Текст книги "Cress"

Автор книги: Marissa Meyer

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Her eyes widened. She was an escort-droid?

The girl was watching them without emotion, sandwiched between two soldiers with her hands hanging limp at her sides. “I am sorry, Master,” she said, her voice carrying through the silence. “I would have warned you, but that would be illegal, and my programming prevents me from breaking human laws.”

“Yeah, that’s going to be the first thing we fix,” said Thorne, before whispering to Cress, “I had to find one heck of a legal loophole to get her to help me steal that car.”

A voice boomed and it took Cress a moment to spot the man holding a portscreen and amplifier to his mouth. “You are all under arrest for the harboring and assisting of wanted fugitives. Get down on your stomachs and put your hands on your heads and no one will be hurt.”

Trembling, Cress waited to see what the guard would do. The gun he’d taken from Thorne was still tucked into his belt, but his hands were full of the doctor’s stuff.

“We have you surrounded,” the man continued, when no one moved. “There is nowhere to run. Get down, now.”

The guard moved first, lowering himself to his knees and setting down the bag of medical supplies and the strange machine, before settling into the dirt.

Gulping, Cress followed suit, sinking down to the hard ground. Thorne dropped down beside her.

“Stars above,” she heard the doctor moan, grumbling as he joined them on the ground. “I’m too old for this.”

Hot and uncomfortable, with rough pebbles pressing into her stomach, Cress set her palms on top of her head.

The officer waited until they were on the ground before speaking again. “Linh Cinder. We have you surrounded. Come to the front exit immediately with your hands on top of your head and no one will be hurt.”

*   *   *

Cinder released a string of the most creative curses she could think of as the man’s voice died away. She left Wolf in the hallway, where he’d been unresponsive to her reminders that having a mental breakdown now wouldn’t do anything to help Scarlet. He had only sat curled in on himself with his head tucked against his knees, saying nothing.

Ducking into the doctor’s hotel room, Cinder inched her way to the window and peeled open the blinds.

The rooftop directly opposite the alley had two armed military officers with guns pointed right at her.

She dropped the blinds and cursed again, plastering herself to the wall.

A comm from Iko appeared in her vision. She pulled it up, already fearing what it would say.

RADAR IS PICKING UP MILITARY SHIPS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH. I THINK WE’VE BEEN SPOTTED.

“Do you think?” she muttered. Shutting her eyes, she jotted back a fast message, words scrolling across her eyelids as she thought them.

AT THE HOTEL, SURROUNDED BY EC MILITARY. PREPARE FOR IMMEDIATE TAKEOFF. WE WON’T BE LONG—I HOPE.

Letting out a slow breath, she pried open her eyes again. How was she supposed to get a mid-crisis wolf operative, a blind man, and an elderly doctor past all those soldiers without getting anyone killed?

She doubted the girl would be much help. Cress didn’t strike Cinder as the bold, risk-taking type, and Cinder doubted she’d had much experience fighting her way out of situations like this.

She could abandon her friends and make a run for it herself. She could try to control Wolf and use him as a weapon, but even he couldn’t take on that many soldiers at once, and they wouldn’t hesitate to kill him. She could try to brainwash the soldiers so they would let them pass, but she’d have to abandon Wolf if he didn’t come willingly.

Outside, the officer repeated his commands again and again, like a robot.

Squaring her shoulders, she returned to Wolf in the hallway. “Wolf,” she said, stooping beside him, “I need you to help me out here.”

He shifted enough to peer at her over his arm. His green eyes looked dull and faded.

“Wolf, please. We need to get to the ship, and there are a lot of people with guns out there. Come on—what would Scarlet want you to do?”

His fingers curled, nails digging into his thighs. Still, he said nothing, made no move to get up.

The officer’s voice boomed again. You are under arrest. Come out with your hands on your head. We have you surrounded.

“Fine. You leave me no choice.” Standing, she forced her shoulders to relax. The world shifted around her as she flipped off the panic and desperation and reached out instead for the energy crackling around Wolf.

Except this time it wasn’t crackling. Not like usual.

This time, it was like controlling a corpse.

*   *   *

They stepped into the doorway together.

At least sixty guns pointed at them that she could see—no doubt more hidden behind buildings and vehicles.

Jacin, Thorne, Dr. Erland, and Cress were all lying on the ground.

Two streets separated them from the ship.

She kept feeding lies to Wolf like medicine from a drip. Scarlet will be fine. We will find her. We will save her. But, first, we have to get out of this mess. We have to get to the ship.

From the corner of her eye, she saw his fingers twitch, but she didn’t know whether he was acknowledging that there was still hope out there, or whether he was just ticked at her for using him like this. Turning him into a puppet, just like the thaumaturge that had turned him into a monster.

Standing on the hotel step, with sixty guns trained on her, Cinder realized she was no better than that thaumaturge. This really was war, and she really was in the middle of it.

If she had to make sacrifices, she would.

What did that make her, anyway? A real criminal? A real threat?

A real Lunar?

“Put your hands on your head and walk away from the building. Do not make any sudden movements. We are authorized to kill if necessary.”

Cinder coerced Wolf to stay beside her. They walked in unison. The dusty air clouded around them, sticking to her skin. A dull ache was spreading through her head, but it wasn’t anywhere near as difficult to control Wolf as it used to be. In fact, how easy it was made her sick. He wasn’t even trying to fight her.

“About time,” Thorne muttered as she passed.

“Cinder—save yourself,” hissed Dr. Erland.

She tried her best not to move her lips as she spoke. “Can you glamour them?”

“Stop right there!”

She obeyed.

“On your knees, now. Keep your hands up.”

“Only a few,” said Dr. Erland. “Maybe together…”

She shook her head. “I’ve got Wolf. On top of that … I can control one Earthen, maybe two.”

She clenched her teeth. Despite what the doctor had said, she couldn’t just save herself. It wasn’t only loyalty and friendship that made every fiber of her body rebel against the notion that she could abandon them all.

It was the knowledge that without them, she was useless. She needed them to stop the wedding and rescue Kai. She needed them to get her to Luna. She needed them to help her save the world.

“Jacin? Can you control any of them?”

“Yeah, right.” She could practically hear his eyes roll. “The only way through this is to fight.”

Thorne grunted. “In that case, has anyone seen my gun?”

“I’ve got it,” said Jacin.

“Can I have it back?”

“Nope.”

“I order you to stop talking!” the man bellowed. “I see any more lips move and that person gets a bullet in their head, understand? Get down!”

Cinder made a point to glare at the man as she took another step forward.

Like dominoes pushed over, she heard the unlatching of sixty safety mechanisms around her.

Cress whimpered. Thorne’s hand fumbled around until it was gripping hers.

“I have six tranquilizers,” Cinder said. “Let’s hope it’s enough.”

“It won’t be,” muttered Jacin.

“This is your last warning—”

Cinder tilted her chin up, fixing her gaze on the man. Beside her, Wolf lowered himself into a fighting position, his fingers curled and ready, all at Cinder’s urging. For the first time, she felt a spike of new emotion from him. Hatred, she thought. For her.

She ignored it.

“This is your first warning,” she said.

Holding Wolf at the ready, she pinpointed one of the Earthen soldiers who was standing at the front of the line and plucked out her willpower. The young woman swiveled and pointed her gun at the man who was evidently in charge. The woman’s eyes widened in shock as they took in her own rebellious hands.

Around her, six more soldiers changed targets, aiming at their own comrades, and Cinder knew they were under Dr. Erland’s control.

And that was all they had. Seven Earthen soldiers at their disposal. Jacin’s gun. Wolf’s fury.

It would be a bloodbath.

“Stand down and let us pass,” Cinder said, “and no one will get hurt.”

The man narrowed his eyes at her, making a point not to look at his own peer now holding him at gunpoint. “You can’t win this.”

“I didn’t say we could,” said Cinder. “But we can do a lot of damage trying.”

She opened the tip of her finger, loading a tranquilizer from the cartridge in her palm, just as a wave of dizziness crashed over her. Her strength was waning. She couldn’t hold on to Wolf much longer. If she dropped her control and he snapped again … she didn’t know what he would do. Become comatose all over again, or go on a rampage, or turn his anger on her and the rest of their friends?

Beside her, Wolf growled.

“Actually, we can win,” said a female voice.

Cinder tensed. There was a pulse in the air. A ripple of uncertainty. The man with the portscreen swiveled around as silhouettes began to emerge from around the buildings, creeping down alleyways, materializing in windows and doorways.

Men and women, young and old. Dressed in their tattered jeans and loose cotton shirts, their head scarves and cotton hats, their tennis shoes and boots.

Cinder gulped, recognizing almost all of them from her brief stay in Farafrah. Those who had brought her food. Those who had helped paint the ship. Those who had doodled cyborg designs on their bodies.

Her heart lifted for a moment, and then plummeted down into her gut.

This would not end well.

“This is a matter of international security,” said the man. “You are all ordered to return to your homes. Anyone who defies this order will be held in contempt of justice by the laws of the Earthen Union.”

“So hold us in contempt. After you let them pass.”

Cinder squinted into the glare of the sun, looking for the source of the voice. She spotted the woman from the medical shop. The Lunar whose son had killed himself rather than join Levana’s guard.

Some of the soldiers diverted their guns, pivoting away from Cinder and aiming into the crowd, but the man with the amplifier held up an arm. “These people are wanted criminals! We do not wish to use lethal force to apprehend them, but we will if necessary. I urge you to stand down and return to your homes.”

His threat was followed by a standstill, though the few civilian faces Cinder could see didn’t appear frightened. Only determined.

“These people are our friends,” said the shopkeeper. “They came here seeking sanctuary, and we’re not going to let you come in and take them.”

What were they thinking? What could they possibly do? They may have outnumbered the soldiers, but they were unarmed and untrained. If they got in the way, they would be slaughtered.

“You’re not giving me a choice,” said the man, his knuckles tightening around the portscreen. A bead of sweat dripped down the side of his face.

The shopkeeper’s tone took on a new venom. “You have no idea what it’s like to not be given a choice.”

Her fingers twitched, a gesture virtually unnoticeable, but the effect passed like a shock wave through the crowd. Cinder flinched. Looking around, she saw that many of the townspeople looked suddenly strained, their brows furrowed, their limbs trembling.

And all around them, the soldiers began to shift. Redirecting their aim, as those controlled by Cinder and Dr. Erland had, until every soldier was targeting his own neighbor, until every soldier had a gun aimed at his own head.

Their stunned eyes filled first with disbelief, and then terror.

Only the leader was left standing in the middle, gaping at his own troop.

“That’s what it’s like,” said the woman. “To have your own body used against you. To know that your brain has become a traitor. We came to Earth to get away from that, but we’re all lost if Levana gets her way. Now, I don’t know if this young lady can stop her, but it seems she’s the only one worth putting any faith into right now, so that’s what we’re going to do.”

Cinder cried out suddenly, pain splitting her skull. Her hold on Wolf and the female soldier snapped. Her knees buckled, but there was an arm suddenly around her waist, holding her up.

Panting from the mental exertion, she peered up into Wolf’s face. His eyes were bright green again. Normal.

“Wolf…”

He peeled his gaze away, as a gun clattered to the ground. Cinder jumped. The woman she had been controlling was gaping around at her comrades, trembling. Not knowing where to look. Not knowing what to do. She nervously raised her hands in surrender.

Red with anger, the man with the portscreen lowered the amplifier. He faced Cinder again, his eyes filled with hatred. Then he tossed his portscreen to the ground.

Thorne swiveled his head from side to side. “Uh, could someone explain to me—”

“Later,” said Cinder, letting her weight sink against Wolf. “Get up. It’s time for us to go.”

“No arguments here,” said Thorne, as he and the others clambered to their feet. “But does someone think they could grab my escort-droid? I kind of went through a lot to get her, and—”

“Thorne.”

Cinder felt light-headed and weak as they weaved their way through the stalemate. It felt like walking through a maze of stone sculptures—stone sculptures who carried big guns and followed them with their eyes, writhing inside with fury and distrust. Cinder tried to meet the gazes of the townspeople, but many of them had their own eyes shut tight and were shaking from concentration. They couldn’t hold the soldiers forever.

Only the obvious Earthens met her look and nodded with scared, fleeting smiles. Not a fear of their Lunar neighbors, she thought, but a fear of what would happen if Levana took control of Earth. What would happen if Lunars ruled everything. What would happen if Cinder failed.

Jacin grabbed the escort-droid’s wrist and pulled her along after them.

“That woman was right,” Wolf said when they’d broken away from the crowd, and the Rampion—their freedom—rose up from the streets in front of them. “There’s nothing worse than your own body being used against you.”

Cinder stumbled, but Wolf caught her and dragged her a few steps before she found her balance again. “I’m sorry, Wolf. But I had to. I couldn’t leave you there.”

“I know. I understand.” Reaching out, he grabbed a sack out of the doctor’s hand, lessening his load as they hurried toward the ship. “But it doesn’t change the fact that no one should have that sort of power.”

Forty-Two

The Lunar boy couldn’t have been more than eight years old, and yet Scarlet was certain that she would wring his neck like a chicken if she ever got the chance. He was, without a doubt, the most horrible child that ever lived. She couldn’t help thinking that if all Lunar children were like this, their whole society was doomed and Cinder would be better off letting them destroy themselves.

Scarlet didn’t know how, exactly, she had ended up the property of Venerable Annotel and his wife and the little monster they’d raised. Maybe it was favoritism from the crown, or maybe they’d purchased her, like an Earthen family might purchase a new android. Either way, for seven days, she had been the new toy. The new pet. The new test subject.

Because at eight years old, young Master Charleson was learning how to control his Lunar gift. Evidently, Earthens were great fun to practice on, and Master Charleson had a very sick sense of humor.

Chained from a collar around her neck to a bolt in the floor, Scarlet was being kept in what she figured was the boy’s playroom. An enormous netscreen took up one wall and countless virtual reality machines and sports-tech had been abandoned in the corners, out of her reach.

His practice sessions were agony. Since she’d come to the Annotel household, Scarlet had had long-legged spiders crawl up her nose. Snakes as long as her arm wriggle their way through her belly button and wind their bodies around her spine. Centipedes burrow into her ear canals and creep around the inside of her skull before emerging on her tongue.

Scarlet had screamed. She had thrashed. She had gouged her own fingernails into her stomach and blown her nose until it bled in an effort to get the trespassers out.

And all the while, Master Charleson had laughed and laughed and laughed.

It was all in her head, of course. She knew that. She even knew it when she was roughly banging her head on the floor to try to knock out the spiders and centipedes. But it didn’t matter. Her body was convinced, her brain was convinced. Her rational mind was overcome.

She hated that little boy. Hated him.

She also hated that she was starting to be afraid of him.

“Charleson.”

His mother appeared in the doorway, temporarily rescuing Scarlet from his most recent infatuation—squinty-eyed ground moles, with their fat bodies and enormous reptilian claws. One had been gnawing at her toes while its talons shredded the sole of her foot.

The illusion and the pain vanished, but the horror lingered. The rawness of her throat. The damp salt on her face. Scarlet rolled onto her side, sobbing in the middle of the playroom floor, grateful that the boy couldn’t maintain the brainwashing while he was distracted.

Scarlet paid no heed to the conversation until Charleson began to yell, and she forced open her swollen eyes. The boy was throwing a tantrum. His mother was talking in a soothing voice, trying to appease him. Promising something. Charleson, it seemed, was not appeased. A minute later, he stomped out of the room and Scarlet heard a door slam.

She exhaled with shaky relief. Her muscles relaxed, as they never could when the little terror was around.

She pushed her red hood and a tangle of curls out of her face. His mother sent her a withering glance, as if Scarlet were as disgusting as a mole, as offensive as a swarm of maggots on the woman’s pristine kitchen counters.

Without a word, she turned and left the room.

It wasn’t long before a different shadow filled the doorway, a handsome man wearing a black, long-sleeved jacket.

A thaumaturge.

Scarlet was almost happy to see him.

*   *   *

“She was captured during my battle with Linh Cinder. This girl was one of her accomplices.”

“The battle in which you failed to either eradicate or apprehend the cyborg?”

Sybil’s nostrils flared as she paced in between Scarlet and the lavishly carved marble throne. She was wearing a pristine new coat, and moving with an awkward stiffness, no doubt a result of the gunshot wound. “That is correct, My Queen.”

“As I thought. Go on.”

Sybil clasped her hands behind her back, knuckles whitening. “Unfortunately, our software technicians have had no success in tracking the Rampion using either the podship or the D-COMM chip that I confiscated. Therefore, the primary purpose of this interrogation is to ascertain what information our prisoner might have that will be useful in our ongoing search for the cyborg.”

Queen Levana nodded.

Scarlet, kneeling in the center of the stone-and-glass throne room, had a very good view of the queen, and though part of her wanted to look away, it was difficult. The Lunar queen was as beautiful as she’d always been told—more, even. Scarlet suspected there had been a time when men would have fought wars to possess a woman of such beauty.

These days, Emperor Kai was being forced to marry her in order to stop a war.

In her famished, delirious, mind-weary state, Scarlet almost laughed at the irony. She barely swallowed it back down.

The queen noticed the twitch of her lips, and frowned.

Pulse quickening, Scarlet cast her eyes around the throne room. Though she had been forced to kneel, they had not put her in any restraints. With the queen herself present, plus a handful of guards and a total of ten thaumaturges—Sybil Mira, plus three in red and six in black—she supposed they hadn’t been too concerned that she might try to escape.

On top of that, the velvet-draped chairs to either side of the throne were filled with at least fifty … well, Scarlet didn’t know who they were. Jurors? The Lunar media? Aristocrats?

All she knew was that they looked ridiculous. Clothing that twinkled and floated and glowed. Faces painted to look like solar systems and rainbow prisms and wild animals. Brightly colored hair that curled and wisped, defying gravity in order to create massive, elaborate structures. Some of the wigs even housed caged songbirds, though they were being remarkably quiet.

With that thought, it occurred to Scarlet that these were all probably glamours that she was looking at. These Lunars could be wearing potato sacks for all she knew.

Sybil Mira’s heels tapped against the hard floor, drawing Scarlet’s attention back to her.

“How long had you been a part of Linh Cinder’s rebellion prior to your capture?”

She stared up at the thaumaturge, her throat sore from days of screaming. She considered saying nothing. Her gaze flicked to the queen.

“How long?” said Sybil, her tone already growing impatient.

But, no, Scarlet did not care to remain silent. They were going to kill her, that much was obvious. She was not so naïve that she couldn’t see her own mortality closing in around her. After all, there were bloodstains on the throne room floor, streaking toward the wall opposite the queen’s throne. Or, where a wall should have been, but it was instead an enormous open window, and a ledge that jutted out, leading to nowhere.

They were fairly high up—three or four stories, at least. Scarlet didn’t know what was beyond that ledge, but she guessed it made for a convenient way to dispose of the bodies.

Sybil grabbed her by the chin. “I suggest you answer the question.”

Scarlet clenched her teeth. Yes, she would answer. When would she ever be given such an audience again?

When Sybil released her, she turned her attention back to the queen.

“I joined Cinder on the night your special operatives attacked,” she said, her voice hoarse but strong. “It was also the night you killed my grandmother.”

Queen Levana had no reaction.

“You probably have no idea who my grandmother was. Who I am.”

“Is it relevant to these proceedings?” asked Sybil, sounding annoyed that Scarlet had already hijacked her interrogation.

“Oh, yes. Incredibly relevant.”

Levana settled her cheek against her knuckles, looking bored.

“Her name was Michelle Benoit.”

Nothing.

“She served twenty-eight years in the European military, as a pilot. She received a medal once, for piloting a mission here, to Luna, for diplomatic discussions.”

A slight narrowing of the eyes.

“Many years later, a man that she had met on Luna showed up at her doorstep, with a very interesting parcel. A little girl … almost dead, but not quite.”

A puckering around the lips.

“For years, my grandmother kept that little girl hidden, kept her alive, and she ultimately paid for that with her life. That was the night that I joined Linh Cinder. That was the night that I joined the side of the true queen of—”

Her tongue froze, her jaws and throat icing over.

But her lips still managed a smug smile. She’d already said more than she thought Levana would allow, and the fury in the queen’s eyes made it worthwhile.

The onlookers were rustling softly, no one daring to talk, even as they cast confused glances at one another across the room.

Sybil Mira had gone pale as she looked from Scarlet to the queen. “I apologize for the prisoner’s outburst, My Queen. Would you like me to continue questioning her in private?”

“That won’t be necessary.” Queen Levana’s voice was lyrical and calm, as if Scarlet’s words hadn’t bothered her in the slightest, but Scarlet knew it was a ruse. She’d seen the flash of murder in the queen’s eyes. “You may continue with your questions, Sybil. However, we are scheduled to depart for Earth tonight, and I would hate to be delayed. Perhaps your prisoner could use a bit more motivation to stay focused on the answers we’re interested in.”

“I agree, Your Majesty.” Sybil nodded to one of the royal guards that flanked the doors.

Moments later, a platform was wheeled into the throne room, and the audience seemed to perk up.

Scarlet gulped.

On the platform was a large block of ebony wood, intricately carved on all sides with scores of people prostrating themselves before a man in long, flowing robes, who wore a crescent moon as if it were a crown. On top of the block, set amid hundreds of hatch marks, was a silver hatchet.

Scarlet was pulled to her feet by two guards and dragged onto the platform. Letting out a slow breath, she lifted her chin, trying to stifle her mounting fear.

“Tell me,” said Sybil, passing behind her. “Where is Linh Cinder now?”

Scarlet held the queen’s stare. “I don’t know.”

A beat, before her own hand betrayed her, reaching out and wrapping around the silver handle. Her throat tightened.

“Where is she?”

Scarlet gritted her teeth. “I. Don’t. Know.”

Her hand yanked the blade from the wood.

“You must have talked about the possibility of an emergency landing. A safe place to hide should you need to. Tell me. Speculate if you must. Where would she have gone?”

“I have no idea.”

Scarlet’s other hand slammed onto the top of the block, fingers splayed out against the dark wood. She gasped at her own sudden movements, finally tearing her gaze away from the queen to look at her traitorous limb.

“Perhaps an easier question, then.”

Scarlet jumped. Sybil was right behind her now, whispering against her ear.

“Which finger do you value the least?”

Scarlet squeezed her eyes shut. She tried to clear her thoughts, to be logical. She tried to not be afraid.

“I was their only pilot,” she said. “None of them had any clue how to fly a spaceship. If they tried to go back to Earth, they would have crashed.”

Sybil’s footsteps retreated, but Scarlet’s hand remained stretched against the block, the hatchet still hovering in the air.

“My guard was an accomplished pilot, and he was quite alive when we abandoned the ship. Assume that Linh Cinder brainwashed him into piloting the ship for her.” Sybil came to stand where Scarlet could see her again. “Where, then, would she have had him go?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you should ask him.”

A slow, pleased smile climbed over the thaumaturge’s face. “We’ll start with the smallest finger, then.”

Scarlet’s arm reared back, and she flinched, turning her face away as if not looking would keep it from happening. Her knees gave out and she collapsed beside the block of wood, but her arms stayed strong, inflexible. The only parts of her that weren’t trembling.

Her grip on the hatchet tightened, prepared to swing.

“My Queen?”

The entire room seemed to inhale at the words, so softly spoken that Scarlet wasn’t sure she’d really heard them.

After a long, long moment, the queen snapped, “What?”

“May I have her?” The words were faint and slow, as if the question were a maze that needed to be traversed carefully. “She would make a lovely pet.”

Pulse thundering in her ears, Scarlet dared to open her eyes. The hatchet glinted in the corner of her vision.

“You may have her when we are done with her,” said the queen, sounding not at all pleased at the interruption.

“But then she’ll be broken. They’re never any fun when you give them to me broken.”

The room began to titter mockingly.

A bead of sweat fell into Scarlet’s eyes, stinging.

“If she were my pet,” continued the lilting voice, “I could practice on her. She must be easy to control. Maybe I would start to get better if I had such a pretty Earthen to play with.”

The tittering stopped.

The frail voice became even quieter, barely a murmur, that still carried like a gunshot in the otherwise silent room.

“Father would have given her to me.”

Scarlet tried to blink the salt from her eyes. Her breaths were ragged from the strain of trying to take back control of her arms and failing.

“I said that you may have her, and you may,” said the queen, speaking harshly, as if to an annoying child. “But what you don’t seem to understand is that when a queen threatens repercussions against someone who has wronged her, she must follow through on those threats. If she does not, she is inviting anarchy to her doorstep. Do you want anarchy, Princess?”

Dizzy with fear, with nausea, with hunger, Scarlet managed to raise her head. The queen was looking at someone seated beside her, but the world was blurring and Scarlet couldn’t see who it was.

She heard her, though. The lovely voice, cutting through her.

“No, My Queen.”

“Precisely.”

Levana turned back to Sybil and nodded.

Scarlet didn’t have a moment to prepare herself before the hatchet dropped.

BOOK

Four

“When Rapunzel saw the prince, she fell over him and began to weep, and her tears dropped into his eyes.”

Forty-Three

Cress stood to the side of the lab table, clutching a portscreen as Dr. Erland held a strange tool beside Thorne’s face, sending a thin beam of light into his pupils.

The doctor grunted, and bobbed his head in comprehension. “Mm-hmmm,” he drawled, changing the tool’s setting so that a green light clicked on near the bottom. “Mm-hm,” he said again, switching to the other eye. Cress leaned closer, but she couldn’t see anything that would warrant such thoughtful humming.

The tool in the doctor’s hand made a few clicking sounds and he took the portscreen out of Cress’s hand. He nodded at it before handing it back to her. She looked down at the screen, where the strange tool was transferring a jumble of incomprehensible diagnoses.

“Mmmm-hmmm.”

“Would you stop mm-hming and tell me what’s wrong with them?” said Thorne.

“Patience,” said the doctor. “The optic system is delicate, and an incorrect diagnosis could be catastrophic.”

Thorne crossed his arms.

The doctor changed the settings on his tool again and completed another scan of Thorne’s eyes. “Indeed,” he said. “Severe optic nerve damage, likely as a result of traumatic head injury. My hypothesis is that when you hit your head during the fall, internal bleeding in your skull caused a sudden pressure buildup against the optic nerve and—”