress didn’t argue.
* * *
“There’s the back entrance,” said Jacin, pointing at a near-invisible door in the back of the medical and research clinic, half-hidden behind overgrown shrubberies. Iko popped up beside him in an attempt to see, but he flattened a hand on her head and forced her to duck down as two men in lab coats strolled by, both of them with their attention stuck to their portscreens.
Jacin scanned the yard one more time before darting out from their cover and ducking into the building’s shadow. Through the dome’s wall he could see the desolate landscape of Luna stretching into the distance.
He waved his arm, and Cinder and Iko scurried after him, crowding together in the shadows.
The door opened easily—no reason to lock doors in a building that was open to the public—but Jacin refused to feel relieved. There would be no relief for him until he knew Winter was safe.
They scurried into a dim corridor, the walls in need of a coat of paint. Jacin listened, but all he heard was a squeaky wheel and a clattering cart in some distant hallway.
“There’s a maintenance room down there,” he said, pointing, “and a janitorial closet on each floor. That door takes you to the main part of the building.”
“How do you know all this?” Cinder whispered.
“I interned here for a few months before the queen decided I would make a decent guard.”
He felt Cinder peering up at him, but he didn’t meet the look.
“That’s right,” she murmured. “You wanted to be a doctor.”
“Whatever.” He paced to the screen beside the maintenance room and pulled up a mapped diagram of the clinic. A few red exclamation points glowed in different areas, with inserted notes. PATIENT RM 8: NON-TOXIC SPILL ON FLOOR. LAB 13: FAULTY LIGHT SWITCH.
“Here,” said Cinder, pointing at the fourth floor of the diagram. DISEASE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT.
There was a back staircase on the opposite side of the building—it would get them to the right floor, at least. Jacin hoped the research team had taken the day off to enjoy the coronation festivities. He didn’t want any more complications, and he’d like to avoid killing anyone else if he could.
That didn’t stop him from loosening his gun, though.
The climb to the fourth floor came with no surprises. Jacin cracked open the door and scanned the well-lit corridor. He could hear the gurgle of water tanks and the hum of computers and the constant growl of machinery, but no people.
Indicating for the others to stay close, he slipped out of the stairwell. Their shoes squeaked and thumped on the hard floors. Beside each door a screen lit up as they passed, indicating the purpose for each room.
AGRICULTURE: GEN MOD DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING
BIOELECTRICAL MANIPULATION: STUDY #17 (CONTROL AND GROUPS 1–3)
GENETIC ENGINEERING: CANIS LUPUS SUBJECTS #16–20
GENETIC ENGINEERING: CANIS LUPUS SUBJECTS #21–23
GENETIC ENGINEERING: SURGICAL ALTERATION
“… increased manufac…”
Jacin froze. The feminine voice was from somewhere down the hallway, and was followed by the slamming of a door or cupboard.
“… be possible to sustain … resources…”
Another door opened, followed by footsteps.
Jacin grabbed for the nearest door, but it was locked. Behind him, Cinder tested another handle, sneering when it didn’t open either.
“Here,” Iko whispered, pulling open a door down the hall. Jacin and Cinder ducked in after her and shut the door, careful to not make a sound.
The lab was empty—or at least, empty of people. Conscious people. The walls were lined with shelves of suspended-animation tanks, filling up the space from floor to ceiling. Each tank hummed and gurgled, their insides lit with faint green lights that made the bodies look like frozen corpses. The far wall was full of even more tanks layered like shut drawers, making it a checkerboard of screens and statistics, glowing lights and the soles of feet.
Cinder and Iko ducked behind two of the tanks. Jacin backed himself against the wall so he would be hidden if the door opened and able to take anyone by surprise.
The first voice was met with another, male this time. “… plenty in stock, but it would be nice if they gave us some indication that this was going to…”
Jacin inhaled as the voice grew louder, until footsteps were right outside the door. But the footsteps and voices soon faded in the other direction.
Iko peeked around the base of the tank, but he held a finger to his lips. Cinder’s face appeared a second later, questioning.
Jacin gave a cursory glance to the rest of the lab. Each of the suspension tanks had a small tube that connected it to a row of holding containers. Though most of the tubes were clear, a few of them were tinted maroon with slow-flowing blood.
“What is this place?” Cinder whispered. Her face was twisted with horror. She was staring at the unconscious form of a child, maybe a few years old.
“They’re shells,” he said. “She keeps them here for an endless supply of blood, which is used in producing the antidote.”
When a shell was born and taken away, their families were told they were being killed as part of the infanticide laws. Years ago they had actually been kept in captivity—secluded dormitories where they were regarded as little more than useful prisoners. But one day those imprisoned shells had raised a riot and, unable to be controlled, managed to kill five thaumaturges and eight royal guards before they’d been subdued.
Since then they’d been considered both useful and dangerous, which had led to the decision to keep them in a permanent comatose state. They were no longer a threat and their blood could more easily be harvested for the platelets that were used for the letumosis antidote.
Few people knew the infanticide laws were fake and that their lost children were still alive, if barely.
Jacin had never been in this room before, though he’d known it existed. The reality was more appalling than he’d imagined. It occurred to him that if he’d succeeded in becoming a doctor and escaped his fate as a palace guard, he may have ended up in this same lab. Only, instead of healing people, he’d be using them.
Iko had gone back to the door. “I don’t hear anyone in the hallway.”
“Right. We should go.” Cinder brushed her fingertips over the tank of the young child, her eyes crinkled with sadness, but also—if Jacin knew anything about her—a touch of determination. He suspected she was already planning the moment when she would come back here, and see them all freed.
Sixty-Nine
The two people they’d heard in the hallway were nowhere to be seen. They soon found the door labeled DISEASE RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, right where the diagram had told them it would be.
The lab was filled with designated stations—each one with a stool, a metal table, a series of organized vials and test tubes and petri dishes, a microscope, and a stand of drawers. Impeccably clean. The air tasted sterile and bleached. Holograph nodes hung on the walls, all turned off.