“But she doesn’t belong to you. And you can’t expect the rest of your crew to want to stay on in a stolen ship.”
Thorne guffawed. “My crew? Let me tell you what’s going to become of my crew when this is over.” He ticked off on his fingers. “Cinder will be the ruling monarch of a big rock in the sky. Iko will go wherever Cinder goes, so let’s assume she becomes the queen’s hairdresser or something. You—are you a part of the crew now? Doesn’t matter, we both know where you’re going to end up. And once we get Scarlet back, she and Wolf are going to retire to some farm in France and have a litter of baby wolf cubs. That’s what’s going to become of my crew when this is done.”
“It sounds like you’ve put some thought into this.”
“Maybe,” said Thorne, with a one-shoulder shrug. “They’re the first crew I’ve ever had, and most of them even call me Captain. I’m going to miss them.”
Kai squinted. “I notice you left out Cress. What’s going on between you two, anyway?”
Thorne laughed. “What? Nothing’s going on. We’re … I mean, what do you mean?”
“I don’t know. She seems more comfortable around you than anybody else on the ship. I just thought…”
“Oh, no, there’s nothing like … we were in the desert together for a long time, but that’s it.” He ran his fingers absently over the podship controls but didn’t touch anything. “She used to have a crush on me. Actually”—he chuckled again, but it was more strained this time—“she thought she was in love with me when we first met. Funny, right?”
Kai watched him from the corner of his eye. “Hilarious.”
Thorne’s knuckles whitened on the controls, then he glanced at Kai and started to shake his head. “What is this, a therapy session? It doesn’t matter.”
“It sort of matters. I like Cress.” Kai shifted in the harness. “I like you too, despite my better judgment.”
“You’d be surprised how often I hear that.”
“Something tells me Cress might still like you too—against her better judgment.”
Thorne sighed. “Yeah, that pretty much sums that up.”
Kai cocked his head. “How so?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Oh, it’s complicated. Because I have no idea what that’s like.” Kai snorted.
Thorne glared at him. “Whatever, Doctor. It’s just, when Cress thought she was in love with me, she was actually in love with this other guy she’d made up in her head, who was all brave and selfless and stuff. I mean, he was a real catch, so who could blame her? Even I liked that guy. I kind of wish I was that guy.” He shrugged.
“Are you so sure you’re not?”
Thorne laughed.
Kai didn’t.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Not really.”
“Um, hi, I’m Carswell Thorne, a convicted criminal in your country. Have we met?”
Kai rolled his eyes. “I’m saying maybe you should stop putting so much energy into lamenting the fact that Cress was wrong about you, and start putting your energy into proving her right, instead.”
“I appreciate the confidence, Your Imperial Psychologist, but we’re way beyond that. Cress is over me and … it’s for the best.”
“But you do like her?”
When Thorne didn’t respond, Kai glanced over to see Thorne’s attention fixed on the cockpit window. Finally, Thorne responded, “Like I said, it doesn’t matter.”
Kai looked away. Somehow, Thorne’s inability to talk about his attraction to Cress spoke so much louder than an outright confession. After all, he had no trouble making suggestive commentary about Cinder.
“Fine,” he said. “So what is Cress going to do once this is all over?”
“I don’t know,” said Thorne. “Maybe she will go work for you on your royal stalking team.”
Below, the blur of land became beaches and skyscrapers and Mount Fuji and, beyond it, an entire continent, lush and green and welcoming.
“I don’t think that’s what she would want, though,” Thorne mused. “She wants to see the world after being trapped in that satellite her whole life. She wants to travel.”
“Then I guess she should stay with you after all. What better way to travel than by spaceship?”
But Thorne shook his head, adamant. “No, believe me. She deserves a better life than this.”
Kai leaned forward to better get a view of his home spreading out before them. “My point exactly.”
Thirteen
“When did you learn to embroider?” Jacin said, picking through the basket that hung on Winter’s elbow.
She preened. “A few weeks ago.”
Jacin lifted a hand towel from the collection and eyed the precise stitches that depicted a cluster of stars and planets around the towel’s border. “Were you getting any sleep?”
“Not very much, no.” She riffled through the basket and handed him a baby blanket embroidered with a school of fish swimming around the border. “This one’s my favorite. It took four whole days.”