The technician shuddered and turned back to face them, though his hands lingered uselessly over the screens. “The system is…”
Levana waited.
Winter became very worried for this man’s life.
“… inaccessible, My Queen. I can’t … I can’t access the shuttle schedules, the manual overrides … even the entrances to the main platform have been locked. With … with the exception of the corridor connecting it to these docks, which alone was left unimpeded.”
Levana, lips pressed into a firm line, said nothing.
“The system has been hacked?” said Aimery.
“Y-yes, I think so. It could take hours to reconfigure the access codes … I don’t even know what they did.”
“Are you telling me,” said Levana, “that you cannot even put a stop to the shuttles leaving the city?”
The technician had gone pale. “I will keep trying, Your Majesty. I’ll have much better access to the system from the palace control room, so I’ll just—”
“Do you have an apprentice?” said the queen. “Or a partner in your trade?”
The hair stood up on Winter’s neck.
The technician stammered, “Th-there are three of us … here in the palace … but I have the most experience, with over twenty years of loyal service and—”
“Kill him.”
A guard removed the gun from his holster. Winter turned her head away, and though it was a petty thought, she was glad it wasn’t Jacin being forced to do the murder. If he had still been guard to the head thaumaturge, it very well could have been.
“Please, My Que—”
Winter jumped as the shot rang through her head, followed by a sound she was all too familiar with. A whimper. Coming from behind a stack of cargo bins.
Behind her, the crackle of wiring and splinter of plastic suggested the bullet had struck one of the screens as well. The guard holstered his gun.
Aimery turned to the queen. “I will contact Jerrico and see if his teams have managed to gain access to the platform, and alert him that their way may be impeded.”
“Thank you, Aimery. Also alert the other two technicians to the problem with the shuttle system.”
Aimery pulled out his portscreen and stepped away from their group, toward the edge of the platform. He was overlooking the piled cargo crates, and though his attention was on his port, Winter was searching for another sign of life below.
There. A foot, she thought, curling in against a large trunk.
Winter gasped delightedly and laced her fingers beneath her chin. Everyone spun to her, startled at her presence, which was not uncommon. “Do you think the Earthens brought us gifts, Stepmother?”
Without waiting for a response, she lifted her skirts and trotted toward the cargo, climbing over the uneven stacks of crates and bins until she reached the lower level.
“Winter,” Levana snapped. “What are you doing?”
“Looking for presents!” she called back, giggling. Jacin’s shadow fell over her from above. She could picture his expression down to the annoyed twitch in his brow, and she knew that from where he stood with the rest of the queen’s entourage, he could not see what she was seeing.
A girl with cropped blonde hair and terrified blue eyes was curled into a tight ball. Her back was pressed up against a crate, her whole body trembling.
Winter lifted her head and beamed, first at Jacin, then her stepmother, doing her best not to look at the spray of blood on the far wall. “This one says it has wine from Argentina! It must be from the Americans. We can toast to such an eventful afternoon.”
She leaned over the shaking girl and unlatched the crate with a loud clack. She pried up the lid. “Oh, drat, the box lied. It’s only packing fluff.” Holding the lid with one hand, she started pulling out the shredded paper as quickly as she could, scattering it over the floor at her feet. The girl gawked up at her.
Her stepmother’s voice had turned to ice. “Sir Clay, please escort your charge from the premises. She is embarrassing herself.”
Her words carried too much weight, but Winter didn’t try to decipher them. She was busy nudging at the girl with her toe, gesturing for her to get into the crate.
Jacin’s boots thumped against the cargo as he descended toward her. Winter grabbed the girl’s elbow and tugged, spurring the girl into action. She scrambled onto her knees, gripped the edge of the crate, and hauled herself inside—the noise muffled by Winter’s crumpling of the paper.
Without waiting to see whether the girl was comfortable, Winter dropped the lid shut as Jacin dropped down beside her. Her grin brightened at him. “Oh, good, you’re here! You can help me carry this paper up to my room. What a thoughtful gift from the Americans, don’t you think?”
“Princess—”
“I agree, Jacin. A box full of paper is a bit messy for a wedding gift, but we shan’t be ungrateful.” She scooped up an armful of the paper and pranced toward the palace entrance, not once daring to look back.
Twenty-Two
Cinder was used to sensing Wolf’s energy—tireless and agitated and steaming off him like heat waves over pavement. But it was a new thing coming from Thorne, who was normally unshakable. As they ran down an endless staircase, deeper and deeper into Luna’s underground, Thorne’s energy was every bit as palpable as Wolf’s. Angry, terrified, burdened with guilt. Cinder wished she could turn off her Lunar gift so she wouldn’t have to deal with her companions’ tirade of emotions in addition to her own.
They’d lost Cress. Levana knew of Kai’s betrayal. Already their group was fragmented and her plan was falling to pieces.
The steps leveled off into a long, narrow corridor lined with robed statues, each holding a glowing orb that cast swells of light onto the arched ceiling. The floor was fitted with thousands of tiny black and gold tiles, creating a pattern that swirled and ebbed like the Milky Way. It would have been a marvel to behold if they had the time to appreciate it, but Cinder’s thoughts were too tumultuous. Listening for sounds of pursuit. Picturing Cress’s face, determined in spite of her fear. Trying to plan their next move, and what they would do if the maglevs failed—for Levana must know where they were heading.
At the end of the corridor they came to another spiraling staircase carved from dark, polished wood. The rails and steps were undulating and uneven, and it took Cinder two flights—gripping the rails to keep from falling headfirst in her hurry—to realize the staircase was carved to resemble an enormous octopus that was allowing them passage on its looping tentacles.
So beautiful. So strange. Everything made with such striking craftsmanship and detail. And all this in just some tunnels hundreds of feet beneath the moon’s surface. She couldn’t imagine how stunning the palace itself must be.
They reached another set of double doors inset with an artfully rendered map showing the entirety of the maglev system.
“This is the platform,” said Iko, the only one of them not panting.
“I’ll go out first,” said Cinder. “If anyone is out there, I’ll use a glamour to make them see us as members of Levana’s court. Any thaumaturges we kill on sight. Everyone else we ignore.”
“What about guards?” said Iko.
“Guards are easy to control. Let me deal with them.” She adjusted the scratchy gloves Kai had given her, then opened her thoughts, prepared to detect the bioelectricity off anyone who might have been on the platform. She pressed her palm against the doors. At her touch, they divided into four sections that spiraled into the walls. Cinder stepped onto the platform.
Empty.
She couldn’t imagine it would be that way for long.
Three shimmering white shuttles waited on the rails. They ran for the first one. Cinder let the others climb in first, ready to call up a glamour at the first sign of someone approaching, but the platform remained silent. Wolf grabbed Cinder and dragged her in with them.
“How do we work this thing?” Iko cried, pounding at the control screen. The shu
ttle remained open and motionless. “Shut door! Move! Get us out of here!”
“It won’t work for you,” said Wolf, leaning past Iko to press all five fingertips against the screen. It lit up and the doors glided shut.
It was a false sense of protection, but Cinder couldn’t help a breath of relief.
A tranquil voice filled the shuttle. “Welcome, Alpha Ze’ev Kesley, Lunar Special Operative Number 962. Where shall I take you?”
He glanced at Cinder.
She stared at the screen, sifting through the possibilities. Giving directions to RM-9 was a sure way of leading Levana straight to them. She pulled up the map of Luna on her retina display, trying to strategize the best route, one that would lead Levana off their track.
“WS-1,” said Thorne. He was slumped on the floor between the two upholstered benches, his hands draped over his knees, his head against the wall. Between the disheartened expression and collapsed posture, he was almost unrecognizable. But at his voice, the shuttle rose up on the magnetic force beneath the rails and started racing away from Artemisia.
“Waste salvage?” Iko said.
Thorne shrugged. “I thought it would be good to have a Plan B in case something like this happened.”
After a short silence, in which Iko’s internal workings hummed, she said, “And Plan B is to go to the waste salvage sector?”
Thorne looked up. His voice was neutral as he explained, “It’s a short trip from Artemisia, so we won’t be giving Levana too much time to regroup and send people after us before we get out of this shuttle. And it’s one of the most connected sectors on Luna, given that everyone has waste. There are fifteen maglev tunnels branching out from that one platform. We can go on foot for a ways, throw them off our course, then start doub—”
“Don’t say it,” said Cinder. “We don’t know if we’ll be recorded in here.”
Thorne shut his mouth and nodded.
Cinder knew he’d been about to say they could start doubling back toward RM-9. She focused in on sector WS-1 on the map in her head, and Thorne was right. It was a smart plan. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it herself. “Good call, Thorne.”
He shrugged again, without enthusiasm. “Criminal mastermind, remember?”
Cinder sagged onto the bench beside Wolf, allowing her body a brief respite from the pumping adrenaline. “The system recognized you.”
“Every Lunar citizen is in the database. I’ve only been missing for a couple of months—I figured they wouldn’t have had my identity removed yet.”
“Do you think they’ll notice if a special operative who’s supposed to be on Earth suddenly shows up again?”
“I don’t know. But as long as we’re traveling by shuttle, using my identity will draw less attention than yours. And without Cress here to break into it…”
Thorne flinched and pressed his forehead into the shuttle wall. They sat in silence for a long time, the lack of Cress’s presence filling up the hollow spaces around them.
Only in her absence did Cinder realize how much they’d been relying on Cress. She could have sneaked them through the maglev system without having to input any identities. And Cress had been confident that, once they arrived in RM-9, she could disable any surveillance equipment that might give them away. Plus there was the all-important matter of infiltrating Luna’s broadcasting system to share Cinder’s message with Luna’s citizens.
But knowing how much Cress’s loss impacted their objectives was nothing compared to the horror Cinder felt. Cress would be tortured for information on their whereabouts and then almost certainly killed.
“She’s a shell,” Cinder said. “They can’t detect her bioelectricity. As long as she stays hidden, she’ll be—”
“Don’t,” said Thorne.
Cinder stared at his whitened knuckles and struggled for something meaningful to say. Her grand plan of revolution and change had just begun and already she felt like a failure. This seemed worse than failing the people of Luna, though. She’d failed the people she cared about most in the universe.
Finally, she whispered, “I’m so sorry, Thorne.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Me too.”
Twenty-Three
Jacin was extra broody as Winter led him into the elevator.
“Why do I have a bad feeling about this?” he grumbled, eyeing Winter suspiciously.
“You have a bad feeling about everything,” she said, nudging him with her shoulder. It was a playful gesture, one that always made her giddy to have returned. This time, it was not returned. She frowned. “I forgot something down in the ports. It will only take a moment.”
She fluttered her lashes at him.
He scowled and looked away. He was in guard mode. Uniform. Posture. Inability to hold eye contact for more than half a second.
Guard Jacin was not her favorite Jacin, but she knew it was only a disguise, and one that was forced upon him.
She was itching to tell him the truth from the instant they’d left the ports. She was stricken with anxiety over the fate of the girl she’d ushered into that crate. Was she still in hiding? Did she try to run and rejoin her friends? Had she been found? Captured? Killed?
This girl was an ally of Linh Cinder’s, and perhaps a friend of her Scarlet’s as well. Fear for her life turned Winter into a pacing, fidgety mess for the two hours that she’d forced herself to wait in her chambers, so as not to draw attention to her return to the docks. Her awareness of the palace surveillance system kept her from telling the secret to even Jacin. It had been a difficult secret to retain.
But if she’d been acting odd, even Jacin didn’t ask her about it. No doubt the day’s excitement was plenty reason enough for her agitation.
“What was it?” Jacin asked.
Winter peeled her focus from the descending indicator above the elevator door. “Pardon?”
“What did you forget in the ports?”
“Oh. You’ll see.”
“Princess—”
The doors swished open. She grabbed his arm and pulled him through the lavish gallery where Artemisians could await their transport. This level was abandoned, just as she’d hoped. Though it had been easy for Winter to gain access to the ports from the guard in the palace above—it had taken little more than a pout and defiantly ignoring Jacin’s groan—the ports were supposed to be off-limits for the duration of the Earthens’ visit. For the security of their ships and belongings, Levana had said, but Winter knew it was really to prevent anyone from trying to leave.
The ports were quiet when they stepped onto the main platform. The glowing floor made the ships’ shadows appear monstrous on the high ceilings, and the cavernous walls echoed every footstep, every breath. Winter imagined she could hear her own thunderous heartbeat ricocheting back to her.
She took off around the platform with Jacin following at a fast clip. She couldn’t help glancing toward the control booth, and though there remained a broken screen and a few dark stains on the wall, the technician’s body was gone. To her knowledge, his replacements were still in the palace’s main control center trying to regain access to the malfunctioning system.
Her attention swept down to the lower level and endless relief filled her to see the cargo untouched. Though the ambassadors’ personal luggage had been taken to their suites, their gifts and trade goods had been left behind for retrieval at a later date.
Winter spotted the box of Argentinian wine. Her pace quickened.
“Stars above,” Jacin grumbled. “If you dragged me down here for more packing paper—”
“Paper,” said Winter, scrambling unladylike over the cargo boxes, “is a most difficult resource to obtain. The lumber sectors have enough demand for building supplies. I once had to trade a pair of silk slippers for half a dozen greeting cards, you know.”
It was only partly true. Most of the paper goods available in Artemisia’s shops were made from pulped bamboo, which was one of the few resources that grew with abundance in the a
griculture sectors. But bamboo also contributed to textile and furniture manufacturing, and even that paper was in limited supply.
Winter was fond of paper. She liked the crisp, tactile way it crinkled beneath her fingers.
Jacin sat down on a plastic bin, his legs dangling over the edge. In the serene solitude of the docks, Guard Jacin had withdrawn. “You want to turn packing paper into greeting cards?”
“Oh, no,” she said. “I have no interest in the paper.”
One eyebrow rose. “The wine, then?”
Winter unlatched the shipping crate. “Not the wine, either.”
She held her breath and heaved open the lid. It clattered against the next bin and Winter found herself staring into a large shipping crate with a layer of tight-packed wine bottles and loose bits of paper and no sign of the girl.
Her heart plummeted.
“What?” Jacin leaned forward to peer into the box. His face took on a layer of concern. “Princess?”
Her lips parted, then snapped shut again. She turned in a slow circle, examining the crates stacked all around her. The girl could have sneaked into any of them.
Or she could have run.
Or she could already have been found by someone else.
Jacin dropped down from his perch and grabbed her elbow. “What’s wrong?”
“She’s gone,” Winter murmured.
“She?”
“There was—” She hesitated. Her gaze darted up to one of the many inconspicuous cameras along the dock’s perimeter. Though the queen would have demanded them to be disabled while she was there, Winter had no idea if or when they’d been reinstated.
Jacin bristled, with impatience but also worry. Checking for the cameras was the first sign someone was going against the queen’s wishes. After a quick sweep of the ceiling, he shook his head. “No indicator lights. They’re still off.” He was frowning as he said it, though. “Tell me what’s going on.”
Winter swallowed. “There was a girl. I think she came with Linh Cinder and her companions. I saw her sneaking around these crates while the queen was arguing with the technician, so I hid her in here. But … now she’s gone.”