Cress had gotten the doors open.
Iko was already on the other side, her back against a corridor wall, waving them on. She had drawn her own gun for the first time and was searching for a target.
“There!”
Wolf and Cinder pounded up the stairs. A bullet pinged against the wall, and she ducked and stumbled through the doors. They slammed into the wall beside Iko.
Cinder looked back, panting. Their pursuers had given up trying to catch them off guard and were now running toward them at full speed. But Thorne had a head start, and he, too, had given up secrecy for speed. Cinder fed images into his mind—his legs running fast as a gazelle’s, his feet barely touching the ground. She was too afraid that to turn him into a puppet would only slow him down, but the mental encouragement seemed to work. His speed increased. He bounded up the stairs in two steps.
Over his shoulder, Cinder finally saw the thaumaturge, a woman with short black hair and a red coat.
Gritting her teeth, she raised her arm and fired. She didn’t know where she’d hit her, but the woman cried out and fell.
Thorne threw himself across the threshold as the guards reached the base of the platform steps. The doors slammed shut behind him.
Thorne collapsed against the wall, holding his chest. His cheeks were flushed, but his eyes were bright with adrenaline as he looked around at the group. At Cinder, at Iko, at Wolf.
The growing smile vanished. “Cress?”
Cinder, still gasping for her own breath, shook her head.
His jaw fell slack with horror. He pushed himself off the wall and lunged for the doors, but Wolf jumped in front of him, pinning Thorne’s arms to his sides.
“Let me go,” Thorne growled.
“We can’t go back,” said Wolf. “It’s suicide.”
To punctuate his words, a volley of bullets struck the doors, their loud clangs echoing down the corridor they were now trapped in.
“We’re not leaving her.”
“Thorne—” started Cinder.
“No!” Wriggling one arm free, Thorne swung, but Wolf ducked. In half a heartbeat, Wolf had spun around and pinned Thorne to the wall, one enormous hand at Thorne’s throat.
“She gave us this chance,” Wolf said. “Don’t waste it.”
Thorne’s jaw flexed. His body was taut as a cable, ready to fight, though he was no match for Wolf. Panic was etched into every line of his face, but slowly, slowly, his erratic breaths started to even.
“We have to go,” said Cinder, almost afraid to suggest it.
Thorne’s focus shifted to the closed doors.
“I could stay?” suggested Iko, her tone uncertain. “I could go back for her?”
“No,” said Cinder. “We stay together.”
Thorne flinched and Cinder realized the cruelty of her words too late. Their group was already divided.
She inched forward to settle a hand on Thorne’s arm, but thought better of it. “We’d still be out there if it wasn’t for her. We’d all be captured, but thanks to Cress, we’re not. She saved us. Now, we have to go.”
He squeezed his eyes. His shoulders slumped.
His whole body was trembling, but he nodded.
Wolf released him and they ran.
BOOK
Two
The huntsman took pity on her and said,
“Run away into the woods, child, and never come back.”
Twenty-One
At some point during the excitement following Emperor Kaito’s arrival, Jacin had placed himself in front of Winter—ever her protector—and she gathered up the back of his shirt’s material in one fist. His presence was part comfort, part annoyance. He kept blocking her view.
Her sight was clear as daybreak, though, as she watched four figures dash through the exit that led down to the maglev shuttles. The doors slammed shut to a volley of gunfire. Though they had been too far away to see clearly, Winter was certain one of them was Linh Cinder.
Her dear missing cousin, Princess Selene.
“Follow them!” Levana shouted. The guards who had been sent to search the emperor’s ship were at the exit within seconds, trying to pry the doors open, but they wouldn’t budge.
Levana wheeled around to face Sir Jerrico Solis. “Send one team through the palace to the lakeside entrances, another through the city. Try to cut them off at the platform.”
Jerrico clasped a hand to his fist and was gone, summoning eight other guards to follow.
“Aimery,” Levana barked, “see to it that all shuttles leaving Artemisia are stopped. Have them searched, along with all connecting tunnels and platforms. They are not to make it out of the city. And find out how they were able to get through those doors!”
Aimery bowed. “I have already summoned the technician. We will have the entire system locked down.”