Текст книги "Cress"

Автор книги: Marissa Meyer

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Текущая страница: 25 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

After reading the doctor’s instructions—three drops in each eye, four times a day for one week—she unscrewed the top. Drawing the solution up into the dropper, she moved to stand behind Thorne’s chair, her wrinkled gown swaying around her.

Thorne propped his feet on the control panel again and tilted back until his face was turned up to the ceiling. She hadn’t seen his eyes in days, but they were as blue as ever.

Cress placed a hand on his brow to steady herself and his cheek twitched. “Here goes,” she murmured, squeezing the dropper. He instinctively flinched and blinked, pushing the drops like tears down his temples. Cress brushed them away, unable to resist smoothing a strand of hair off his forehead. Her attention caught on his lips, and suddenly self-conscious, she pulled her fingertips away. “How does that feel?”

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. “Like I have water in my eyes.” Then he chuckled wryly, opening them again. “Maybe the solution is just water, and the doctor was playing a practical joke on me.”

“That would be awful!” she said, twisting the cap back onto the solution. “He wouldn’t have done that.”

“No, you’re right. Not after what we went through to get it.” He lifted his head from the back of the chair, tugging at the bandanna knotted around his neck. “Though he did make it pretty clear that he didn’t think too highly of me.”

“If that’s true, it’s only because he didn’t know you well enough yet.”

“True. I would have charmed him eventually.”

She smiled. “Of course you would have, in addition to showing him your many other fine qualities,” she said, blushing as she set a reminder on the portscreen to go off four times a day. But when she looked at Thorne again, his expression had become serious. “Captain?”

His Adam’s apple bobbed. Sitting up straighter, Thorne rubbed his palms together. “I have to tell you something.”

“Oh?” Hope skittered through her veins as she claimed the pilot’s seat again. The luxurious dress poufed around her.

The rooftop. The kiss.

Had he realized how much he loved her?

“What is it?”

Thorne pulled his feet off the control panel. “Remember when we were in the desert … and I said I didn’t want to hurt you? Because you were wrong about me?”

She knotted her fingers together. “When you tried to deny how much of a hero you really are?” She tried to put a hint of teasing into the statement, but her nerves were so jittery it came out as more of a frightened squeak.

“A hero. Exactly.” Thorne rubbed a finger between the blindfold and his throat, loosening it. “Here’s the thing. That girl that I stood up for when those jerks took her portscreen?”

“Kate Fallow.”

“Right, Kate Fallow. Well, she was really good at math. And, at the time, I was failing.”

The anticipation fluttering through her body turned to ice. Wait—was this his confession? Something to do with … Kate Fallow?

He cleared his throat when she didn’t say anything. “I lost the fight and all, but she still let me copy her homework for a month. That’s why I did it. Not out of a misplaced desire to be heroic.”

“But you said you had a crush on her.”

“Cress.” He smiled, but it looked strained. “I had a crush on every girl. Believe me, it wasn’t a big motivator.”

She squeezed back against the chair and pulled her knees to her chest. “Why are you telling me this now?”

“I couldn’t before. You were so certain that I was this other person, and I kind of liked that you saw me differently than anyone else. Part of me kept thinking that maybe you’ve been right all along, and it’s everyone else who’s been wrong about me. That even I’ve been wrong about me.” He shrugged. “But even that was just my ego talking, wasn’t it? And you deserve to know the truth.”

“And you think my entire opinion of you was based on one incident that happened when you were thirteen years old?”

His brow knitted. “I thought I’d done a pretty good job of clarifying all those other incidents, but if you have more, by all means, let me ruin those for you too.”

She bit her lip.

The rooftop. The kiss. He’d kept his promise. He’d given her a kiss worth waiting for because she was about to die—they were both about to die. She knew it had been a risk, and probably a stupid one. And that was the choice he’d made rather than let her die without experiencing that one perfect moment.

She could think of nothing more heroic.

So why wouldn’t he mention it?

Perhaps more important, why couldn’t she?

“No,” she whispered finally. “I guess I can’t think of anything else.”

He nodded, though his expression was disappointed. “So given all this new information, you, uh, probably don’t think you’re still in love with me. Do you?”

She shrank into her chair, sure that if he could see her now, he would know. The truth would be evident in every angle of her face.

She loved him more than ever.

And not because she’d scoured file after file of reports and summaries and data and photographs. Not because he was the dreamy, untouchable Carswell Thorne that she’d imagined kissing on the banks of a starlit river while fireworks exploded overhead and violins played in the background.

Now he was the Carswell Thorne who had given her strength in the desert. Who had come for her when she was kidnapped. Who had kissed her when hope was lost and death was imminent.

Thorne awkwardly scratched his ear. “That’s what I thought. I figured it was just the fever talking, anyway.”

Her heart twisted. “Captain?”

He perked up. “Yeah?”

She picked at the chiffon overlay of her skirt. “Do you think it was destiny that brought us together?”

He squinted and, after a thoughtful moment, shook his head. “No. I’m pretty sure it was Cinder. Why?”

“I guess I have a confession too.” She pressed the skirt down around her legs, her face already burning. “I … I had a crush on you, before we even met, just from seeing you on the netscreens. I used to believe that you and I were destined to be together, someday, and that we would have this great, epic romance.”

One eyebrow ticked upward. “Wow. No pressure or anything.”

She squirmed, her body was vibrating with nerves. “I know. I’m sorry. I think you might be right, though. Maybe there isn’t such a thing as fate. Maybe it’s just the opportunities we’re given, and what we do with them. I’m beginning to think that maybe great, epic romances don’t just happen. We have to make them ourselves.”

Thorne shuffled his feet. “You know, if it was a bad kiss, you can just say so.”

She stiffened. “That’s not at all what I … Wait. Did you think it was a bad kiss?”

“No,” he said, with an abrupt, clumsy laugh. “I thought it was … um.” He cleared his throat. “But there were clearly a lot of expectations, and a lot of pressure, and…” He squirmed in the chair. “We were going to die, you know.”

“I know.” She squeezed her knees into her chest. “And, no, it wasn’t … I didn’t think it was a bad kiss.”

“Oh, thank the stars.” His head fell back against the chair. “Because if I’d ruined that for you, I was going to feel like such a cad.”

“Well, don’t. It met every expectation. I suppose I should thank you?”

The discomfort melted from his features, and she was jealous as her blush stayed burning hot. Thorne held a hand out toward her and it took every ounce of the courage she’d earned that day to tuck her hand into his.

“Believe me, Cress. The pleasure was all mine.”

Fifty-Eight

She dreamed that she was being chased by an enormous white wolf, its fangs bared and its eyes flashing beneath a full moon. She was running through crops thick with mud that sucked at her shoes, her breath forming clouds of steam. Her throat stung. Her legs burned. She ran as fast as she could, but her body became heavier with every step. The shriveled leaves of sugar beets turned rotten and brittle under her. She spotted a house in the distance—her house. The farmhouse her grandmother had raised her in, the windows beaming with warmth.

The house was safety. The house was home.

But it receded into the distance with each painful step. The air around her became thick with fog, and the house disappeared altogether, swallowed whole by the encroaching shadows.

She tripped, landing on her hands and knees. She rolled over, scrambling and kicking at the ground. Mud clung to her clothes and hair. The coldness from the ground soaked into her bones. The wolf prowled closer. Its lean muscles moved gracefully under the coat of fur. It snarled, eyes lit with hunger.

Her fingers fished around on the ground, searching for a weapon, anything. They struck something smooth and hard. She grasped it and pulled it from the squelching mud—an axe, its sharp blade glistening with moonlight.

The wolf leaped, gaping jaws unhinged.

Scarlet lifted the axe. Braced herself. Swung.

The blade cut clean through the beast, cutting it into two pieces from head to tail. Warm blood splattered over Scarlet’s face as the two wolf halves landed on either side of her. Her stomach roiled. She was going to throw up.

She dropped the axe and collapsed back on the ground. The mud squished around her ears. Overhead, the moon filled up the whole sky.

Then the wolf halves began to rustle. They gradually rose up, now only the soft outer pelt of the beast, shorn in two. Scarlet could make out vague human-like shapes standing over her, each wearing half of the snow-white pelt.

The fog cleared and Wolf and her grand-mère were before her. Holding their arms out.

Welcoming her home.

Scarlet gasped. Her eyes flew open.

She was met with the sight of steel bars, the earthy smell of ferns and moss, and the chatter of a thousand birds—some trapped in their own elaborate cages, others flocked in the tree branches that entwined around the enormous beams supporting the glass ceiling.

A wolf yipped, sounding both sorrowful and concerned. Scarlet forced herself onto an elbow so she could see the barred enclosure on the other side of the pathway. The white wolf was sitting there, watching her. He howled, just a short, curious sound, not the haunting howls that Scarlet heard in her dreams. She imagined he was asking if she was all right. She might have been screaming or thrashing during the nightmare, and the wolf’s pale yellow eyes blinked with worry.

Scarlet tried to gulp, but her mouth was parched, her saliva too thick. She must be going crazy to be carrying on silent conversations with wolves.

“He likes you.”

Gasping, Scarlet flipped onto her back.

A stranger, a girl, was sitting cross-legged in her cage, so close Scarlet could have touched her. Scarlet tried to push herself away, but the action sent pain rippling through her bandaged hand. She hissed and fell back onto the ground.

Her hand was the worst of it—the hatchet had taken her left pinky finger to the second knuckle. She had not passed out, though she wished she would have. A Lunar doctor had been waiting to bandage the wound, and he had done it with such precision, Scarlet suspected it was a very common procedure.

But then there were also the scratches on her face and stomach from her time spent in the company of Master Charleson, and countless aches from sleeping on hard floors for—well, she’d lost count of how many nights.

The girl’s only reaction to Scarlet’s grimace was a long, slow blink.

Clearly, this girl was not another prisoner—or “pet” as the extravagantly dressed Lunars called Scarlet when they passed by her cage, giggling and pointing and making loud remarks on whether or not it was safe to feed the animals.

The girl’s clothing was the first indication of her status—a gauzy, silver-white dress that had settled around her shoulders and thighs like snowflakes might settle on a sleepy hillside. Her warm brown skin was flawless and healthy, her fingernails perfectly shaped and clean. Her eyes were bright, the color of melted caramel, but with hints of slate-gray around her pupils. On top of all that, she had silky black hair that curled into perfect spirals, neatly framing her high cheekbones and ruby-red lips.

She was the most beautiful human being Scarlet had ever seen.

Yet, there was one anomaly. Or—three. The right side of the girl’s face was marred by three scars that cut down her cheek from the corner of her eye to her jaw. Like perpetual tears. Strangely, the flaws on her skin didn’t reduce her beauty, but almost accentuated it. Almost compelled a person to stare at her longer, unable to peel their eyes away.

It was with this thought that Scarlet realized it was a glamour. Which meant this was another trick.

Her expression changed from awestruck and blushing—she despised that she was actually blushing—to resentful.

The girl blinked again, drawing attention to her impossibly long, impossibly thick eyelashes.

“Ryu and I are confused,” she said. “Was it a very bad dream? Or a very good one?”

Scarlet scowled. The dream had already begun to wisp away, as dreams do, but the question reignited the memory of Wolf and her grandmother before her. Alive and safe.

Which was a cruel joke. Her grandmother was dead, and last she’d seen Wolf, he’d been under the control of a thaumaturge.

“Who are you? And who’s Ryu?”

The girl smiled. It was both warm and conspiratorial and it made Scarlet shiver.

Stupid Lunars and their stupid glamours.

“Ryu is the wolf, silly. You’ve been neighbors for four days now, you know. I’m surprised he hasn’t officially introduced himself.” Then she leaned forward, dropping her voice to a whisper as if she were about to share a closely guarded secret. “As for me, I am your new best friend. But don’t tell anyone, because they all think that I’m your master now, and that you are my pet. They don’t know that my pets are really my dearest friends. We shall fool them all, you and I.”

Scarlet squinted at her. She recognized the girl’s voice now, the way she danced through her sentences like each word had to be coaxed off her tongue. This was the girl who had spoken during Scarlet’s interrogation.

The girl reached for a strand of filthy hair that had fallen across Scarlet’s cheek. Scarlet tensed.

“Your hair is like burning. Does it smell like smoke?” Bending over, the girl pressed the hair against her nose and inhaled. “Not at all. That’s good. I wouldn’t want you to catch fire.”

The girl sat up just as suddenly, pulling a basket toward her that Scarlet hadn’t noticed before. It looked like a picnic basket, lined with the same silvery material as her dress.

“I thought today we could play doctor and patient. You’ll be the patient.” She removed a device from the basket and pressed it against Scarlet’s forehead. It beeped and she checked the small screen. “You’re not running a fever. Here, let me check your tonsils.” She held a thin piece of plastic toward Scarlet’s mouth.

Scarlet knocked her away with her uninjured hand and forced herself to sit up. “You’re not a doctor.”

“No. That’s why it’s pretend. Aren’t you having fun?”

“Fun? I’ve been mentally and physically tortured for days. I’m starving. I’m thirsty. I’m being kept in a cage in a zoo—”

“Menagerie.”

“—and I hurt in places that I didn’t know my body even had. And now some crazy person comes in here and is trying to act like we’re good pals playing a raucous game of make-believe. Well, no, sorry, I’m not having any fun, and I’m not buying whatever chummy trick you’re trying to play on me.”

The girl’s big eyes were blank—neither surprised nor offended by Scarlet’s outburst. But then she glanced out toward the pathway that wound between the cages, overgrown with exotic flowers and trees to suggest some semblance of being in a lush jungle.

A guard was standing at the pathway’s bend, scowling. Scarlet recognized him. He was one of the guards that regularly brought her bread and water. He was the one who had grabbed her rear end the first time she’d been thrown into this cage. At the time she’d been too exhausted to do anything more than stumble away from him, but if she ever had the chance, she would break every one of his fingers in retaliation.

“We’re all right,” the girl said, smiling brightly. “We’re pretending that I cut off her hair and glued it to my head because I wanted to be a candlestick, and she didn’t like that.”

While she spoke, the guard’s glare never left Scarlet, only narrowed in warning. After a long moment, he meandered away.

When his footsteps had faded, the girl pulled the basket onto her lap and riffled through it. “You shouldn’t call me crazy. They don’t like that.”

Scarlet faced her again, her gaze dragging down the raised scar tissue on her cheek.

“But you are crazy.”

“I know.” She lifted a small box from the basket. “Do you know how I know?”

Scarlet didn’t answer.

“Because the palace walls have been bleeding for years, and no one else sees it.” She shrugged, as if this were a perfectly normal thing to say. “No one believes me, but in some corridors, the blood has gotten so thick there’s nowhere safe to step. When I have to pass through those places, I leave a trail of bloody footprints for the rest of the day, and then I worry that the queen’s soldiers will follow the scent and eat me up while I’m sleeping. Some nights I don’t sleep very well.” Her voice dropped to a haunted whisper, her eyes taking on a brittle luminescence. “But if the blood was real, the servants would clean it up. Don’t you think?”

Scarlet shivered. This girl really was crazy.

“This is for you,” she said, astoundingly bright once again. “Doctor’s orders are to take one pill twice a day.” She tilted toward Scarlet. “They wouldn’t let me bring you real medication, of course, so it’s just candy.”

Then she winked, and Scarlet couldn’t tell if the wink was to indicate that the box contained candy or not.

“I’m not going to eat it.”

The girl listed her head. “Why not? It’s a gift, to cement our forever friendship.” She pulled the lid off the box, revealing four small candies nestled in a bed of spun sugar. They were round as marbles and bright, glossy red. “Sour apple petites. My personal favorites. Please, take one.”

“What do you want from me?”

Her lashes fluttered. “I want us to be friends.”

“And all your friendships are based on lies? Wait, of course they are. You’re Lunar.”

For the first time, the girl deflated a little. “I’ve only ever had two friends,” she said, then glanced quickly at the wolf. Ryu had lain down, resting his head on his paws as he watched them. “Other than the animals, of course. But one of my friends turned into ashes when we were very little. A pile of girl-shaped ashes. The other has gone missing … and I don’t know if he’ll ever come back.” A shudder ripped through her, so strong she nearly dropped the box. With goose bumps all down her arms, she set the box on the floor between them and picked mindlessly at her dress. “But I asked the stars to send a sign that he was all right, and they sent me a shooting star across the sky. The next day was a trial, like any trial, except the Earthen girl standing before me had hair like a shooting star. And you’d seen him.”

“Do you ever make sense?”

The girl pressed her hands onto the ground and leaned forward until her nose was almost touching Scarlet’s. Scarlet refused to pull away, though her breath hitched.

“Was he all right? When you saw him last. Sybil said he was still alive, that he may have been used to pilot that ship, but she didn’t say if he’d been injured. Do you think he’s safe?”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

The girl pressed her fingertips against Scarlet’s mouth.

“Jacin Clay,” she whispered. “Sybil’s guard, with the blond hair and beautiful eyes and the rising sun in his smile. Please, tell me he’s all right.”

Scarlet blinked. The girl’s fingers were still on her mouth, but it didn’t matter. She was too baffled to speak. The battle aboard the Rampion was mostly a blur of screaming and gunshots in her memory, and her focus had been on the thaumaturge then. But she did vaguely recall another person there. A blond-haired guard.

But the rising sun in his smile? Please.

She sneered. “I remember two people trying to kill me and my friends.”

“Yes, and Jacin was one of them,” she said, evidently unconcerned with the whole killing part of Scarlet’s statement.

“I guess so. There was a blond guard.”

Glee spread over the girl’s face. The look had the power to stop hearts and brighten rooms.

But not to Scarlet.

“And how did he look?”

“He looked like he was trying to kill me. But I’m sure my friends killed him first. That’s usually what we do to people who work for your queen.”

The smile vanished and the girl shriveled away, tying her arms around her waist. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do. And believe me, he deserved it.”

The girl was beginning to shake now, like she was on the verge of hyperventilating.

Scarlet decided without much guilt that if that happened, she wouldn’t do a thing about it. She wouldn’t try to help her. She wouldn’t call for the guard.

This stranger was no friend.

Across the aisle, the wolf had climbed onto all fours and was pawing at the base of his enclosure. He began to whimper.

After a few moments, the girl managed to get herself under control. Sliding the lid back onto the candies, she settled them into her basket and stood, hunching in the small cage.

“I see,” she said. “That will conclude this visit. I prescribe adequate rest and—” She sobbed and turned away, but paused before she could call for the guard. Slowly, stiffly, she turned back. “I wasn’t lying about the walls that bleed. Someday soon, I fear the palace will be soaked through with blood and all of Artemisia Lake will be so red, even the Earthens will be able to see it.”

“I’m not interested in your delusions.” A sharp, unexpected pain shot up through the arm that Scarlet was using to support herself and she crumpled to the ground, waiting for the pinpricks of pain to fade. She glared up at the girl, angry at how weak and vulnerable she was. Angry at the flash of concern in the girl’s eyes that seemed so honest. She snarled up at her. “And I don’t care for your mock sympathy, either. Your glamour. Your mind control. You people have built your entire culture on lies, and I want nothing to do with it.”

The girl stared at her for so long, Scarlet began to wish she hadn’t said anything. But keeping her mouth shut had never been a great talent of hers.

Then, finally, the girl tapped her knuckles against the bars. As the guard’s footsteps patted down the pathway, she reached into the basket and retrieved the box again. She set it down at Scarlet’s side, tucking it beside her so the guard wouldn’t see.

“I haven’t used my glamour since I was twelve years old,” she whispered, gaze piercing as if it were very important to her that Scarlet understand this. “Not since I was old enough to control it. That’s why the visions come to me. That’s why I’m going mad.”

Behind her, the bolts of the cage door clunked open.

“Your Highness.”

She swiveled on her toes and ducked out of the cage, her head lowered so that her thick hair hid both her beauty and her scars.

Your Highness.

Stunned, Scarlet lay on the ground until her tongue began to turn to chalk from thirst. As far as she knew, there was only one Lunar princess. Other than Cinder, of course.

Princess Winter, the queen’s stepdaughter.

The unspeakable beauty. The scars that, according to rumor, had been inflicted by the queen herself.

When she glanced back toward the wolf’s cage, Ryu had wandered away, toward the back of his enclosure. He had been given much more space to prowl than Scarlet, perhaps a quarter of an acre of dirt and grass, trees, and a fake fallen log that formed a quaint little den.

Sighing, Scarlet looked back up at the glass ceiling, where she could see black sky and countless stars between the tree branches. Her stomach panged, a reminder that her one small meal had been devoured hours ago, and unlike Ryu and the white stag that lived in an enclosure farther down the aisle and the albino peacock that sometimes wandered freely between them, Scarlet wouldn’t get another meal until tomorrow.

It took a long time of battling with her weakened willpower, feeling the weight of the candies beside her. She had no reason to trust that girl. She didn’t trust that girl. But after her stomach had begun to ache from hollowness and her head to spin with hunger, she gave up and pulled the lid off the box.

She pulled out one of the candies. It was glass smooth beneath her teeth. The outer shell cracked easily, giving way to a warm, melty center that burst sweet and sour on her tongue.

She moaned and let her head fall onto the hard floor. Nothing, not even her grandmother’s prized tomatoes, had ever tasted so good.

But then, as she was working her tongue around her gums, searching out any missed bits of the candy, a tingling began to warm her throat. It expanded outward, into her chest and through her abdomen and along her limbs, all the way to her missing finger, leaving a trail of comfort in its wake.

When it was gone, Scarlet realized that it had taken her pain with it.

Fifty-Nine

It was like being drawn slowly from the serene darkness, the way one wakes up when they’ve been having a lovely dream and their subconscious is struggling to hold them there, just a little while longer. Then, with angry resignation, Kai was awake, his eyes wide-open and staring up at unfamiliar slats. The underside of a bunk bed.

He rubbed his eyes, thinking maybe he hadn’t awoken entirely yet. His chest was throbbing, and there was a nauseous twist in his stomach. He turned his head to the side and felt an ache in his neck. Reaching up, he discovered a bandage taped beneath his hairline.

But his attention was already moving on, wandering around the room. There was a tiny desk and a utilitarian closet on the other side, though the room was so small he almost could have touched them from where he lay. A dim light had been left on beside the door. The walls were metal and the slightly scratchy blanket he lay on was military brown.

Pulse speeding up, he reached for the bunk overhead to keep himself from hitting his head as he swung his legs over the side. His feet landed on the uncarpeted floor with a thunk and he was surprised to discover he was wearing shoes.

Dress shoes.

And dress slacks.

And his wedding shirt and sash, now wrinkled and untucked.

Great stars. The wedding.

Mouth suddenly dry, Kai lurched out of the bed and stumbled toward the small window. He pressed his hands to either side. His stomach dropped in unison with his jaw.

Great stars indeed. He’d never seen so many in all his life, and never so bright. It gave him a strange sensation of vertigo, like he should have been looking up into the night sky, but the gravity was all wrong. Where was the horizon to orient himself? A cold sweat beaded on his forehead as he pressed his cheek to the wall, trying to peer as far down as the small window would let him, and then—

Earth.

Kai shoved himself away from the wall. He nearly fell over, but caught himself on the upper mattress of the bunk. His heartbeat clanked and shuddered.

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.”