Forty-Four
The morning of the wedding arrived. Cinder was a wreck of frazzled thoughts and skittish nerves, but at the center of it was a strange sense of calm. Before the sun set again, she would know the outcome of all their planning and preparations. Either they would succeed today, or they would all become prisoners of Queen Levana.
Or they’d be dead.
She tried not to think of that as she showered and dressed and ate a meager breakfast of stale crackers and almond butter. It was all her churning stomach could handle.
The sun had just showed itself over the frosted Siberian tundra when they piled into the remaining podship—seven people crammed into a space meant for five—to embark on the forty-minute low-elevation flight to New Beijing. No one complained. The Rampion was far too large to hide. At least the podship would be able to blend in with all the other podships in a city suddenly swarming with foreign spacecraft.
The ride was torturous and mostly silent, punctuated only by Iko’s and Thorne’s occasional chatter. Cinder spent the ride switching between newsfeeds covering the royal wedding and the ongoing coverage of the rebellion in Farafrah.
The townspeople had given up their control of the military personnel as soon as reinforcements arrived. Rather than attempt to arrest and transport hundreds of civilians, the Commonwealth military, with permission from the African government, put the entire city into armed lockdown until they could all be thoroughly questioned and charged. The citizens were being treated as traitors to the Earthen union for helping Linh Cinder, Dmitri Erland, and Carswell Thorne, although the news kept reporting that the government was willing to be lenient with anyone who came forward with information about the fugitives, their allies, and their ship.
So far, not one of the citizens of Farafrah seemed to be cooperating.
Cinder wondered if the Lunar townspeople were being treated the same as the Earthens, or if they were just waiting to be sent back to Luna for their real trial. To date, no journalists had mentioned that many of the rebels were Lunar. Cinder suspected the government was trying to keep that little fact quiet, to avoid mass panic in neighboring towns—or even all over the world—which would surely come once Earthens realized how easy it was for Lunars to blend in with them. Cinder could still remember when she’d believed there weren’t any Lunars on Earth and how horrified she’d been when Dr. Erland had told her she was wrong. Her reaction seemed ridiculously na?ve now.
As New Beijing came into view, Cinder sent the newsfeeds away. The buildings at the city’s center were grand and imposing, like willowy sculptures of chrome and glass reaching toward the sky. Cinder was caught off guard by the sudden ache that hit her—homesickness. A homesickness she’d been too busy to recognize until that moment.
The palace stood regally beneath the morning sun, high on its watchful cliff, but they veered away from it. Jacin followed Cinder’s directions toward downtown, eventually mixing with clusters of hovers and, she was glad to see, multiple podships as well. Cinder’s stop was first, two blocks away from the Phoenix Tower Apartments.
She took in a deep breath as she disembarked. Though autumn would be sweeping in fast over the next few weeks, New Beijing was still in summer’s grip, and the day was starting off cloudless and warm. The temperature was just a click above comfortable, but not stifling with humidity as it had been the last time Cinder was in the city.
“If you don’t see me at the checkpoint in ten minutes,” she said, “loop the block a few times and come back.”
Jacin nodded without looking at her.
“If you get the chance,” said Iko, “give Adri a big kick in the rump for me. With the metal foot.”
Cinder laughed, though the sound was awkward. Then they were gone, leaving her alone on a street she’d walked a thousand times.
She’d already called up her glamour, but it was difficult to focus, so she kept her head down anyway as she made her way to the apartments she had once called home.
It was strange to be alone, after weeks of being surrounded by friends and allies, but she was glad that no one else was joining her for this stage of the plan. It seemed weirdly important to distance herself from the girl she’d been when she lived in this apartment, and the idea of her new friends meeting her ex-stepfamily made her cringe.
Her shirt was already sticking to her back as she approached the apartment’s main entrance. She waited until another resident came through, unlocking the doors with their embedded ID chip, and slipped in behind them. A familiar dread settled over her as she crossed the small lobby, a feeling that had once seemed normal. But this time, she also felt a sense of purpose as she entered the elevator. She was no longer the unwanted cyborg orphan who did as she was told and skittered off to her basement workroom to avoid Adri’s bitter glares.
She was free. She was in control. She didn’t belong to Adri anymore.
For perhaps the first time, she stepped out of the elevator with her head high.
The hallway was empty except for a mangy gray cat cleaning himself.
Cinder came to apartment 1820, squared her shoulders, and knocked.
Footsteps padded on the other side of the door, and she focused on her glamour. Cinder had chosen to take on the appearance of one of the officials she’d seen standing behind Kai at the last press conference. Middle-aged, slightly pudgy, with gray-flecked black hair and a too-small-for-her-face nose. She mimicked her exactly, down to the blue-gray business suit and sensible tan shoes.
The door opened and a cloud of stale hot air swept into the hallway.
Adri stood before her, tying the belt around her silk bathrobe. She almost always wore her bathrobe when she was at home, but this was not the same one Cinder was familiar with. Her hair was pulled back, and she wasn’t yet wearing any makeup. There was a fine sheen of sweat on her face.
Cinder expected her body to recoil under her stepmother’s inspection, but it didn’t. Rather, as she looked at Adri, she felt only a detached coldness.
This was just a woman with an invitation to the royal wedding. This was just another task to cross off the list.
“Yes?” said Adri, skeptical gaze swooping over her.
Cinder-the-Palace-Official bowed. “Good morning. Is Linh Adri-ji? at home?”
“I am Linh Adri.”
“A pleasure. I apologize for disturbing you at such an early hour,” said Cinder, launching into her practiced speech. “I am a member of the royal wedding planning committee, and I understand you were promised two invitations to the nuptials between His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Kaito, and Her Lunar Majesty, Queen Levana. As you are one of our distinguished civilian guests, I am honored to personally deliver your invitations for tonight’s ceremony.”
She held out two pieces of paper—in reality, disposable napkin scraps, but to Adri’s eye, two finely crafted, hand-pressed paper envelopes.
At least, she hoped that’s what Adri was seeing. The closest Cinder had yet to come to changing the perception of an inanimate object was her own prosthetic hand, and she wasn’t sure if that counted.
Adri frowned at the napkins, but it quickly turned into a patient smile. No doubt because she now believed she was talking to someone from the palace. “There must be some mistake,” she said. “We received our invitations last week.”
Cinder feigned surprise and withdrew the napkins. “How peculiar. Would you mind if I took a look at those invitations? So I can make sure some mishap hasn’t occurred?”
Adri’s grin tightened, but she stepped aside and ushered Cinder into the apartment. “Of course, please come in. Can I offer you some tea?”
“Thank you, no. We’ll just clear up this confusion and I won’t intrude anymore on your time.” She followed Adri into the living room.
“I must apologize for the heat,” said Adri, grabbing a fan off a small side table and flicking it before her face. “The air has been broken for a week now and the maintenance here is completely incompetent. I used to have a servant to assist with these things, a cyborg ward my husband took in, but—well. It doesn’t matter now. Good riddance.”
Cinder bristled. Servant? But she ignored the comment as her gaze traveled over the room. It hadn’t changed much, with the exception of the items displayed on the mantel of the holographic fireplace. Belongings that had held such prominent position before—Linh Garan’s award plaques and alternating digital photos of Pearl and Peony—had been crammed together at the mantel’s far edge. Now, at its center, stood a beautiful porcelain jar, painted with pink and white peonies and set atop a carved mahogany base.
Cinder sucked in a breath.
Not a jar. An urn. A cremation urn.
Her mouth went dry. She heard Adri padding across the living room, but her focus was pinned to that urn, and what—who—would be inside it.
Of their own accord, her feet began to move toward the mantel and Peony’s remains. Her funeral had come and gone and Cinder had not been there. Adri and Pearl had wept. Had no doubt invited every person from Peony’s classes, every person from this apartment building, every distant relative who had barely known her, who had probably griped about having to send the expected sympathy card and flowers.
But Cinder hadn’t been there.
“My daughter,” said Adri.
Cinder gasped and pulled away. She hadn’t realized that her fingers were brushing against a painted flower until Adri had spoken.
“Gone only recently, of letumosis,” Adri continued, as if Cinder had asked. “She was only fourteen.” There was sadness in her voice, true sadness. It was perhaps the one thing they had ever had in common.
“I’m sorry,” Cinder whispered, grateful that in her distraction, some instinct had maintained her glamour. She forced herself to focus before her eyes started trying to make tears. They would fail—she was incapable of crying—but the effort sometimes gave her a headache that wouldn’t go away for hours, and now was not the time for mourning. She had a wedding to stop.
“Do you have children?” Adri asked.
“Er … no. I don’t,” said Cinder, having no idea if the palace official she was impersonating did or not.
“I have one other daughter—seventeen years old. It was not very long ago that all I could think of was finding her a nice, wealthy husband. Daughters are expensive, you know, and a mother wants to give them everything. But now, I can’t stand the thought of her leaving me too.” She sighed and tore her gaze away from the urn. “But listen to me, carrying on, when you must have so many other places to be today. Here are the invitations we received.”
Cinder took them carefully, glad to change the subject. Now that she was seeing a real invitation up close, she changed the glamour she’d made up for the napkins. The paper was a little stiffer, slightly more ivory, with gold, embossed letters in a flourishing script on one side and traditional second-era kanji on the other.
“Interesting,” said Cinder, opening the top invitation. She faked a laugh, hoping it didn’t sound as painful as it was. “Ah, these are the invitations for Linh Jung and his wife. Your addresses must have gotten switched in our database. How silly.”
Adri cocked her head. “Are you sure? When they arrived, I was certain—”
“See for yourself.” Cinder angled the paper so Adri could see what wasn’t there. What Cinder told her to see. What Cinder told her to believe.
“Goodness, so it is,” said Adri.
Cinder handed Adri the napkins and watched as her stepmother handled them as though they were the most precious items in the world.
“Well then,” she said, her voice barely warbling. “I’ll see myself out. I hope you’ll enjoy the ceremony.”
Adri dropped the napkins into her robe’s pocket. “Thank you for taking the time to deliver these yourself. His Imperial Majesty certainly is a gracious host.”
“We are lucky to have him.” Cinder meandered into the hallway. As her hand landed on the door, she realized with a jolt that this could be the last time she ever saw her stepmother.
The very last time, if she could dare to hope.
She attempted to smother the temptation that roiled inside her at the thought, but she still found herself turning back to face Adri.
“I—”
… have nothing to say. I have nothing to say to you.
But all the common sense in the world could not convince her of those words.
“I don’t mean to pry,” she started again, clearing her throat, “but you mentioned a cyborg before. You wouldn’t happen to be the guardian of Linh Cinder?”
Adri’s kindness fell away. “I was, unfortunately. Thank the stars that’s all behind us now.”
Against all her reasoning, Cinder stepped back into the apartment, blocking the doorway. “But she grew up here. Didn’t you ever feel that she could have been a part of your family? Didn’t you ever think of her as a daughter?”
Adri huffed, fanning herself again. “You didn’t know the girl. Always ungrateful, always thinking she was so much better than us because of her … additions. Cyborgs are like that, you know. So self-important. It was awful for us, living with her. A cyborg and a Lunar, although we didn’t know it until her mortifying spectacle at the ball.” She tightened her belt. “And now she’s soiled our family name. I have to ask that you not judge us by her. I did all I could to help the girl, but she was unredeemable from the start.”
Cinder’s fingers twitched, a familiar taste of rebellion. She ached to toss off her glamour, to yell and scream, to force Adri to see her, the real her, just once. Not the ungrateful, self-important little girl that Adri thought she was, but the orphan who had always just wanted a family, who had only wanted to belong somewhere.
But even as she thought this, a darker yearning climbed up her spine. She wanted Adri to be sorry. For how she had treated Cinder like a piece of property. For how she had taken Cinder’s prosthetic foot and forced her to hobble around like a broken doll. For how she had taunted Cinder again and again for her inability to cry, her inability to love, her inability to ever be human.
She found herself reaching out with her mind, detecting the waves of bioelectricity that shimmered off the surface of Adri’s skin. Before she could rein in the anger that roiled through her, Cinder pressed every ounce of guilt and remorse and shame into her stepmother’s thick skull—twisting her emotions so rashly that Adri gasped and stumbled, her side slamming into the wall.
“But didn’t you ever wonder how hard it must have been?” Cinder said through her teeth. A headache was coming on fast, throbbing against her dry eyes. “Didn’t you ever feel guilty over the way she was treated? Didn’t you ever think that maybe you could have loved her, if only you’d taken the time to talk to her, to understand her?”
Adri groaned and pressed one hand to her stomach, like the years of guilt had been eating away at her, slowly making her sick.
Cinder grimaced and began to ease up on the attack of emotions. When Adri met her gaze again, there were tears watering her eyes. Her breath was ragged.
“Sometimes…,” Adri said, her tone weak. “Sometimes I do think that maybe she was misunderstood. She was so young when we adopted her. She must have been afraid. And my darling Peony always seemed so fond of her and sometimes I think, if things had been different, with Garan, and our finances … perhaps she could have belonged here. You understand … if only she had been normal.”
The last word struck Cinder between her ribs and she flinched, releasing the small strands of guilt.
Adri shuddered, swiping her robe’s sleeve across her eyes.
It made no difference. Adri could be filled with all the guilt in the world, but in her own mind the blame would always be with Cinder. Because Cinder couldn’t have just been normal.
“I-I’m so sorry,” said Adri, pinching the bridge of her nose. She’d gone pale. The tears were gone. “I don’t know what came over me. I—ever since I lost my daughter, sometimes my mind just—” She turned her focus back up to Cinder. “Please, don’t misunderstand me. Linh Cinder—she’s a lying, manipulative girl. I hope they catch her. I would do anything to make sure she can’t ruin anyone else the way she ruined me and my family.”
Cinder nodded. “I understand, Linh-ji?,” she whispered. “I completely understand.”
Curling her fingers around the invitations she’d come for, Cinder ducked back out of the apartment. The headache was splitting against her skull now, making it hard to focus on anything other than putting each foot in front of the other. She managed to maintain a flimsy grip on the glamour, not sure if Adri was still watching her, until she’d stepped into the elevator at the end of the corridor.
She froze.
On the back wall of the elevator was a mirror.
She stared back at her own reflection as the doors slipped shut behind her. Her heart started to pound. Thankfully no one else was in the elevator to witness her, because she lost her hold on the glamour immediately, gaping into her own brown eyes and, for the first time, felt horrified of who she saw in that reflection.
Because what she’d done to Adri, twisting her emotions against her, forcing her to feel guilt and shame, for no other reason than Cinder’s own terrible curiosity, her own burning desire for retaliation …
It was something Levana would have done.