Forty-Two
The Lunar boy couldn’t have been more than eight years old, and yet Scarlet was certain that she would wring his neck like a chicken if she ever got the chance. He was, without a doubt, the most horrible child that ever lived. She couldn’t help thinking that if all Lunar children were like this, their whole society was doomed and Cinder would be better off letting them destroy themselves.
Scarlet didn’t know how, exactly, she had ended up the property of Venerable Annotel and his wife and the little monster they’d raised. Maybe it was favoritism from the crown, or maybe they’d purchased her, like an Earthen family might purchase a new android. Either way, for seven days, she had been the new toy. The new pet. The new test subject.
Because at eight years old, young Master Charleson was learning how to control his Lunar gift. Evidently, Earthens were great fun to practice on, and Master Charleson had a very sick sense of humor.
Chained from a collar around her neck to a bolt in the floor, Scarlet was being kept in what she figured was the boy’s playroom. An enormous netscreen took up one wall and countless virtual reality machines and sports-tech had been abandoned in the corners, out of her reach.
His practice sessions were agony. Since she’d come to the Annotel household, Scarlet had had long-legged spiders crawl up her nose. Snakes as long as her arm wriggle their way through her belly button and wind their bodies around her spine. Centipedes burrow into her ear canals and creep around the inside of her skull before emerging on her tongue.
Scarlet had screamed. She had thrashed. She had gouged her own fingernails into her stomach and blown her nose until it bled in an effort to get the trespassers out.
And all the while, Master Charleson had laughed and laughed and laughed.
It was all in her head, of course. She knew that. She even knew it when she was roughly banging her head on the floor to try to knock out the spiders and centipedes. But it didn’t matter. Her body was convinced, her brain was convinced. Her rational mind was overcome.
She hated that little boy. Hated him.
She also hated that she was starting to be afraid of him.
“Charleson.”
His mother appeared in the doorway, temporarily rescuing Scarlet from his most recent infatuation—squinty-eyed ground moles, with their fat bodies and enormous reptilian claws. One had been gnawing at her toes while its talons shredded the sole of her foot.
The illusion and the pain vanished, but the horror lingered. The rawness of her throat. The damp salt on her face. Scarlet rolled onto her side, sobbing in the middle of the playroom floor, grateful that the boy couldn’t maintain the brainwashing while he was distracted.
Scarlet paid no heed to the conversation until Charleson began to yell, and she forced open her swollen eyes. The boy was throwing a tantrum. His mother was talking in a soothing voice, trying to appease him. Promising something. Charleson, it seemed, was not appeased. A minute later, he stomped out of the room and Scarlet heard a door slam.
She exhaled with shaky relief. Her muscles relaxed, as they never could when the little terror was around.
She pushed her red hood and a tangle of curls out of her face. His mother sent her a withering glance, as if Scarlet were as disgusting as a mole, as offensive as a swarm of maggots on the woman’s pristine kitchen counters.
Without a word, she turned and left the room.
It wasn’t long before a different shadow filled the doorway, a handsome man wearing a black, long-sleeved jacket.
A thaumaturge.
Scarlet was almost happy to see him.
* * *
“She was captured during my battle with Linh Cinder. This girl was one of her accomplices.”
“The battle in which you failed to either eradicate or apprehend the cyborg?”
Sybil’s nostrils flared as she paced in between Scarlet and the lavishly carved marble throne. She was wearing a pristine new coat, and moving with an awkward stiffness, no doubt a result of the gunshot wound. “That is correct, My Queen.”
“As I thought. Go on.”
Sybil clasped her hands behind her back, knuckles whitening. “Unfortunately, our software technicians have had no success in tracking the Rampion using either the podship or the D-COMM chip that I confiscated. Therefore, the primary purpose of this interrogation is to ascertain what information our prisoner might have that will be useful in our ongoing search for the cyborg.”
Queen Levana nodded.
Scarlet, kneeling in the center of the stone-and-glass throne room, had a very good view of the queen, and though part of her wanted to look away, it was difficult. The Lunar queen was as beautiful as she’d always been told—more, even. Scarlet suspected there had been a time when men would have fought wars to possess a woman of such beauty.
These days, Emperor Kai was being forced to marry her in order to stop a war.
In her famished, delirious, mind-weary state, Scarlet almost laughed at the irony. She barely swallowed it back down.
The queen noticed the twitch of her lips, and frowned.
Pulse quickening, Scarlet cast her eyes around the throne room. Though she had been forced to kneel, they had not put her in any restraints. With the queen herself present, plus a handful of guards and a total of ten thaumaturges—Sybil Mira, plus three in red and six in black—she supposed they hadn’t been too concerned that she might try to escape.
On top of that, the velvet-draped chairs to either side of the throne were filled with at least fifty … well, Scarlet didn’t know who they were. Jurors? The Lunar media? Aristocrats?
All she knew was that they looked ridiculous. Clothing that twinkled and floated and glowed. Faces painted to look like solar systems and rainbow prisms and wild animals. Brightly colored hair that curled and wisped, defying gravity in order to create massive, elaborate structures. Some of the wigs even housed caged songbirds, though they were being remarkably quiet.
With that thought, it occurred to Scarlet that these were all probably glamours that she was looking at. These Lunars could be wearing potato sacks for all she knew.
Sybil Mira’s heels tapped against the hard floor, drawing Scarlet’s attention back to her.
“How long had you been a part of Linh Cinder’s rebellion prior to your capture?”
She stared up at the thaumaturge, her throat sore from days of screaming. She considered saying nothing. Her gaze flicked to the queen.
“How long?” said Sybil, her tone already growing impatient.
But, no, Scarlet did not care to remain silent. They were going to kill her, that much was obvious. She was not so na?ve that she couldn’t see her own mortality closing in around her. After all, there were bloodstains on the throne room floor, streaking toward the wall opposite the queen’s throne. Or, where a wall should have been, but it was instead an enormous open window, and a ledge that jutted out, leading to nowhere.
They were fairly high up—three or four stories, at least. Scarlet didn’t know what was beyond that ledge, but she guessed it made for a convenient way to dispose of the bodies.
Sybil grabbed her by the chin. “I suggest you answer the question.”
Scarlet clenched her teeth. Yes, she would answer. When would she ever be given such an audience again?
When Sybil released her, she turned her attention back to the queen.
“I joined Cinder on the night your special operatives attacked,” she said, her voice hoarse but strong. “It was also the night you killed my grandmother.”
Queen Levana had no reaction.
“You probably have no idea who my grandmother was. Who I am.”
“Is it relevant to these proceedings?” asked Sybil, sounding annoyed that Scarlet had already hijacked her interrogation.
“Oh, yes. Incredibly relevant.”
Levana settled her cheek against her knuckles, looking bored.
“Her name was Michelle Benoit.”
Nothing.
“She served twenty-eight years in the European military, as a pilot. She received a medal once, for piloting a mission here, to Luna, for diplomatic discussions.”
A slight narrowing of the eyes.
“Many years later, a man that she had met on Luna showed up at her doorstep, with a very interesting parcel. A little girl … almost dead, but not quite.”
A puckering around the lips.
“For years, my grandmother kept that little girl hidden, kept her alive, and she ultimately paid for that with her life. That was the night that I joined Linh Cinder. That was the night that I joined the side of the true queen of—”
Her tongue froze, her jaws and throat icing over.
But her lips still managed a smug smile. She’d already said more than she thought Levana would allow, and the fury in the queen’s eyes made it worthwhile.
The onlookers were rustling softly, no one daring to talk, even as they cast confused glances at one another across the room.
Sybil Mira had gone pale as she looked from Scarlet to the queen. “I apologize for the prisoner’s outburst, My Queen. Would you like me to continue questioning her in private?”
“That won’t be necessary.” Queen Levana’s voice was lyrical and calm, as if Scarlet’s words hadn’t bothered her in the slightest, but Scarlet knew it was a ruse. She’d seen the flash of murder in the queen’s eyes. “You may continue with your questions, Sybil. However, we are scheduled to depart for Earth tonight, and I would hate to be delayed. Perhaps your prisoner could use a bit more motivation to stay focused on the answers we’re interested in.”
“I agree, Your Majesty.” Sybil nodded to one of the royal guards that flanked the doors.
Moments later, a platform was wheeled into the throne room, and the audience seemed to perk up.
Scarlet gulped.
On the platform was a large block of ebony wood, intricately carved on all sides with scores of people prostrating themselves before a man in long, flowing robes, who wore a crescent moon as if it were a crown. On top of the block, set amid hundreds of hatch marks, was a silver hatchet.
Scarlet was pulled to her feet by two guards and dragged onto the platform. Letting out a slow breath, she lifted her chin, trying to stifle her mounting fear.
“Tell me,” said Sybil, passing behind her. “Where is Linh Cinder now?”
Scarlet held the queen’s stare. “I don’t know.”
A beat, before her own hand betrayed her, reaching out and wrapping around the silver handle. Her throat tightened.
“Where is she?”
Scarlet gritted her teeth. “I. Don’t. Know.”
Her hand yanked the blade from the wood.
“You must have talked about the possibility of an emergency landing. A safe place to hide should you need to. Tell me. Speculate if you must. Where would she have gone?”
“I have no idea.”
Scarlet’s other hand slammed onto the top of the block, fingers splayed out against the dark wood. She gasped at her own sudden movements, finally tearing her gaze away from the queen to look at her traitorous limb.
“Perhaps an easier question, then.”
Scarlet jumped. Sybil was right behind her now, whispering against her ear.
“Which finger do you value the least?”
Scarlet squeezed her eyes shut. She tried to clear her thoughts, to be logical. She tried to not be afraid.
“I was their only pilot,” she said. “None of them had any clue how to fly a spaceship. If they tried to go back to Earth, they would have crashed.”
Sybil’s footsteps retreated, but Scarlet’s hand remained stretched against the block, the hatchet still hovering in the air.
“My guard was an accomplished pilot, and he was quite alive when we abandoned the ship. Assume that Linh Cinder brainwashed him into piloting the ship for her.” Sybil came to stand where Scarlet could see her again. “Where, then, would she have had him go?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you should ask him.”
A slow, pleased smile climbed over the thaumaturge’s face. “We’ll start with the smallest finger, then.”
Scarlet’s arm reared back, and she flinched, turning her face away as if not looking would keep it from happening. Her knees gave out and she collapsed beside the block of wood, but her arms stayed strong, inflexible. The only parts of her that weren’t trembling.
Her grip on the hatchet tightened, prepared to swing.
“My Queen?”
The entire room seemed to inhale at the words, so softly spoken that Scarlet wasn’t sure she’d really heard them.
After a long, long moment, the queen snapped, “What?”
“May I have her?” The words were faint and slow, as if the question were a maze that needed to be traversed carefully. “She would make a lovely pet.”
Pulse thundering in her ears, Scarlet dared to open her eyes. The hatchet glinted in the corner of her vision.
“You may have her when we are done with her,” said the queen, sounding not at all pleased at the interruption.
“But then she’ll be broken. They’re never any fun when you give them to me broken.”
The room began to titter mockingly.
A bead of sweat fell into Scarlet’s eyes, stinging.
“If she were my pet,” continued the lilting voice, “I could practice on her. She must be easy to control. Maybe I would start to get better if I had such a pretty Earthen to play with.”
The tittering stopped.
The frail voice became even quieter, barely a murmur, that still carried like a gunshot in the otherwise silent room.
“Father would have given her to me.”
Scarlet tried to blink the salt from her eyes. Her breaths were ragged from the strain of trying to take back control of her arms and failing.
“I said that you may have her, and you may,” said the queen, speaking harshly, as if to an annoying child. “But what you don’t seem to understand is that when a queen threatens repercussions against someone who has wronged her, she must follow through on those threats. If she does not, she is inviting anarchy to her doorstep. Do you want anarchy, Princess?”
Dizzy with fear, with nausea, with hunger, Scarlet managed to raise her head. The queen was looking at someone seated beside her, but the world was blurring and Scarlet couldn’t see who it was.
She heard her, though. The lovely voice, cutting through her.
“No, My Queen.”
“Precisely.”
Levana turned back to Sybil and nodded.
Scarlet didn’t have a moment to prepare herself before the hatchet dropped.