Cinder pressed her lips together like she’d just bitten a lemon and pulled her wrist from Iko’s grip. “Really, Iko?” she said, examining her mess of tools and spare parts. “You really think Adri’s going to let me go now just because I can buy my own dress? She would probably tear it off me and try to resell the buttons.”
“Well—fine, we won’t tell her about the dress or about going to the ball. You don’t have to go with them. You’re better than them. You’re valuable.” Iko’s fan was whirring like mad as if her processor could barely keep up with all these revelations. “Immune to letumosis. My stars, you could be a celebrity because of this!”
Cinder ignored her, stooping to prop the netscreen against the shelving unit. Her gaze had landed on a pile of silver fabric crumpled in the far corner, barely shimmering in the dusty light. “What’s that?”
Iko’s fan calmed to a slow hum. “Peony’s ball gown. I…I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away. I didn’t think anyone would ever come down here again, what with you…so I just thought I’d keep it. For myself.”
“That was bad, Iko. It could have been infected.” Cinder hesitated only for a moment before walking to the dress and picking it up by the pearl-dotted sleeves. It was smudged with dirt and covered in wrinkles, and there was a chance it had been exposed to letumosis, but the doctor had said the disease wouldn’t survive long on clothing.
Besides, nobody was ever going to wear it now.
She draped the gown over the welder and turned away. “We’re not using this money on a dress,” she said. “We’re still not going to the ball.”
“Why not?” Iko said, a distinct whine in her robotic voice.
Approaching her desk, Cinder swung her leg up and started unloading the stashed tools from her calf. “You remember that car we saw at the junkyard? The old gasoline one?”
Iko’s speakers made a coarse grumbling noise, the closest she could get to a groan. “What about it?”
“It’s going to take all our time and money to fix it up.”
“No. Cinder! Tell me you’re joking.”
Cinder was recording a mental list as she shut the storage compartment and rolled down her pant leg. The words scrolled across her vision. GET CAR. ASSESS CONDITION. FIND PARTS. DOWNLOAD WIRING BLUEPRINT. ORDER GASOLINE.
She spotted Kai’s android on her worktable. fix android. “I am serious.”
She pulled her hair back into its tight ponytail, strangely excited. Marching to the standing toolbox in the corner, she started fishing for things that might come in handy—bungee cords and chains, rags and generators, anything to help get that car cleaned up and ready for fixing. “We’re going to go back tonight. Get it to the parking garage if we can, otherwise we might have to fix it at the yard. Now, I need to go back to the palace tomorrow morning and take a look at the prince’s android tomorrow afternoon, but if we’re diligent, I think I could have it fixed in a couple weeks, maybe less. Depending on what it needs, of course.”
“But why? Why are we fixing it?”
Cinder shoved the tools into her messenger bag. “Because that car is going to get us out of here.”
Chapter Sixteen
NIGHTSHIFT NURSES AND ANDROIDS PLASTERED THEMSELVES to the walls as Prince Kai barreled through the corridor. He had run all the way from his bedroom on the sixteenth floor of the palace’s private wing, pausing to catch his breath only when he was forced to wait for the elevator. He burst through the door to the visiting room and came to a halt all at once, still gripping the door’s handle.
His mad eyes found Torin, arms crossed as he leaned against the far wall. The adviser tore his gaze from the glass window and met Kai’s panicked expression with one of resignation.
“I heard—” Kai started, pulling back his shoulders. Wetting his dry mouth, he came into the room. The door clicked behind him. The small sitting room was lit only by a table lamp and the bright fluorescents in the quarantine.
Kai peered into the sickroom just as a med-droid pulled a white cloth over his father’s closed eyes. His hammering heart plummeted. “I’m too late.”
Torin stirred. “It happened only minutes ago,” he said, forcing himself away from the wall. Kai took in the adviser’s lined face and sleepless eyes, and a cup of untouched tea that sat beside his portscreen. He’d stayed late to work, rather than return to his own home, his own bed.
The exhaustion caught up to Kai all at once and he pressed his burning forehead against the cool glass. He should have been there too.
“I will set up a press conference.” Torin’s voice was hollow.
“A press conference?”
“The country needs to know. We will mourn together.” Torin seemed shaken for a rare moment—he covered it with a measured breath.
Kai squeezed his eyes shut and chafed them with his fingers. Even knowing that it was coming, that his father was sick with this incurable disease, it still made no sense. All that had just been lost, taken so quickly. Not just his father. Not just the emperor.
His youth. His freedom.