Текст книги "Cress"

Автор книги: Marissa Meyer

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

The podship door behind her was still open, and the thaumaturge was standing just outside the ship, yelling at the people who had gathered around her—two guards in red and gray uniforms and a middle-aged man who wore a simple belted robe and was hastily plugging information into a portscreen. The thaumaturge’s long white coat was smeared with blood, and soaked through where it draped over her thigh. She stood slightly hunched, her hands pressed over the wound.

The arched door began to open, cutting a slit through the center of the glittering Earth as the doors peeled back. Scarlet ducked back down. She heard the subtle click and hum of magnets, the clatter of footsteps.

“Finally,” the thaumaturge seethed. “The uniform is ruined—cut away the material and be quick. The bullet didn’t pass through, and the wound hasn’t—” She cut off with a hiss.

Daring to glance up, Scarlet saw that three new people had arrived, dressed in white lab coats. They brought a hovering gurney with them, stocked with a full lab’s worth of medical supplies, and were all crowded around the thaumaturge, one unbuttoning her coat while another tried to cut a square of fabric away from her pants, though the material seemed to have cemented itself to the wound.

The thaumaturge recovered and rearranged her features to disguise how much pain she was in, though her olive skin had taken on a yellowish pallor. One of the doctors managed to peel the material away from the wound.

“Have Sierra send for a new uniform, and contact Thaumaturge Park to inform him that there will soon be changes to our procedures for gathering intelligence in relation to the Earthen leaders.”

“Yes, Thaumaturge Mira,” said the middle-aged man. “Speaking of Park, you should know that he already had a meeting with Emperor Kaito regarding our fleet of operatives that appears to no longer be in disguise.”

She cursed. “I forgot about the ships. I hope he was smart enough not to tell them anything before we’ve established an official statement.” She paused to take in a warbling breath. “Also, inform Her Majesty of my return.”

Scarlet slid down in the seat. Her eyes darted to the door on the other side of the podship. She considered starting the engine, but she had no chance of escaping in the Rampion’s shuttle. They had to be underground, and the port’s exit probably required special authorization to open.

But if she could reach one of those other ships …

Trying to take calming breaths, she inched herself over the central console, into the copilot’s seat.

She braced herself, her heart pummeling against her collarbone. She counted down from three in her head, before unlatching the door. Prying it open at glacial speeds, so the movement wouldn’t be noticed by the Lunars behind her. Slipping out and settling her sneakers onto the floor. Now she could tell where the peculiar light was coming from—the entire floor was set in glowing white tiles, making it feel as if she were walking on …

Well, the moon.

She paused to listen. The doctors were discussing entrance wounds, the assistant was listing times for a meeting with the queen. For once, the thaumaturge had gone silent.

Breathe, breathe …

Scarlet stepped away from the podship. Her hair was clinging to her damp neck and she was trembling with fear and building adrenaline and the encroaching knowledge of how this would never work. She wouldn’t be able to get into the Lunar ship. They would shoot her in the back at any moment. Or she would get in the ship but not know how to fly it. Or the port’s exit wouldn’t open.

But the Lunars were still carrying on behind her and she was so close and this could work, this had to work …

Crouching against the Lunar ship’s shimmering white body, she licked her lips and inched her fingers toward the door panel—

Her hand froze.

Her heart plummeted.

The air around her fell silent, charged with an energy that made every hair stand up on Scarlet’s arms. Her mind stayed sharp this time, fully aware of how close she had come to getting inside that ship and making a mad dash for her safety, and at the same time fully aware that she’d never had a chance.

With a snap, her hand unfroze and she dropped it to her side.

Scarlet forced her chin up and, using the side of the podship for balance, she stood and turned to face the thaumaturge. Sitting on the hovering gurney, Sybil Mira had been stripped down to a light undershirt and was leaning to one side so the doctors could have access to the bullet wound. There was blood speckled on her cheek and brow and her hair was tangled and clumped haphazardly with yet more blood, but she still managed to look intimidating as her gray eyes held Scarlet pinned against the ship.

The doctors were hunkered over her thigh, working intently, as if they were afraid she would notice they were there as they cleaned and inspected and stitched. The two guards had their guns in hand, though their stances were relaxed as they awaited orders.

The assistant, who had been middle-aged and plain in every way before, had changed. Though he still wore the belted robe, he himself had become unearthly handsome. Early twenties, strong jawed, with pitch-black hair slicked neatly back from a widow’s peak on his brow.

Scarlet clenched her jaw and forced her brain to remember what he looked like before. To not give any weight to his imposed glamour. It was only a small rebellion, but she embraced it with all the mental strength she had left.

“This must be the hostage taken from the cyborg’s ship,” the assistant said. “What shall I have done with her?”

The thaumaturge’s gaze narrowed on Scarlet, with a hatred that could have melted skin off bones.

The feeling was mutual. Scarlet glared right back.

“I need time to brief Her Majesty about her,” said Sybil. “I suspect she will want to be present when the girl is questioned.” She twitched as pain flickered across her face. Scarlet could see the moment when the thaumaturge lost interest in Scarlet’s fate, when her shoulders slumped and she drew on whatever energy she had left to lower herself fully onto the gurney. “I don’t care what you do with her in the meantime. Give her to one of the families if you want.”

The assistant nodded and gestured to the guards.

Within seconds, they had stepped forward and pulled Scarlet away from the podship, locking her hands behind her with some sort of binding that dug into her forearms. By the time they began marching her toward the enormous arched doors, the doctors and the thaumaturge were already gone.

Twenty-Seven

Time passed in a haze, dreams and reality blurring together. Being pulled from her sleep, forced to sit up and drink some water. Snips of muddled conversations. Shivering. Hot and sweating and kicking off the thin blankets. Thorne beside her, tying a blindfold around his head. Hands holding the water bottle to her lips. Drink. Drink. Drink. Eat this soup. Drink some more. Unfamiliar laughter making her curl up into a ball and burrow beneath the blankets. Thorne’s silhouette in the moonlight, rubbing his eyes and cursing. Gasping for breath in the hot air, sure that she was going to suffocate beneath the blankets and that all the oxygen would be sucked up into the dark night sky. Desperate for water. Itchy from the sand still in her clothes and hair.

Light. Darkness. Light again.

Finally Cress awoke, groggy but lucid. Saliva was thick and sticky in her mouth and she was lying on a mat inside a small tent, alone. It was dark beyond the thin fabric walls and the moonlight spilled over the pile of clothing at her feet. She felt for her hair, meaning to strangle her wrists with it, but found it chopped beneath her ears.

The memories returned, lazy at first. Thorne in the satellite, Sybil and her guard, the fall and the knife and the cruel desert stretching to the ends of the earth.

She could hear voices outside. She wondered whether the night had just begun or was already ending. She wondered how long she’d slept. She seemed to recall arms around her, soft knuckles brushing sand off her face. Had it been a dream?

The tent’s flap opened and a woman appeared with a tray, the older woman from the fire. She beamed and set down the food—some sort of soup and a canteen of water.

“Finally,” she said in that thick, unfamiliar accent, crawling over the mounds of disheveled blankets. “How do you feel?” She pressed a palm to Cress’s forehead. “Better. Good.”

“How long was I…?”

“Two days. We’re behind schedule now, but no matter. It’s good to see you awake.”

She sat down beside Cress. It was a snug fit in the tent, but not uncomfortable.

“You will have a camel to ride when we leave. We need to keep your wounds clean. You were lucky we got you before the infection.”

“Wounds?”

The woman gestured to her feet and Cress bent over. It was too dark to see, but she could feel bandages. Even two days later they were sore to the touch and her leg muscles tingled from exertion.

“Where’s—” She hesitated, unable to remember if Thorne had given himself a fake name. “My husband?”

“By the fire. He’s been entertaining us with talk of your whirlwind romance. Lucky girl.” She gave a sly wink that made Cress withdraw, then patted Cress’s knee. She handed the bowl of soup to her. “Eat first. If you’re strong enough, you can come join us.” She scooted back toward the entrance.

“Wait. I have to—um.” She blushed, and the woman gave her an understanding look.

“I’m sure you do. Come along, I’ll show you where to do your business.”

There was a pair of boots by the tent’s opening that were far too big for her. The woman helped Cress stuff them with cloth until they bordered on comfortable, though the bottoms of her feet still stung, and then she led her away from the fire, to a hole they’d dug into the sand at the edge of the oasis. Two sheets had been hung up for privacy and there was a young palm tree to balance on while Cress relieved herself.

When she was done, the woman guided her back to the tent and then left her alone to savor the soup. Her appetite had returned tenfold since her first meal in the oasis. Her gut felt hollow, but the broth soothed her as she listened to the chatter of strangers. She tried to pick out Thorne’s voice, but couldn’t.

When Cress crawled out of the tent again, she saw eight forms seated around the fire. Jina was stirring a pot half buried in the sand, and Thorne sat relaxed and cross-legged on one of the mats. He had a bandanna around his eyes.

“She rises!” yelled the hunter, Kwende.

Thorne raised his head, and his surprise broke into a toothy grin. “My wife?” he said, louder than necessary.

Cress’s nerves crawled to find so many strangers staring at her. Her breathing became erratic and she considered feigning a dizzy spell to seek solace back in the tent.

But then Thorne was standing, or trying to, wobbling on one knee like he might tip right over into the fire. “Uh-oh.”

Cress darted to his side. With her help, he heaved himself up to his feet and grasped her hands, still shaky.

“Cress?”

“Yes, Cap—um—”

“You’re awake, finally! How do you feel?” He sought out her forehead, his palm landing first on her nose before sliding up to her forehead. “Oh, good, your fever’s gone down. I was so worried.” He pulled her into an embrace, dwarfing her in his arms.

Cress squeaked, but the sound was muffled in the cotton of his shirt. He released her just as quickly and cupped her face in both hands. “My dear Mrs. Smith, never scare me like that again.”

Although his act was overdone, Cress felt a jolt behind her sternum at seeing his mouth set just so, feeling his hands so tender against her cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I feel much better now.”

“You look much better.” His lips quirked. “At least, I’m assuming you do.” Thorne dug his toes into the sand and flicked up one end of a long stick, catching it easily. “Come on, let’s go for a walk. Try to get some real alone time on this honeymoon of ours.” He twisted his face into a wink that was obvious even beneath the blindfold.

The crowd around the fire hollered as Thorne took Cress’s hand. She guided him away from the taunts, glad that the night’s darkness hid her burning cheeks.

“You seem to be getting around well,” she said when they’d gone some distance from the fire, though she was glad when Thorne didn’t release her hand.

“I’ve been practicing walking with the new cane. One of the guys made it for me, and it’s a lot nicer than that metal one. The camp setup still confuses me, though. I swear they keep moving stuff around every time I think I’ve got it figured out.”

“I should have been there to help you,” she said as they neared the small lake. “I’m sorry I slept so long.”

He shrugged. “I’m just glad you’re all right. I really was worried.”

Her attention caught on their entwined fingers like a beacon. Every twitch, every heartbeat, every step was broadcast through her entire body.

It wasn’t long before her imagination had them lying together in the warm sand, his fingers stroking through her hair, his lips working their way along her jaw.

“So listen,” said Thorne, snapping her away from the dream. “I told everyone that once we get to town, we’re going to call up my uncle in America and have him send transportation, so we won’t be continuing on with them.”

Cress tucked her hair behind her ears, still shaking off the tendrils of the fantasy. The touch of night air on her neck was unexpectedly pleasant. “And you think we’ll be able to contact your crew?”

“That’s my hope. The ship doesn’t have any tracking equipment, but given that you were able to find our location before, I thought maybe you could think of some way to at least get a message to them.”

They made a full circle around the camels, who eyed them with blatant disinterest, while Cress’s brain started rummaging through a dozen possible means of communicating with an untraceable ship, and what she would need to accomplish it. She hadn’t been able to do it from the satellite, but with the right net access …

She was grateful when they arrived at their little tent. Though the walk had been short, the large boots had already begun to burn. She sank down on the mat and pulled one off, inspecting the bandages as well as she could in the dark. Thorne settled down beside her.

“Everything all right?”

“I hope we can find some shoes when we get to this town.” She sighed dreamily. “My first pair of real shoes.”

He smirked. “Now you’re sounding like a true Earthen lady.”

She glanced toward the fire to make sure no one overheard them. “Can I ask why you’re wearing a blindfold?”

His fingers skimmed the material. “I think it was making people uncomfortable—my staring into space all the time, or looking right through them.”

She dipped her head, pulling off the second boot. “It didn’t make me uncomfortable. I think your eyes are … well, dreamy.”

His lips quirked. “So you have noticed.” Pulling off the bandanna, he tucked it into a pocket, before stretching his legs out in front of him.

Cress fidgeted with the blunt ends of her hair, staring at his profile with a longing that made her entire body ache. Finally, after an agonizing minute of gathering her courage, she shifted closer to him and leaned her head against his shoulder.

“Good idea,” he said, wrapping an arm around her waist. “How could they not think that we’re in love?”

“How couldn’t they?” she murmured. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to memorize the exact feel of him.

“Cress?”

“Mm?”

“We’re good, right?”

She peeled her eyes open. A crop of palm trees in front of her glowed orange in the fluttering firelight and she heard the burst and crackle of sparks, but the noise seemed far away.

“What do you mean?”

“I was just thinking about, you know, what you said out in the desert. I figured it was mostly the fever speaking, but even still, I have this habit of saying things without really thinking about them, and with you being new to this whole socializing thing…” He trailed off, his arm tightening around her waist. “You’re awfully sweet, Cress. I don’t want to hurt you.”

She gulped, her mouth feeling suddenly chalky. Never had she thought that such kind words could sting, but she couldn’t help feeling that his compliment didn’t mean what she wanted it to mean.

She peeled her head off his shoulder. “You think I’m naïve.”

“Sure, a little,” he said, so matter-of-factly that it seemed less of an insult than being called sweet. “But mostly I just think I’m not the best person to demonstrate all the goodness humanity has to offer. I don’t want you to be too disappointed when you realize that.”

Cress knotted her fingers in her lap. “I know you better than you think, Captain Thorne. I know that you’re smart. And brave. And thoughtful and kind and—”

“Charming.”

“—charming and—”

“Charismatic.”

“—charismatic and—”

“Handsome.”

She pressed her lips and glared at him, but his mocking grin had swept away any hints of sincerity.

“Sorry,” he said. “Please, continue.”

“Perhaps more vain than I’d realized.”

He threw his head back and laughed. Then, to her surprise, he reached over and took her hand, his other arm still around her waist. “For having such limited social experience, you, my dear, are an excellent judge of character.”

“I don’t need experience. You can try to hide it behind your bad reputation and criminal escapades, but I can see the truth.”

Still beaming, he nudged her with his shoulder. “That on the inside, I’m really just a sappy, lovelorn romantic?”

She dug her toes into the sand. “No … that you’re a hero.”

“A hero? That’s even better.”

“And it’s true.”

He hid his face behind his hand, dragging Cress’s hand along with it. It occurred to her that this entire conversation was a joke to him. But how could he not see it?

“You’re killing me, Cress. When have you ever seen me do anything that would be considered heroic? Rescuing you from the satellite was all Cinder’s idea, you’re the one who kept us from crashing and got us through the desert—”

“I’m not talking about any of that.” She yanked her hand out of his grip. “What about when you tried to raise money to help pay for android assistance for the elderly? That was heroic, and you were only eleven!”

His smile slipped away. “How did you know about that?”

“I did my research,” she said, crossing her arms.

Thorne scratched his jaw, his confidence momentarily thrown. “All right,” he said slowly. “I stole a necklace from my mom and tried to sell it. When I got caught, I figured they wouldn’t punish me if they thought I’d been trying to do a good thing, and since I had to give the money back either way it didn’t really matter. So I made up the story about giving the money to charity.”

She frowned. “But … if that’s the case, what were you really going to do with it?”

He sighed dreamily. “Buy a hover-racer. The Neon Spark 8000. Man, I really wanted that.”

Cress blinked. A hover-racer? A toy? “Fine,” she said, smothering the twinge of disappointment. “What about when you released that tiger from the zoo?”

“Really? You think that was heroic?”

“He was a poor, sad animal, locked up his whole life! You must have felt bad for him.”

“Not exactly. I grew up with robotic cats instead of real pets, so I thought that if I let him out he would bow to my every whim and I could take him to school and be ridiculously popular because I was the kid with the pet tiger.” He waved his hand through the air, as if he could illustrate his story as he spoke. “Of course, the second he was out and everyone went running for their lives I realized how stupid that was.” He rested his elbow on his knee, cupping his chin. “This is a fun game. What else do you have?”

Cress could feel her worldview crumbling. All those hours of scouring his records, justifying his mistakes, certain that she alone knew the true Carswell Thorne …

“What about Kate Fallow?” she said, almost dreading his response.

He cocked his head. “Kate Fallow … Kate Fallow…”

“When you were thirteen. Some classmates stole her portscreen and you stood up for her. You tried to get it back.”

“Oh, that Kate Fallow! Wow, when you research, you really research, don’t you?”

She chewed on her lip, watching him for a reaction, something to say that in this one instance, at least, she had been right. He’d rescued that poor girl. He’d been her hero.

“Actually, I did have a little bit of a crush on Kate Fallow,” he said distractedly. “I wonder what she’s up to these days.”

Her heart fluttered, grasping at the slim strings of hope. “She’s studying to be an architect.”

“Ah. That makes sense. She was really good at math.”

“So? Don’t you see how heroic that was? How selfless, how valiant?”

The corner of his lips twitched, but it was halfhearted and quickly faded as he turned his face away from her. He opened his mouth to speak, but hesitated, before, finally, he sought out her hand again.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he said, squeezing. “Maybe there’s a little bit of a hero in me after all. But … really, Cress. Only a little.”

Twenty-Eight

They decided to spend an extra day in the camp, to make sure Cress was fully recovered, but set out early the following morning, packing up their tents and mats beneath a still-dark sky. Jina told Cress that they should arrive in Kufra by late afternoon, and that by getting such an early start, they would cover a lot of ground before the scorching heat claimed the sand. They ate a quick meal of dried meats, gathered some wild dates from the trees, and left the sanctuary of the oasis.

Though it required a lot of careful repacking of trade goods and equipment, Cress was given a camel to ride. She was grateful—the mere thought of walking made her want to break down in sobs—and yet she soon found that the beast was not the epitome of comfort either. Within hours, her hands ached from clenching the reins and her calves were red and irritated. The cloak that the caravaners loaned her kept her better protected from the sun, but as the day stretched on, there was no respite from the heat.

They traveled east, parallel with the mountains. Thorne stayed at her side, a steadying hand on one of the saddlebags and the tip of his new, lighter cane skimming the sand. Still wearing the blindfold, he walked with deceptive ease. Cress offered to let him ride the camel numerous times, but he always declined. She sensed that it was becoming a matter of pride. He was proving, perhaps to himself, that he could walk without assistance, that he could be independent, that he could keep a confident smile on his face as he did so.

They spent most of the morning in silence, and Cress couldn’t help losing herself in daydreams that mostly revolved around his fingertips tracing patterns on the inside of her wrist.

By midday, they were under attack by the relentless heat and windblown sand that pummeled them, trying its best to seep into the folds of their clothes. But the sun was no longer on their faces, and gradually the dunes gave way to a hard, rocky plateau.

In the afternoon, when the sun was at its worst, they came across a dried-up riverbed and stopped to rest. They found a shaded spot in the overhang of a squat cliff, and two of the men wandered off and returned a while later with all their water canteens full to the brim. Jina explained that there was a water hole hidden in a nearby cope of rocks that was fed from the same underground spring Kufra was situated on—the trading city where they were headed.

Climbing back onto the camel after the break was torture, but Cress reminded herself that anything was better than walking.

The afternoon brought more rocky lowlands, followed by a few hours of dunes. They passed a snake and Cress found that she was the only one who was afraid of it, despite Kwende confirming that it was poisonous. The snake curled up on itself and watched them pass by with lazy eyes, not even bothering to hiss or bare its fangs like the snakes on the net dramas always did. Still, from her vantage point, Cress carefully monitored where Thorne stepped and her heartbeat didn’t slow until the snake could no longer be seen behind them.

Then, when Cress was sure the insides of her thighs had been rubbed raw, Thorne reached up and fumbled around until his palm landed on her knee.

“Do you hear that?”

She listened, but all she heard was the familiar soft clopping of the camels. “What?”

“Civilization.”

She squeezed the camel’s reins, but it wasn’t until they crested the next dune that the noise separated itself from the dead desert silence, and she saw it.

A city sprouted up in front of them, unfolding in the desert among sheltering rocky cliffs. The buildings were all compacted together, but even from this distance Cress could see the blur of green trees sprouting between them. It did not seem possible—that a city could exist in the middle of such a harsh, unforgiving desert, and yet there it was, without any preamble. One step—desert. The next—paradise.

“You’re right,” Cress breathed, eyes wide. “We’re almost there. We made it.”

“What does it look like?”

“I don’t know where to start. It looks crowded. There are people and buildings and streets and trees.…”

Thorne laughed. “You just described every town on the planet.”

She couldn’t help giggling along with him, suddenly overcome with elation. “I’m sorry. Let me think. Most of the buildings are made out of stone, or maybe clay, and they’re kind of a tan, peachy color, and the whole city is surrounded by a tall stone wall, and there are a lot of palms on all the streets. There’s a lake that looks like it stretches right down the middle of the city, almost from end to end, and I see little boats in it, and so many trees and plants, and I think … to the north, beyond the houses, I think they’re growing crops of some sort. Oh!”

“What? Oh what?”

“Animals! At least a few dozen … goats, maybe? And—that one over there has sheep! They look just like they do on the net!”

“Tell me about the people.”

She tore her focus away from the creatures that were lazing in what shade they could find and tried to pick out the people wandering the streets. Though it was moving into evening, what appeared to be the main road was still teeming with small open-air shops, vibrantly patterned fabric walls fluttering in the breeze. “There’s a lot of them. Mostly dressed in robes like we are, but there’s a lot more color.”

“And how big is the city?”

“Hundreds of buildings!”

Thorne smirked. “Try to temper that enthusiasm, city girl. I told everyone that we met in Los Angeles.”

“Right. Sorry. It’s just … we made it, Captain.”

His hand slipped down her leg, wrapping loosely around her ankle. “I’ll be glad to get off these sand dunes, but there will be a lot more things to trip over here than in the desert. Try not to go too far, all right?”

She stared down at his profile and recognized the strained look of concern in the tilt of his lips, the crease between his eyebrows. She hadn’t seen that look since they’d stumbled across the caravaners, and she’d thought he was growing more comfortable with his blindness. But maybe he’d only been trying to hide his weakness from the others.

“I wouldn’t leave you,” she said.

It was clear from the moment they rolled into town that the caravan was well-known and expected and late. The caravaners wasted no time in setting up a spot amid the shops and unloading their goods, while Cress tried to drink in the architecture and details and beauty that surrounded her. Though the city had appeared bleached and sandy from afar, up close she could pick out vibrant swatches of orange and pink decorating the sides of buildings, and cobalt-blue tiles lining doorways and steps. Almost every surface was bedecked in some decoration, from gold trim to intricately carved archways to an enormous fountain that stood in the middle of the main square. Cress peered into the burbling water as they passed, mesmerized by the starburst pattern laid out on the fountain’s base.

“What do you think?” asked Jina.

Cress beamed. “It’s breathtaking.”

Jina scanned the surrounding market stalls and building fronts as if she’d never really looked at them before. “This has always been one of my favorite stops along our route, but you would hardly recognize it from a couple decades ago. When I was first learning the trade, Kufra was one of the most beautiful cities in the Sahara … but then the plague struck. Nearly two-thirds of the population was annihilated in only a few years, and many more fled to other towns, or left Africa altogether. Homes and businesses were abandoned, crops left to burn beneath the sun. They’ve been trying to recover ever since.”

Cress blinked, and looked again, past the beautiful ornamentation and vibrantly painted walls, trying to see the town that Jina described, but she couldn’t. “It doesn’t seem abandoned.”

“Not here, on the main square. But if you head out to the northern or eastern neighborhoods, it’s practically a ghost town. Very sad.”

“It was very wealthy, then?” said Thorne, cocking his head. “Before the plague?”

“Oh, yes. Kufra was on many of the trade routes between the uranium mines in central Africa and the Mediterranean. One of Earth’s most valuable resources, and we nearly have a monopoly on it. Excepting Australia, but there’s plenty of demand to share.”

“Uranium,” Thorne said. “For nuclear power.”

“It also powers most of today’s spaceship engines.”

Thorne whistled, sounding impressed, though Cress thought he had probably already known that.

“Follow me,” said Jina. “There’s a hotel around the corner.”

Jina led them through the cramped maze of market stalls, passing everything from crates overflowing with dark sugar dates to tables lined with fresh goat cheeses to a med-droid clinic offering free blood scans.

Leaving the market lanes behind, they passed through a worn gate into a courtyard garden, filled with more palms and a tree with big yellow fruits hanging from its branches. Cress beamed when she recognized them and ached to tell Thorne about the lemons, but managed to smother her excitement.

They stepped into a small lobby, with an arched doorway that led into a dining area where some people were crowded around a table playing cards. The room smelled sweetly perfumed and heady, almost intoxicating.