Nostrils flaring, Levana straightened her spine and turned to face the emperor. He was standing near the back of their small group—alone, but for a handful of Earthen guards and his adviser. Yet he didn’t look afraid. Winter thought he should have looked afraid, but his lips were pressed together in a strained effort not to smile.
Winter cocked her head, inspecting him. He seemed proud. Borderline smug. She began to feel guilty for having teased him before.
“Stowaways,” he said, once he had Levana’s attention. His shoulders twitched in an unconcerned shrug. “What an unexpected surprise.”
Levana’s face was fiercely beautiful. Breathtaking in her viciousness. “You have brought a known enemy into the heart of my country. In a time of mutual cease-fire, you have committed an act of treason.”
Kai didn’t flinch. “My loyalty lies with the Eastern Commonwealth and with Earth. Not with Luna, and certainly not with you.”
Levana’s eyes narrowed. “You seem confident that I won’t have you killed for this.”
“You won’t,” he said with, as her stepmother guessed, an overabundance of confidence. Winter squirmed, suddenly afraid for him. “At least,” Kai amended, “not yet.”
One perfect eyebrow lifted. “You’re right,” said Levana. “Perhaps I will kill your adviser instead. Surely he was aware of this blatant betrayal of my trust.”
“Do with me as you see fit,” said the adviser, as unshaken as Kaito. “My loyalties lie only with my emperor.”
Kai’s cheek twitched. “If you harm any one of your Earthen guests as either a punishment or a threat to me, I will refuse to continue with this wedding.”
“Then I will no longer have any reason to keep you alive.”
“I know,” said Kai, “but you also won’t get to be empress.”
Their gazes warred with each other while Winter, Jacin, and the other guards watched. Winter’s heartbeat was erratic as she waited for the queen’s order to have Emperor Kaito killed—for his insolence as much as for his role in bringing Linh Cinder to Artemisia.
The doors to the palace opened and a guard entered, escorting one of their technicians.
“My Queen, you summoned?”
Aimery stepped forward. “There had been strict orders that the exits out of this port were to be locked, but it seems there has been a malfunction. Her Majesty demands to know what went wrong, and be assured it won’t happen again.”
The technician bowed and scurried around the platform toward the control panel that monitored the exits and the massive spaceship-holding chamber beyond the port doors.
Winter was watching him when her eye caught on a slip of movement. She frowned, sure she saw someone ducking in between some of the Earthen cargo.
Or as sure as she could be of anything she saw, which was not very sure at all.
Her stepmother rounded again on the emperor and flicked her arm toward him, irritated with his presence. “Take the Earthens to their quarters,” she said, “and keep them there.”
The emperor and his entourage put up no resistance as the guards shuffled them away with more force than was necessary. Kai didn’t look in Winter’s direction, but as he passed she could see he was no longer hiding his grin. He might have become a prisoner of the queen, but clearly he saw this as a victory.
The guards’ clomping footsteps had faded when the technician shouted, “My Queen!” His fingers were dancing over the screens, his face set with panic. Levana swept toward him. The rest of her entourage trailed after, and though Jacin moved to keep himself in front of Winter, she dodged around him and skipped ahead, ignoring his low growl. She scanned the stacks of crates and luggage again, but there was no sign of the mysterious figure she’d imagined before.
“What?” Levana snapped.
The technician didn’t turn away from the controls. On the nearest screen, Winter could see a map of the shuttle system and a flashing error message in the corner. Jacin appeared again at her side and cast her a cool glare for leaving the circle of his protection. She ignored him.
“It’s—” the technician started. He swiveled to another screen.
“I suggest you find your tongue before I disable it permanently,” said Levana.
The technician shuddered and turned back to face them, though his hands lingered uselessly over the screens. “The system is…”
Levana waited.
Winter became very worried for this man’s life.
“… inaccessible, My Queen. I can’t … I can’t access the shuttle schedules, the manual overrides … even the entrances to the main platform have been locked. With … with the exception of the corridor connecting it to these docks, which alone was left unimpeded.”
Levana, lips pressed into a firm line, said nothing.
“The system has been hacked?” said Aimery.
“Y-yes, I think so. It could take hours to reconfigure the access codes … I don’t even know what they did.”
“Are you telling me,” said Levana, “that you cannot even put a stop to the shuttles leaving the city?”
The technician had gone pale. “I will keep trying, Your Majesty. I’ll have much better access to the system from the palace control room, so I’ll just—”
“Do you have an apprentice?” said the queen. “Or a partner in your trade?”