Cress

  “Which is exactly why I’m not an expert. Thing is, I didn’t love any of them. I’m honestly not sure I would recognize real love if it was…”

  She swiped the back of her hand over her damp cheeks. “If it was what?”

  “Nothing.” Clearing his throat, Thorne leaned his head against the back of the chair. “Are you all right?”

  Sniffing again, she nodded. “I think so. I might still be in a little bit of shock.”

  “I think we all are, after today.”

  Cress spotted the bottle of the eyedropper solution, beside the doctor’s portscreen. She didn’t want to pry herself away from Thorne’s arms, but she also didn’t want to think about the doctor anymore. The secret he’d kept. The words she couldn’t say. “We should probably take care of these eyedrops.”

  “When you’re done shaking,” Thorne said. “I don’t like shaking things near my eyes.”

  She laughed weakly and went to pull herself from his lap. Thorne’s arms tightened, but only for a moment before he let her go. She forced her guilt back inside. She wouldn’t think about it right now.

  After reading the doctor’s instructions—three drops in each eye, four times a day for one week—she unscrewed the top. Drawing the solution up into the dropper, she moved to stand behind Thorne’s chair, her wrinkled gown swaying around her.

  Thorne propped his feet on the control panel again and tilted back until his face was turned up to the ceiling. She hadn’t seen his eyes in days, but they were as blue as ever.

  Cress placed a hand on his brow to steady herself and his cheek twitched. “Here goes,” she murmured, squeezing the dropper. He instinctively flinched and blinked, pushing the drops like tears down his temples. Cress brushed them away, unable to resist smoothing a strand of hair off his forehead. Her attention caught on his lips, and suddenly self-conscious, she pulled her fingertips away. “How does that feel?”

  He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. “Like I have water in my eyes.” Then he chuckled wryly, opening them again. “Maybe the solution is just water, and the doctor was playing a practical joke on me.”

  “That would be awful!” she said, twisting the cap back onto the solution. “He wouldn’t have done that.”

  “No, you’re right. Not after what we went through to get it.” He lifted his head from the back of the chair, tugging at the bandanna knotted around his neck. “Though he did make it pretty clear that he didn’t think too highly of me.”

  “If that’s true, it’s only because he didn’t know you well enough yet.”

  “True. I would have charmed him eventually.”

  She smiled. “Of course you would have, in addition to showing him your many other fine qualities,” she said, blushing as she set a reminder on the portscreen to go off four times a day. But when she looked at Thorne again, his expression had become serious. “Captain?”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed. Sitting up straighter, Thorne rubbed his palms together. “I have to tell you something.”

  “Oh?” Hope skittered through her veins as she claimed the pilot’s seat again. The luxurious dress poufed around her.

  The rooftop. The kiss.

  Had he realized how much he loved her?

  “What is it?”

  Thorne pulled his feet off the control panel. “Remember when we were in the desert … and I said I didn’t want to hurt you? Because you were wrong about me?”

  She knotted her fingers together. “When you tried to deny how much of a hero you really are?” She tried to put a hint of teasing into the statement, but her nerves were so jittery it came out as more of a frightened squeak.

  “A hero. Exactly.” Thorne rubbed a finger between the blindfold and his throat, loosening it. “Here’s the thing. That girl that I stood up for when those jerks took her portscreen?”

  “Kate Fallow.”

  “Right, Kate Fallow. Well, she was really good at math. And, at the time, I was failing.”

  The anticipation fluttering through her body turned to ice. Wait—was this his confession? Something to do with … Kate Fallow?

  He cleared his throat when she didn’t say anything. “I lost the fight and all, but she still let me copy her homework for a month. That’s why I did it. Not out of a misplaced desire to be heroic.”

  “But you said you had a crush on her.”

  “Cress.” He smiled, but it looked strained. “I had a crush on every girl. Believe me, it wasn’t a big motivator.”

  She squeezed back against the chair and pulled her knees to her chest. “Why are you telling me this now?”

  “I couldn’t before. You were so certain that I was this other person, and I kind of liked that you saw me differently than anyone else. Part of me kept thinking that maybe you’ve been right all along, and it’s everyone else who’s been wrong about me. That even I’ve been wrong about me.” He shrugged. “But even that was just my ego talking, wasn’t it? And you deserve to know the truth.”

  “And you think my entire opinion of you was based on one incident that happened when you were thirteen years old?”

  His brow knitted. “I thought I’d done a pretty good job of clarifying all those other incidents, but if you have more, by all means, let me ruin those for you too.”

  She bit her lip.

  The rooftop. The kiss. He’d kept his promise. He’d given her a kiss worth waiting for because she was about to die—they were both about to die. She knew it had been a risk, and probably a stupid one. And that was the choice he’d made rather than let her die without experiencing that one perfect moment.

  She could think of nothing more heroic.

  So why wouldn’t he mention it?

  Perhaps more important, why couldn’t she?

  “No,” she whispered finally. “I guess I can’t think of anything else.”

  He nodded, though his expression was disappointed. “So given all this new information, you, uh, probably don’t think you’re still in love with me. Do you?”

  She shrank into her chair, sure that if he could see her now, he would know. The truth would be evident in every angle of her face.

  She loved him more than ever.

  And not because she’d scoured file after file of reports and summaries and data and photographs. Not because he was the dreamy, untouchable Carswell Thorne that she’d imagined kissing on the banks of a starlit river while fireworks exploded overhead and violins played in the background.

  Now he was the Carswell Thorne who had given her strength in the desert. Who had come for her when she was kidnapped. Who had kissed her when hope was lost and death was imminent.

  Thorne awkwardly scratched his ear. “That’s what I thought. I figured it was just the fever talking, anyway.”

  Her heart twisted. “Captain?”

  He perked up. “Yeah?”

  She picked at the chiffon overlay of her skirt. “Do you think it was destiny that brought us together?”

  He squinted and, after a thoughtful moment, shook his head. “No. I’m pretty sure it was Cinder. Why?”

  “I guess I have a confession too.” She pressed the skirt down around her legs, her face already burning. “I … I had a crush on you, before we even met, just from seeing you on the netscreens. I used to believe that you and I were destined to be together, someday, and that we would have this great, epic romance.”

  One eyebrow ticked upward. “Wow. No pressure or anything.”

  She squirmed, her body was vibrating with nerves. “I know. I’m sorry. I think you might be right, though. Maybe there isn’t such a thing as fate. Maybe it’s just the opportunities we’re given, and what we do with them. I’m beginning to think that maybe great, epic romances don’t just happen. We have to make them ourselves.”

  Thorne shuffled his feet. “You know, if it was a bad kiss, you can just say so.”

  She stiffened. “That’s not at all what I … Wait. Did you think it was a bad kiss?”

  “No,” he said, with an abrupt, clumsy laug
h. “I thought it was … um.” He cleared his throat. “But there were clearly a lot of expectations, and a lot of pressure, and…” He squirmed in the chair. “We were going to die, you know.”

  “I know.” She squeezed her knees into her chest. “And, no, it wasn’t … I didn’t think it was a bad kiss.”

  “Oh, thank the stars.” His head fell back against the chair. “Because if I’d ruined that for you, I was going to feel like such a cad.”

  “Well, don’t. It met every expectation. I suppose I should thank you?”

  The discomfort melted from his features, and she was jealous as her blush stayed burning hot. Thorne held a hand out toward her and it took every ounce of the courage she’d earned that day to tuck her hand into his.

  “Believe me, Cress. The pleasure was all mine.”

  Fifty-Eight

  She dreamed that she was being chased by an enormous white wolf, its fangs bared and its eyes flashing beneath a full moon. She was running through crops thick with mud that sucked at her shoes, her breath forming clouds of steam. Her throat stung. Her legs burned. She ran as fast as she could, but her body became heavier with every step. The shriveled leaves of sugar beets turned rotten and brittle under her. She spotted a house in the distance—her house. The farmhouse her grandmother had raised her in, the windows beaming with warmth.

  The house was safety. The house was home.

  But it receded into the distance with each painful step. The air around her became thick with fog, and the house disappeared altogether, swallowed whole by the encroaching shadows.

  She tripped, landing on her hands and knees. She rolled over, scrambling and kicking at the ground. Mud clung to her clothes and hair. The coldness from the ground soaked into her bones. The wolf prowled closer. Its lean muscles moved gracefully under the coat of fur. It snarled, eyes lit with hunger.

  Her fingers fished around on the ground, searching for a weapon, anything. They struck something smooth and hard. She grasped it and pulled it from the squelching mud—an axe, its sharp blade glistening with moonlight.

  The wolf leaped, gaping jaws unhinged.

  Scarlet lifted the axe. Braced herself. Swung.

  The blade cut clean through the beast, cutting it into two pieces from head to tail. Warm blood splattered over Scarlet’s face as the two wolf halves landed on either side of her. Her stomach roiled. She was going to throw up.

  She dropped the axe and collapsed back on the ground. The mud squished around her ears. Overhead, the moon filled up the whole sky.

  Then the wolf halves began to rustle. They gradually rose up, now only the soft outer pelt of the beast, shorn in two. Scarlet could make out vague human-like shapes standing over her, each wearing half of the snow-white pelt.

  The fog cleared and Wolf and her grand-mère were before her. Holding their arms out.

  Welcoming her home.

  Scarlet gasped. Her eyes flew open.

  She was met with the sight of steel bars, the earthy smell of ferns and moss, and the chatter of a thousand birds—some trapped in their own elaborate cages, others flocked in the tree branches that entwined around the enormous beams supporting the glass ceiling.

  A wolf yipped, sounding both sorrowful and concerned. Scarlet forced herself onto an elbow so she could see the barred enclosure on the other side of the pathway. The white wolf was sitting there, watching her. He howled, just a short, curious sound, not the haunting howls that Scarlet heard in her dreams. She imagined he was asking if she was all right. She might have been screaming or thrashing during the nightmare, and the wolf’s pale yellow eyes blinked with worry.

  Scarlet tried to gulp, but her mouth was parched, her saliva too thick. She must be going crazy to be carrying on silent conversations with wolves.

  “He likes you.”

  Gasping, Scarlet flipped onto her back.

  A stranger, a girl, was sitting cross-legged in her cage, so close Scarlet could have touched her. Scarlet tried to push herself away, but the action sent pain rippling through her bandaged hand. She hissed and fell back onto the ground.

  Her hand was the worst of it—the hatchet had taken her left pinky finger to the second knuckle. She had not passed out, though she wished she would have. A Lunar doctor had been waiting to bandage the wound, and he had done it with such precision, Scarlet suspected it was a very common procedure.

  But then there were also the scratches on her face and stomach from her time spent in the company of Master Charleson, and countless aches from sleeping on hard floors for—well, she’d lost count of how many nights.

  The girl’s only reaction to Scarlet’s grimace was a long, slow blink.

  Clearly, this girl was not another prisoner—or “pet” as the extravagantly dressed Lunars called Scarlet when they passed by her cage, giggling and pointing and making loud remarks on whether or not it was safe to feed the animals.

  The girl’s clothing was the first indication of her status—a gauzy, silver-white dress that had settled around her shoulders and thighs like snowflakes might settle on a sleepy hillside. Her warm brown skin was flawless and healthy, her fingernails perfectly shaped and clean. Her eyes were bright, the color of melted caramel, but with hints of slate-gray around her pupils. On top of all that, she had silky black hair that curled into perfect spirals, neatly framing her high cheekbones and ruby-red lips.

  She was the most beautiful human being Scarlet had ever seen.

  Yet, there was one anomaly. Or—three. The right side of the girl’s face was marred by three scars that cut down her cheek from the corner of her eye to her jaw. Like perpetual tears. Strangely, the flaws on her skin didn’t reduce her beauty, but almost accentuated it. Almost compelled a person to stare at her longer, unable to peel their eyes away.

  It was with this thought that Scarlet realized it was a glamour. Which meant this was another trick.

  Her expression changed from awestruck and blushing—she despised that she was actually blushing—to resentful.

  The girl blinked again, drawing attention to her impossibly long, impossibly thick eyelashes.

  “Ryu and I are confused,” she said. “Was it a very bad dream? Or a very good one?”

  Scarlet scowled. The dream had already begun to wisp away, as dreams do, but the question reignited the memory of Wolf and her grandmother before her. Alive and safe.

  Which was a cruel joke. Her grandmother was dead, and last she’d seen Wolf, he’d been under the control of a thaumaturge.

  “Who are you? And who’s Ryu?”

  The girl smiled. It was both warm and conspiratorial and it made Scarlet shiver.

  Stupid Lunars and their stupid glamours.

  “Ryu is the wolf, silly. You’ve been neighbors for four days now, you know. I’m surprised he hasn’t officially introduced himself.” Then she leaned forward, dropping her voice to a whisper as if she were about to share a closely guarded secret. “As for me, I am your new best friend. But don’t tell anyone, because they all think that I’m your master now, and that you are my pet. They don’t know that my pets are really my dearest friends. We shall fool them all, you and I.”

  Scarlet squinted at her. She recognized the girl’s voice now, the way she danced through her sentences like each word had to be coaxed off her tongue. This was the girl who had spoken during Scarlet’s interrogation.

  The girl reached for a strand of filthy hair that had fallen across Scarlet’s cheek. Scarlet tensed.

  “Your hair is like burning. Does it smell like smoke?” Bending over, the girl pressed the hair against her nose and inhaled. “Not at all. That’s good. I wouldn’t want you to catch fire.”

  The girl sat up just as suddenly, pulling a basket toward her that Scarlet hadn’t noticed before. It looked like a picnic basket, lined with the same silvery material as her dress.

  “I thought today we could play doctor and patient. You’ll be the patient.” She removed a device from the basket and pressed it against Scarlet’s forehead. It beepe
d and she checked the small screen. “You’re not running a fever. Here, let me check your tonsils.” She held a thin piece of plastic toward Scarlet’s mouth.

  Scarlet knocked her away with her uninjured hand and forced herself to sit up. “You’re not a doctor.”

  “No. That’s why it’s pretend. Aren’t you having fun?”

  “Fun? I’ve been mentally and physically tortured for days. I’m starving. I’m thirsty. I’m being kept in a cage in a zoo—”

  “Menagerie.”

  “—and I hurt in places that I didn’t know my body even had. And now some crazy person comes in here and is trying to act like we’re good pals playing a raucous game of make-believe. Well, no, sorry, I’m not having any fun, and I’m not buying whatever chummy trick you’re trying to play on me.”

  The girl’s big eyes were blank—neither surprised nor offended by Scarlet’s outburst. But then she glanced out toward the pathway that wound between the cages, overgrown with exotic flowers and trees to suggest some semblance of being in a lush jungle.

  A guard was standing at the pathway’s bend, scowling. Scarlet recognized him. He was one of the guards that regularly brought her bread and water. He was the one who had grabbed her rear end the first time she’d been thrown into this cage. At the time she’d been too exhausted to do anything more than stumble away from him, but if she ever had the chance, she would break every one of his fingers in retaliation.

  “We’re all right,” the girl said, smiling brightly. “We’re pretending that I cut off her hair and glued it to my head because I wanted to be a candlestick, and she didn’t like that.”

  While she spoke, the guard’s glare never left Scarlet, only narrowed in warning. After a long moment, he meandered away.

  When his footsteps had faded, the girl pulled the basket onto her lap and riffled through it. “You shouldn’t call me crazy. They don’t like that.”

  Scarlet faced her again, her gaze dragging down the raised scar tissue on her cheek.

  “But you are crazy.”

  “I know.” She lifted a small box from the basket. “Do you know how I know?”