Scarlet (24 page)

“Absolutely not. Our primary objective is to find them as soon as possible, and we plan to continue the search in space until they’re found. However, my experts project the ship will be returning to Earth anytime from two days to two weeks, depending on their fuel and power reserves, and we will be prepared for that return if necessary. Yes?”

“My sources have told me that this cyborg, this Linh Cinder—”

“That’s you,” Thorne whispered with another jab. She batted him away.

“—was given a VIP invitation to the annual ball and was, in fact, an invited guest of
yours,
Your Majesty. Do you refute that claim?”

“A what?” Thorne asked.

“VIP invitation?” said Iko.

Cinder scrunched up her shoulders, ignoring them both.

On the screen, Kai shifted back from the podium, arms fully extended as if to give himself space to breathe, before clearing his throat and nearing the mic again. “I do not refute the claim. I met Linh Cinder two weeks prior to the ball. As many of you know, she was a renowned mechanic here in the city and I had hired her to fix a malfunctioning android. And, yes, I did invite her to the ball as a personal guest.”

“
What?
”

Cinder flinched from the shriek that pierced through the cockpit’s speakers.

“When did this happen? It better have happened after Adri dismantled me because if he asked you to the ball and you didn’t tell me—”

“Iko, I’m trying to listen!” Cinder squirmed in her seat. Kai
had
asked her to the ball before Iko’s body had been taken apart and sold off. Cinder had had the chance to tell her, but at the time she’d been determined not to accept the invitation, so it hadn’t seemed that important.

When Kai called on another journalist, Cinder realized she’d missed an entire question.

“Did you know that she was cyborg?” asked a woman in an unhidden tone of disgust.

Kai stared at her, appearing confused, then let his gaze dance over the crowd. He shuffled his feet closer to the podium, a wrinkle forming on the bridge of his nose.

Cinder bit the inside of her cheek and braced herself for adamant disgust. Who would ever invite a cyborg to the ball?

But instead, Kai said simply, “I don’t see that her being cyborg is relevant. Next question?”

Cinder’s metal fingers jolted.

“Your Majesty, did you know that she was
Lunar
when you extended this invitation?”

Looking like he might keel over from exhaustion, Kai shook his head. “No. Of course not. I—naively, it seems—was under the impression that there were no Lunars in the Commonwealth. Other than our diplomatic guests here at the palace, of course. Now that it’s been brought to my attention how easy it is for them to blend in with the populace, we will be taking additional security measures to both keep Lunars from emigrating here, as well as to find and export any that may be within our borders. I have every intention to comply with the statutes of the Interplanetary Agreement of 54
T.E.
on this matter. Yes, second row.”

“Regarding Her Majesty, Queen Levana, has she or any of the Lunar court commented on the escape of the convict?”

Kai’s jaw tensed. “Oh, she’s had a thing or two to say about it.”

Behind Kai, a government official cleared his throat. The irritation quickly evaporated from Kai’s face, replaced with tactful vacancy.

“Queen Levana wants Linh Cinder to be found,” he amended, “and brought to justice.”

“Your Majesty, do you think these events may have harmed the diplomatic proceedings between Earth and Luna?”

“I don’t think they helped.”

“Your Majesty.” A man stood, three rows back. “Witness accounts from the ball seem to indicate that Linh Cinder’s arrest was part of an agreement between yourself and the queen, and that letting her go could be cause for war. Is there reason to believe the cyborg’s escape could lead to a greater threat to our national security?”

Kai moved to scratch behind his ear, but caught the nervous tick and placed his hand back on the podium. “The word
war
has been thrown around between Earth and Luna for generations. It is my prerogative, as it was always my father’s, to avoid that at all costs. I assure you, I am doing everything in my power not to further unravel our fragile relationship with Luna, starting with finding Linh Cinder. That’s all, thank you.”

He stepped off the stage to a wave of unanswered questions, and was pulled into a whispered conversation with a group of officials.

Pouting, Thorne slumped into the copilot’s seat. “He didn’t mention me. Not once.”

“Me either,” said Iko, without pity.

“You’re not an escaped convict.”

“True, but His Majesty and I met once, at the market. I felt like we had a really strong connection. Didn’t you think so, Cinder?”

The words slipped meaninglessly through Cinder’s audio interface. She didn’t respond, unable to tear her focus away from Kai.

He was being forced to take responsibility for her actions. He was being unfairly faced with the repercussions of her decisions. In the aftermath of her escape, he alone had to deal with Queen Levana.

Shutting her eyes against the sight of him, she rubbed her throbbing temple.

“But I’m a wanted fugitive, like Cinder,” Thorne continued. “They do realize I’m missing, don’t they?”

“Maybe they’re grateful,” Cinder muttered.

Thorne grumbled something incoherent, followed by a long silence during which Cinder massaged her brow and tried to convince herself she’d done the right thing.

Spinning, Thorne kicked his feet onto the armrest of Cinder’s chair, nudging her elbow off it. “Now I understand why you’ve been so immune to my charms. I had no idea I was competing with an emperor. That’s a tough hand to beat, even for me.”

She snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. I hardly know him, and now he despises me.”

Thorne laughed, hooking his thumbs behind his belt loops. “I have great instincts when it comes to
amore,
and he does not despise you. Plus, he asked a cyborg to the ball? That takes guts. I generally dislike royalty and government officials on principle, but I have to give him credit for that.”

Standing, Cinder shoved Thorne’s feet off her chair, freeing her path to the door. “He didn’t know I was cyborg.”

Thorne tilted his head as she passed. “He didn’t?”

“Of course not,” she said, marching out of the small cockpit.

“But he knows you’re cyborg now and he still likes you.”

She spun back to him, pointing toward the screen. “You got
that
from a ten-minute conference in which he said he’s doing everything in his power to hunt me down and turn me over for execution?”

Thorne smirked. In a terrible, snotty voice that Cinder guessed was meant to be a Kai impersonation, he said, “‘I don’t see that her being cyborg is relevant.’”

Rolling her eyes, Cinder spun away.

“Hey, come back!” Thorne’s boots hit the ground behind her. “I have something else to show you.”

“I’m busy.”

“I promise not to make fun of your boyfriend anymore.”

“He’s not my boyfriend!”

“It’s about Michelle Benoit.”

Cinder sucked down a slow breath, and turned back around. “What?”

Thorne hesitated, as if afraid to move in case he set her off again, before inclining his head toward the cockpit’s dash behind him. “Come take a look at this.”

Heaving a sigh, Cinder trudged back toward him. She settled her elbows on the back of Thorne’s chair.

Thorne dismissed the news channel. “Did you know that Michelle Benoit has a teenage granddaughter?”

“No,” said Cinder, bored.

“Well, she does. Miss Scarlet Benoit. Supposedly she just turned eighteen, but—brace yourself—she doesn’t have any hospital records. Get it? Holy spades, I’m a genius.”

Cinder scowled. “I don’t get it.”

Tilting back, Thorne peered at her upside down. “She doesn’t have any
hospital records.
”

“So?”

He spun the chair to face her. “Do you know a single person who wasn’t born in a hospital?”

Cinder considered. “Are you suggesting that she could be the princess?”

“That’s precisely what I’m suggesting.”

The netscreen turned to a profile and picture of Scarlet Benoit. She was pretty, with pronounced curves and fiery red curls.

Cinder squinted at the image. A teenage girl without a birth record. A ward of Michelle Benoit.

How convenient.

“Well, then. Excellent detective work, Captain.”

Twenty-Five

Scarlet dreamt that a blizzard had covered all of Europe in neck-deep snow. A child again, she came downstairs to find her grandmother kneeling in front of the wood stove. “I thought I’d found someone who would take you in,” her grandma said. “But they’ll never come for you in all this snow. I guess I’ll have to wait until spring now to be rid of you.”

She stoked the fire. The sparks flew into Scarlet’s eyes, stinging, and she woke up with wetness on her cheeks, her fingers like ice. For a long time she couldn’t sort out what was a dream and what was a memory. Snow, but not so much snow. Her grandmother wanting to send her away, but not when she was a child. A teenager. Thirteen.

Had it been January, or later still in the winter? She struggled to piece together thawing memories. She’d been sent out to milk the cow, a chore she’d despised, and her hands were so numb she was afraid she would squeeze the udders too tight.

Why hadn’t she been in school that day? Was it a weekend? A vacation?

Oh—right. She’d been visiting her father, just come back the day before. She was supposed to stay with him for a full month, but she couldn’t stand it. The drinking, the coming back to the apartment in the middle of the night. Scarlet had taken the train home without telling anyone, surprising her grandmother with her arrival. Rather than happy to see her, her grandmother had been angry that Scarlet hadn’t commed to tell her what was happening. They’d had a fight. Scarlet was still mad at her, milking the cow, fingers freezing.

It was the last time she’d ridden the maglev. The last time she’d seen her father.

She remembered hurrying through her chores, desperate to be finished with them so she could go inside and get warm. It wasn’t until she was rushing back to the house that she saw the hover out front. She’d seen plenty hovers when she lived in the city, but they were rare out in the country, where the farmers preferred larger, faster ships.

She’d sneaked in through the back door and heard her grandmother in the kitchen, and a man, their voices muffled. She inched her way around the staircase, her feet silent on the terra-cotta tiles.

“I can’t imagine what a burden she’s been for you all these years,” said the man in an eastern accent.

Scarlet frowned, sensing the kitchen’s warmth upon her cheeks as she peered through the cracked door. He was at the table, a mug in his hands. He had silk-black hair and a long face. Scarlet had never seen him before.

“She hasn’t been as much trouble as I expected her to be,” said her grandmother, who she couldn’t see. “I’ve almost grown attached to her after all these years. But I must say, I’ll be glad when she’s gone. No more panicking each time an unfamiliar ship flies by.”

Scarlet’s throat constricted.

“You said she’d be ready to go in a week’s time? Can that be so?”

“Logan seems to think so. This device of yours is all we were waiting for. If the procedure goes smoothly it could even be sooner. But you’ll have to be patient with her. She’ll be quite weak, and more than a little bewildered.”

“Understandably so. I can’t imagine what this must be like for her.”

Scarlet clamped a palm over her mouth to smother her breathing.

“You have accommodations set up?”

“Yes, we’re quite prepared. It will take some getting used to for us as well, but I’m sure it will all work out once she’s settled in. I have two girls of my own about her age—twelve and nine. I’m sure they’ll adore each other, and I will treat her as if she were my own.”

“And what about Madame Linh? Is she prepared?”

“Prepared?” The man chuckled, but the sound was rough and uncomfortable. “She could not have been more astounded when I brought up the idea of adopting a third girl, but she’s a good mother. I’m sorry she wasn’t able to come with me, but I wanted to draw as little attention to this trip as possible. Of course, she doesn’t
know
about the girl. Not … everything.”

Scarlet must have made a sound, because the man suddenly looked up and saw her. He stiffened.

Her grandmother’s chair scratched against the floor and the door swung open. She was furious. Scarlet was furious right back at her.

“Scarlet, you know better than to eavesdrop. Go to your room!”

She wanted to scream, to stomp, to tell her that she couldn’t just send her away like she was nothing, not again—but the words wouldn’t come. They were choked off at the base of her tongue.

So she did as she was told, her feet pounding up the stairs and into her room before her grandma could see the tears.

It wasn’t only realizing that she wasn’t wanted, or that she could be passed off to any stranger that came for her. It was that, after six long years, she’d just begun to feel like she belonged. Like maybe her grandma loved her—more than her mother had, more than her father. Like maybe the two of them were a team.

After that morning, she’d lived in fear for a week. Two weeks. A month.

But the man never came for her, and she and her grandmother never spoke of it again.

“Scarlet?”

The tightening of Wolf’s arm around her waist dragged Scarlet back into the present, into a train car that was slowing down around her. She was curled up like a child with her back against him, and though her eyes were squeezed shut, a few hot tears had escaped, rolled over the bridge of her nose, dripped across her temples. She hastily brushed them away.

Wolf stirred and propped himself up behind her. “Scarlet?” His tone was nervous.

“I had a bad dream,” she said, not wanting him to think the tears had anything to do with him. Already they were stopping and she rolled onto her back. It must have still been night for the darkness that took up the train car, but the unnatural glimmer of city neon targeted the crates just inside the door, sending splashes of pink and green over the stacked boxes.