“What, to help you find a cure? You think this is some sort of twisted gift of fate?”
“I am not talking fate or destiny. I am talking survival. You cannot let the queen see you.”
Cinder shrank against the cabinet, more baffled by the second. “Why? Why would she care about me?”
“She would care very much about you.” He hesitated, his sea-blue eyes wild with panic. “She…she hates Lunar shells, you see. Shells are immune to the Lunar glamour.” He twirled his hands through the air, searching. “Their brainwashing, as it were. Queen Levana can’t control shells, which is why she continues to have them exterminated.” His lips hardened. “Queen Levana will stop at nothing to ensure her control, to terminate any resistance. That means killing those who could resist her—people like you. Do you understand me, Miss Linh? If she were to see you, she would kill you.”
Gulping, Cinder pressed her thumb against her left wrist. She couldn’t feel her ID chip, but she knew it was there.
Extracted from the deceased.
If Dr. Erland were right, then everything she knew about herself, her childhood, her parents, was wrong. A made-up history. A made-up girl.
The idea that Lunars were fugitives no longer sounded so odd.
She turned toward the netscreen. Kai was there now, in the pressroom, talking at a podium.
“Miss Linh, somebody went through a great deal of trouble to bring you here, and now you are in extreme danger. You cannot jeopardize yourself.”
She barely heard, watching as text began to scroll along the bottom of the screen.
JUST ANNOUNCED: LUNAR QUEEN LEVANA TO COME TO THE EASTERN COMMONWEALTH FOR PEACE ALLIANCE DISCUSSIONS. JUST ANNOUNCED: LUNAR QUEEN LEVANA…
“Miss Linh? Are you listening to me?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Extreme danger. I heard you.”
Chapter Twenty
THE LUNAR SPACECRAFT DID NOT APPEAR MUCH DIFFERENT from Earthen spacecrafts, except that its body shimmered as if inlaid with diamonds, and a string of gold runes encircled its hull in an unbroken line. The ship was too bright in the afternoon sun and Kai had to squint against the glare. He did not know if the runes were magic or if they were only meant to seem so. He did not know if the ship was made out of some fancy, glittery material, or if they’d just painted it that way. He did know it hurt to look at.
The ship was larger than the personal shuttle the queen’s head thaumaturge, Sybil, had come to Earth on and yet still relatively small for all the importance it carried: smaller than most passenger ships and smaller than any cargo ship Kai had seen. It was a private ship, meant only for the Lunar queen and her entourage.
The ship landed without a jolt. Heat rose up from the concrete in blistering waves. The fine silk of Kai’s shirt was clinging to his back and a trickle of sweat had begun down his neck—in the evening the welcome pad would be sheltered by the palace’s stone walls, but now it was under full assault by the late August sun.
They waited.
Torin, at Kai’s side, did not fidget. His face was impassive, expectant. His calmness only unsettled Kai even more.
On Kai’s other side, Sybil Mira stood dressed in her official white coat with its embroidered runes, similar to those on the ship. The material seemed lightweight, yet it covered her from the top of her throat to the knuckles of each hand, and the flared tails hung past her knees. She must have been sweltering, but she looked fully composed.
A few steps behind her stood the blond guard, hands clasped behind his back.
Two of Kai’s own royal guards stood at either side of the platform.
That was all. Levana had insisted that no one else greet her at the pad.
Kai dug his nails into his palms in an attempt to keep the sneer from his face, and waited while the heat plastered his bangs to his forehead.
Finally, when the queen seemed to have grown tired of making them suffer, the ramp of the ship descended, revealing silver-furnished stairs.
Two men alighted first—both tall, both muscular. One was pale with wildly unkempt orange hair and was dressed in the same warrior-like body armor and weaponry that Sybil’s guard wore. The other man was dark as a night sky, with no hair at all, and wore a coat like Sybil’s with its bell sleeves and embroidery. His, however, was crimson, announcing that he was beneath Sybil, a second-tier thaumaturge. Kai was glad he knew enough about the Lunar court to recognize that, at least.
He watched the two men as they surveyed the pad, the surrounding walls, and the assembled group with stoic expressions before standing to either side of the ramp.
Sybil slinked forward. Kai swallowed a breath of stifling air.