“No, I was unconscious until the very end. I do have one faint memory of climbing up that ladder and leaving the hangar. It’s pretty hazy, though. If Thorne and I had never come here, I would have always thought it was a dream.”
Leaving the tank, Kai paced around the room, taking in the tools made for attaching cyborg prostheses and integrating complicated wiring into the human nervous system. The bright lights, now turned off, that hovered like octopus tentacles over the operating table. He scanned the netscreens on the wall, but didn’t try to turn them on. After making a complete circle around the room, he paused and said, “Imagine how proud she would be.”
“Michelle Benoit?”
He nodded. “She’d be so proud of Scarlet, and of you. I can only begin to imagine the sacrifices she made to keep you safe, and all so one day you could face Levana and end her tyranny. You not only succeeded, but you signed the Treaty of Bremen and dissolved the Lunar monarchy. You’ve changed the course of history in ways that I’m sure she never could have predicted, and now…” His mouth quirked to one side as he glanced up in the direction of the farmhouse. “… Now her granddaughter is married to a Lunar. Openly. Happily. When just a few years ago, that wouldn’t have been possible.” His smile turned to melancholy. “I’m sorry I never got to meet her.”
“Me too,” said Cinder.
Lacing their fingers together, Kai lifted the back of her hand to his mouth. “Was there any reason in particular you wanted to show me this?”
“I’m not sure. I figured you know all about my biological family and the world I was born into, and you’ve of course had the great pleasure of meeting my adoptive family on numerous occasions, so this was the last piece of the puzzle.” She waved her free arm around the room. “The missing link to my past.”
Kai looked around one more time. “It’s pretty creepy, actually.”
“I know.”
After another moment of reverent silence, Kai said, “I’m surprised Thorne hasn’t asked if he can start leading guided tours down here. I bet you could charge a hefty admission fee.”
Cinder snorted. “Please don’t plant that idea in his head.”
“Scarlet would never allow it anyway. Come on.” He started heading back toward the ladder. “It’s my turn to show you something.”
They could still hear music spilling out from the farmhouse, but Kai passed by it and headed into the fields that surrounded them. They hadn’t gone far before the mud from recent sprinklers sucked at their feet. They walked for a long time, stepping over the rows of sugar beets, letting the moonlight guide them. After a while the sound of music disappeared in the distance, and another sound took its place—the melodic burble of a small creek.
At the end of the field, the land dipped down into a narrow ravine that the creek had carved over time. There were a few trees scattered along its banks, the roots sometimes emerging from the tiny cliff side before plunging down into the soft silt. Kai found a grassy spot where they could watch the subtle glint of moonlight off the foaming water, and they sat beside each other. His arm wound its way around Cinder’s waist.
“All right, I give up,” said Cinder. “How did you know this was here?”
“Wolf mentioned it last night when he was showing us around the farm. The creek marks the end of their property. That side belongs to the neighbor.”
“It’s very nice,” she said somewhat haltingly, “but … why are you showing me a creek?”
“We’re not looking at the creek.” He pointed up. “We’re looking at the stars.”
She laughed and tilted her head back. The moon had begun to dip toward the horizon, three-quarters full and surrounded by swirls of stars that could never be seen from a metropolis like New Beijing.
“Also very nice,” she said. “But believe it or not, I’ve actually seen these stars before.”
“Well, aren’t you hard to impress,” he said wryly.
“Sorry. What I meant was, this is breathtaking.”
“Thank you. I thought it would be nice to look up at the night sky with you beside me for once, rather than just wishing you were beside me.”
Cinder felt a pang of guilt for being so flippant before, when the truth was …
“I do that too,” she said. “I’ll look out at the stars and pretend you’re with me, or wonder if you’re looking at the same constellations that I am, maybe at that same moment.” She nestled her body against his and smiled when Kai kissed the top of her head. It felt so natural. Like they’d done this every night for years, rather than having been separated for most of that time.
“I have a confession,” Kai mumbled into her hair.
She tilted her head to peer at him. “Careful. There could be paparazzi hiding behind these trees. Any confessions might end up on tomorrow’s newsfeeds.”
He pretended to consider this for a moment, eyes twinkling, before he said, “I could live with that.”
She sat up straighter so she could turn to look at him. “Out with it, then.”
“When I was figuring out what to say for the wedding, I kept thinking about you and me.”
Cinder jolted. “I knew it!”