“Any news?” she asked.
Jacin leaned against the door, his shadowed eyes caught on the ceiling. He seemed strangely disheveled. “No.”
Cress pulled her knees into her chest. “What’s wrong?”
Still entranced by the ceiling, he muttered, “You disabled the cameras in the dock.”
She blinked.
“Could you do it again? To any cameras in the palace?”
She reached for her hair. The habit of fidgeting with it was hard to break, though it had been short for weeks now. “If I had access to the system. Which I don’t.”
He opened his mouth, paused, shut it again.
Cress frowned. Jacin was rarely chatty, but this was unusual even for him.
Finally, he said, “I could get you access to the system.”
“Why are we disabling cameras?”
His chest rose and his focus traveled down the bare stone walls and landed on Cress. “You’re leaving. You, Winter, and that redhead girl are leaving the palace. Tonight.”
Cress hauled herself to her feet. “What?”
“Winter can’t stay here, and she won’t leave without that friend of hers. You help me get them out of here, and it’s your ticket too.” He started to massage his temple. “You know where Cinder was heading, right? You can find her. She’ll keep Winter safe. She better keep her safe.”
Suspicion crawled up her spine at the mention of Cinder. Was this a trick? Was he trying to get information from her to be sold to the queen for his own gains? He’d done it before.
“It will look suspicious if a bunch of camera feeds go down at once,” she said.
He nodded. “I know, but hopefully you’ll be gone before anyone notices.”
She gnawed on her lip. She could put them on a timer, try to make the blackouts seem like random power failures or a system glitch, but even that had the potential for being discovered.
Jacin had started to pace. She could see his thoughts churning. A plot was forming in his head, though she couldn’t begin to guess how he planned to sneak them out of the palace without anyone seeing them—especially when Princess Winter was so recognizable.
“What happened?” said Cress. “Did Levana find out about me?”
“No. It was something else.” He was pinching the bridge of his nose now. “She’s going to have Winter killed. I have to get her out of here. I think I know a way. I can set it up, but…” His eyes turned pleading. “Will you help me?”
Cress’s heart squeezed. In the little time she’d known Jacin, he had struck her as cold, heartless, even cruel at times. But now he was fringed at the edges, ready to tear apart.
“By disabling the cameras?” she asked.
He nodded.
She looked at her portscreen. Though she’d detached it from the holograph node when she scuttled beneath the cot, the connector cable was still dangling from its side. This was her chance. She could get away from the palace, away from this city and all its dangers. She could be with her friends again. She could be safe, tonight.
The temptation engulfed her. She had to get out of here.
But when she turned her face up toward Jacin again, she was shaking her head.
Bewilderment flashed across his face.
“It will be safest for the princess and Scarlet if”—she swallowed, but her saliva stuck in her throat—“if I stay behind.”
“What?”
“Our best chance for the tampering to go unnoticed will be if I operate the system failure manually. I can turn the cameras off for short bursts, make them look like random power outages. A full blackout would draw too much attention, and blacking out just a portion of them would give the queen a clue as to which way Winter and Scarlet went. But if I disable and restart random sections of the surveillance system at the same time … I can make it look like a coincidence.” She tapped a finger against her lower lip. “I could set up a distraction too. Maybe an alarm in another part of the palace, to draw people away from them. And all the door locks in the major thoroughfares can be altered remotely too.”
She was growing confident in her decision. She would stay behind to give Winter and Scarlet the best chance for escape.
“You’re insane,” said Jacin. “Do you want to die in this palace?”
She stiffened. “Levana doesn’t know I’m here. As long as you keep me hidden…”
“As soon as Levana learns I let Winter go, she’ll kill me.”
She clenched her fists, annoyed that he was punching holes in her newfound courage. “Scarlet was captured during an attempt to rescue me. And Winter protected me, even though she didn’t have to, and I know it put her in a lot of danger. This is how I can repay them both.”
Jacin stared and she could see the moment he accepted her decision. It was their best chance and he had to know it. He turned away, his shoulders starting to fall. “I was Sybil’s pilot for over a year,” he said. “I knew about you for over a year, and I did nothing to help you.”
His confession stabbed her in the chest. She’d always thought Sybil had come alone, never realizing she had a pilot with her until it was too late. Maybe Jacin could have helped her, even rescued her.
They would never know.
He didn’t apologize. Instead, he set his jaw and met her eye again. “I will protect Winter with my life. Second only to her, I promise to protect you too.”
Twenty-Seven
Scarlet was working on this new thing she liked to call not reacting.
It was a skill that by no means came to her naturally. But when she was the one locked inside a cage and her enemy was the one on the outside, jabbering and giggling and generally being buffoons, not reacting seemed like a better habit than screaming obscenities and trying to smack them through the bars.
At least it carried a bit more dignity.
“Can’t you get her to do a trick?” asked the Lunar woman, holding an umbrella of owl feathers over one shoulder, though Scarlet couldn’t guess what she was protecting herself from. According to Winter, they had another six days to go before they saw real sunshine again, and there was no rain on Luna at all.
The woman’s companion leaned over, resting his hands on his knees, and peered at Scarlet through the bars. He was wearing orange sunglasses. Again, Scarlet didn’t know why.
Scarlet, cross-legged on the ground, her hands folded and her hood pulled up past her ears, peered back.
I am a vision of tranquility and indifference.
“Do something,” he ordered.
Scarlet blinked.
He glared at her. “Everyone says Earthens are supposed to be cute and amusing. Why don’t you do a dance for us?”
Her insides writhed, wanting more than anything to show this man how cute and amusing she could be. Outside, however, she was statuesque.
“Are you mute, or just stupid? Don’t they teach you how to address your betters down on that rock?”
I am the essence of peace and calm.
“What’s wrong with her hand?” said the woman.
The man glanced down. “What’s wrong with your hand?”
Her fingers didn’t so much as twitch. Not even the half-missing one.
The woman yawned. “I’m bored and Earthens smell bad. Let’s go look at the lions.”