She expected the doctor to explode with this announcement, but instead his frown was quickly replaced with horror. His thick eyebrows drew up beneath his cap. Slowly, he sank down into his seat. “She saw you? Are you sure?”
Cinder nodded. “I was in the courtyard when the protests were going on. Queen Levana appeared on one of the upper balconies and she…did something. To the crowd. Brainwashed or glamoured them or whatever it’s called. They all calmed down and stopped protesting. It was so eerie. Like they all just forgot why they were there, that they hated her. And then they just left.”
“Yes.” Dr. Erland set the vial on the desk. “It suddenly becomes clear how she is able to keep her own people from rebelling against her, isn’t it?”
Cinder leaned forward, tapping her metal fingers against the desk. “Here’s the thing, though. You said before that shells aren’t affected by the Lunar glamour, right? That’s why she ordered them—us—to be killed?”
“That’s right.”
“But it did affect me. I trusted her, as much as anyone else. At least, until my programming kicked in and took control.” She watched as Dr. Erland took off his hat, adjusted the brim, and pulled it back over his fluffy gray hair. “That shouldn’t have happened, right? Because I’m a shell.”
“No,” he said, without conviction. “That shouldn’t have happened.”
He lifted himself from his chair and faced the floor-to-ceiling windows.
A compulsion to reach out and snatch the vial off the desk surged to the tips of her fingers, but Cinder withheld it. The antidote—if it was an antidote—was meant for everyone.
Gulping, she leaned back. “Doctor? You don’t seem too surprised.”
He raised a hand and tapped his mouth with two fingers before slowly turning toward her.
“I may have misread your diagnostics.” Lie.
She squeezed her hands in her lap. “Or you just didn’t tell me the truth.”
His eyebrows knit, but he didn’t deny it.
Cinder curled her fingers. “So I’m not Lunar?”
“No, no. You are most definitely Lunar.” Truth.
She sulked in the chair, disappointed.
“I’ve been doing some research on your family, Miss Linh.” He must have seen her eyes brighten because he quickly held up both hands. “I mean your adoptive family. Are you aware that your deceased guardian, Linh Garan, designed android systems?”
“Um.” Cinder thought about the plaques and awards sitting on the mantel in Adri’s living room. “That sounds kind of familiar.”
“Well. The year before your surgery, he unveiled an invention at the New Beijing science fair. A prototype. He called it a bioelectrical security system.”
Cinder stared. “A what?”
Standing, Dr. Erland tinkered with the netscreen until a familiar holograph flickered before them. He zoomed in on the representation of Cinder’s neck, showing the small dark spot on her upper spine. “This.”
Cinder reached for the back of her neck, massaging.
“It is a device that ties in with a person’s nervous system. It has two purposes—on an Earthen, it prevents outside manipulation of their personal bioelectricity. Essentially, it makes it so that they are immune to Lunar control. Oppositely, when installed on a Lunar, it keeps them from being able to manipulate the bioelectricity of others. It is as if you were to put a lock on the Lunar gift.”
Cinder shook her head, still rubbing. “A lock? On magic? Is that even possible?”
Dr. Erland lifted a finger to her. “It is not magic. Claiming it to be magic only empowers them.”
“Fine. Bioelectrical whatever. Is it possible?”
“Evidently so. The Lunar gift is the ability to use your brain to output and control electromagnetic energy. To block this ability would require alteration of the nervous system as it enters the brain stem, and to do that while still allowing full movement and sensation would be…it’s quite impressive. Ingenious, really.”
Jaw dropping, Cinder followed the doctor with her gaze as he slipped back into his chair. “He would have been rich.”
“If he had survived, perhaps he would have been.” The doctor turned off the screen. “When he unveiled the invention at the fair, the prototype was as yet untested, and his contemporaries were skeptical—and rightfully so. He first needed to test it.”
“And for that, he needed a Lunar.”
“Ideally, he needed both a Lunar and an Earthen subject—in order to test the two purposes separately. If he found an Earthen subject, I have no idea, but clearly he did find you, and he did install his invention as a means of keeping you from using your gift. This explains why you have not had the use of your gift since your operation.”
She bounced her foot, restless. “You didn’t misread my diagnostics. You knew this from the start. From the moment you walked into that lab room, you knew I was Lunar and I had this crazy lock and—you knew.”
Dr. Erland wrung his hands. For the first time, Cinder noticed a gold band on his finger.