“Cress?”
Her heart hiccuped.
Kai.
He stood there blinking at her as if he thought she might be a trick.
An ocean’s worth of relief crashed into Cress, nearly knocking her off her feet. She braced herself with one hand against the wall. “Kai!” Shaking herself, she amended, “I mean, Emperor—Your Majesty.” She dipped into a flustered curtsy.
Brow drawn, Kai looked at the speaker. “Gliebe-dàren, you haven’t gone down yet?”
“I was just on my way,” said the woman, and though Cress didn’t meet her gaze, she could sense her distrust. “But I saw this girl and … as you know, we were guaranteed privacy on this floor, and I don’t think she should—”
“It’s all right,” said Kai. “I know this girl. I’ll take care of it.”
Cress studied the floor, listening to the crinkle of the taffeta skirt.
“With all due respect, Your Majesty, how can I be sure she isn’t manipulating you into siding with her?”
“With all due respect,” said Kai, sounding exhausted, “if she wanted to manipulate someone, why wouldn’t she have manipulated you into leaving her alone?”
Cress chewed on the inside of her cheek while a moment stretched out between them. Finally, the woman bowed. “Of course, you would know best. Congratulations on your forthcoming coronation.”
The woman’s footsteps clipped toward the elevator bank. When she had gone, Cress waited three whole seconds before launching herself into Kai’s arms with a sob she hadn’t known she’d been holding in.
Kai stumbled back in surprise, but returned the embrace, letting her cry into his very fine silk shirt.
The adviser made a strangled noise and Cress felt the handgun being lifted from her hand. She was glad to let it go.
“Calm down,” Kai said, stroking her hair. “You’re all right now.”
She shook her head. “They took Thorne. They shot him and they took him and I don’t know if he’s alive and I don’t know … I don’t know what they’re going to do to him.”
Cress gave up on speaking until the flood of sobs started to wane. Ducking her head, she pulled her hands back and swiped at her hot cheeks. “I’m sorry.” She sniffed. “I’m sorry. It’s just … really, really good to see you.”
“It’s all right.” Kai gently held Cress away so he could see her face. “Start from the beginning. Why are you here?”
She was trying to rein in the stampede of emotions when she saw the damp spot she’d left on his shirt. “Oh—aces. I’m so sorry.” She swiped at it with her fingers.
He gave her a little shake. “It’s fine. Cress. Look at me.”
She looked at him, rubbing her wrist across her eyes again. Despite the splotch she’d left, Kai was quite dapper in a cream-colored silk tunic. It was fastened with gold frogs and a sash striped with the colors of the Eastern Commonwealth flag: sea-foam green, teal blue, sunset orange. If the sash had been red, it would have been an exact replica of the outfit he’d been wearing when Cinder and the others had kidnapped him.
But no. He was already married. He was Queen Levana’s husband now, the man who was on his way to be crowned king consort of Luna.
Her focus darted to the side. Royal Adviser Konn Torin was wearing a basic black tuxedo and Cress could sense his concern despite his composure. He was holding the gun’s handle between two pinched fingers, looking about as comfortable with it as Cress had been.
“Cress?” said Kai, stealing back her attention.
She licked her lips. “Thorne and I were supposed to get to the system control center, but he was captured. They said something about taking him to a holding cell? And I got away, but now I—”
“Why are you trying to get to the control center?”
“To play another video Cinder recorded. It shows the queen—oh! You probably don’t know that Cinder is alive!”
Kai’s expression froze for a moment, before he tilted his head back and let out a long, slow breath. His eyes had a new light in them when he glanced at Konn Torin, but the adviser was watching Cress, unwilling to be relieved just yet.
“Cinder’s alive,” Kai repeated to himself. “Where is she?”
“She’s with Iko and Jacin and … it’s a long story.” Scrunching up her face, Cress felt the weight of time pressing down on her. She started to speak faster. “Jacin was going to see if he could find the letumosis antidote and distribute it to the outer sectors, because a lot of people are sick, including Princess Winter, and Scarlet too. Oh, and Levana took Wolf and we don’t know where he is, and now they have Thorne—!” Cress hid her face behind her hands in an effort to refrain from sullying Kai’s shirt any more than she already had. Kai rubbed her arms, but even in this sympathetic touch she could tell he was distracted.
Konn Torin cleared his throat. Sniffling, Cress lowered her hands and found a handkerchief being held out to her, extended at arm’s length as if Torin were afraid that her hysteria would rub off on him if he got much closer.
Cress took the handkerchief and held it to her nose. “Thank you.”
“What do you need?”
She dragged her attention back to Kai. “To rescue Thorne,” she said, without thinking. But then she remembered his last words to her. Be heroic. She gulped. “No, I … I need to get to the control center. I need to play this video over Levana’s broadcasting system. Cinder’s counting on it.”
Kai ran a hand through his hair. Cress flinched as he went from neat-and-tidy emperor to concerned teenage boy with that one movement. She could see his indecision. How badly he wanted to help, in contrast to how much danger his involvement could put his country in.
Cress felt time ticking away.
“Your Majesty.”
Kai nodded at his adviser. “I know. They’ll probably send a search party if I don’t show up soon. But I just need a minute to … to think.”
“What is there to think about?” said Torin. “You asked this girl what she needed, and she gave you a very concise answer. We all know you’re going to help her, so it seems like a waste of time to argue the pros and cons of such a decision.”
Cress fidgeted with her gloves, feeling the butterfly wings graze her arms. The adviser looked both stern and kind as he handed the gun back to her, handle first.
Cress shuddered. “You can keep it, if you want.”
“I don’t,” said Torin. “Neither do I intend to put myself into any situations in which I might want it.”
With a resigned sigh, Cress took it from him. She spent a moment considering where she might be able to store it, but her outfit didn’t offer any good solutions.
“Here.” Torin removed his tuxedo jacket and handed it to her. Cress hesitated, hearing Iko’s voice in her head—that doesn’t match at all!—before casting the voice away and allowing him to help her into the sleeves. She was drowning in the jacket, but already she felt more composed, less vulnerable.
“Thank you,” she said, finding an inside pocket and sliding the gun into it with an enormous sense of relief.
“His Majesty is expected to be in the main hall within the next two minutes,” Torin said, then passed his attention to a baffled Kai. “I’m confident I can delay them for at least fifteen more.”
Seventy-Six
Kai wasn’t sure if he or Cress was in the lead as they rushed through the abandoned corridors, their footsteps loud and brisk. When Cress started to fall behind, struggling to keep up, he forced himself to slow his pace.
“We’re going to try to accomplish this without the gun,” he said, as if they’d been discussing it, although they’d hardly spoken since parting ways with Torin. “We’re going to take care of this diplomatically. Or … at least, sneakily. If we can.”
“I have no problem with that,” said Cress. “However, I don’t think that just because you’re an emperor and you’re about to become their king they’re going to let you waltz into their broadcasting room and start fiddling with their equipment.”
&n
bsp; Each door they passed had a different design carved into the wood. A beautiful woman holding up a long-eared rabbit. A falcon-headed man with a crescent moon balanced on his head. A young girl dressed in the mantle of a fox and carrying a hunting spear. Kai knew they were symbolic of the moon and its importance in Earthen cultures, many of them lost and forgotten. Even Kai no longer recognized the significance.
They turned down another hallway and passed over a skybridge made of glass. A silver stream passed beneath their feet.
“You’re right,” said Kai, “but I think I can at least get you inside.” He hesitated, before adding, “Cress, I won’t be able to stay. If I’m absent for too long, Levana will get suspicious, and that’s the last thing we need right now. You understand, right?”
“I understand.” She dropped her voice, although the hallways were empty—every guest, every guard, every servant waiting for the coronation to begin. “I suspect the door locks will be coded. The plan was to hack them, but Thorne had the portscreen with him…”
Kai unclipped his portscreen from his belt. “Can you use mine?”
She stared at the device. “You won’t … need it?”
“Not like you will. I couldn’t have brought it into the ceremony, anyway. All recording devices are prohibited.” He rolled his eyes and handed the port to her. Though it once would have felt like giving up one of his limbs, he’d gotten used to being without it after Levana had it confiscated.
Besides, a part of him was giddy with the knowledge that he was helping to undermine the queen.
“How do you know where we’re going?” Cress asked, tucking the port into one of the pockets in Torin’s jacket.
Kai scowled. “I had the great experience of partaking in one of her propaganda videos a while back.”
As they neared the palace wing on the opposite side of the lake from the great hall, where the coronation was set to start, oh, six minutes ago, Kai held up a hand, bringing them to a stop.
“Wait here,” he whispered, holding a finger to his lips.
Cress pressed herself against a wall. She looked tiny and terrified and preposterous in that poufy orange skirt, and some chivalrous instinct told Kai he shouldn’t abandon her here, of all places. But he shoved that instinct down, reminding himself that she was also the genius who had single-handedly shut down the entire security system of New Beijing Palace.
Straightening his patriotic sash, Kai stepped around the corner. This wing was sealed off, and as far as Kai knew, there was only this one door in and out. As expected, a guard stood in front of the door at mute attention. The same guard, Kai thought, who had been on duty when Levana had dragged him here before.
The guard’s eyes narrowed upon seeing Kai in his white silk tunic. “This area is not open to the public,” he said in a bored tone.
“I’m hardly ‘the public.’” Kai tucked his hands into his pockets, trying to look both accommodating and defiant. “My understanding is that the coronation regalia are held in this wing, are they not?”
The guard squinted suspiciously.
“I’ve been sent to obtain the Brooch of … Eternal Starlight. I’m sure you’ll understand that I’m rather short on time.”
“I’m sure you’re used to getting your way on Earth, Your Emperorship, but you will not be permitted past these doors, and to see the crown jewels, no less, without official documentation from the queen.”
“I understand, and I would gladly obtain that documentation if Her Majesty wasn’t at this very moment in the opposite wing of the palace, dressed in full coronation garb, having already been anointed with a concoction of sacred Eastern Commonwealth oils in order to purify her for the ceremony in which she will become empress of my country. So she’s just a little preoccupied at the moment, and I need to find that brooch before the ceremony is delayed even more than it already is.”
“Do you think I’m an idiot?”
“I’m beginning to, actually. Only an idiot would stall Her Majesty’s coronation. Would you like me to go to her now and explain how we cannot proceed because of your obstinacy?”
“I’ve never even heard of this ‘Brooch of Eternal Starlight.’”
“Of course you haven’t. It was designed specifically to represent an alliance between Luna and Earth and gifted to one of the queen’s great ancestors over a century ago. Unfortunately, as you may be aware, there hasn’t been an alliance between us in that time, so the brooch hasn’t been necessary. Until tonight—and the moron who was in charge of preparing the regalia forgot about it.”
“And they sent you to pick it up? Shouldn’t you be getting anointed with oils yourself?”
Kai let out a slow breath and dared to put himself in arm’s reach of the guard. “Unfortunately, I seem to be the only person on this little moon who has any clue what it looks like. Now—by the end of this night, I will be your king, and if you want to still have your job by tomorrow morning, I suggest you let me through.”
The guard’s jaw clenched. He still didn’t move.
Kai threw his arms up. “Stars above, I’m not asking you to open the door, close your eyes, and count to ten. Obviously, you’ll come in with me and make sure I don’t steal anything. But time is running out. I’m ten minutes late already. Perhaps you’d like to comm Her Majesty and explain the delay?”
With a huff, the guard stepped back and yanked open the door. “Fine. But if you touch anything other than this supposed brooch of yours, I will chop off your hand.”
“Fine.” Kai rolled his eyes in a way he hoped indicated a total lack of concern and followed the guard. Not that the guard was traveling far from his post—the vault that housed the crown jewels, when they weren’t being used for a coronation, was immediately on the left, behind an enormous vault door.
Kai averted his eyes while the guard pressed a code into a screen and scanned his fingerprints, then twisted the unlock mechanism.
The door, when it opened, was as thick as the guard’s skull.
The vault was lined with velvet and spotlights that shined on empty pedestals. Most of the crowns and orbs and scepters that usually lived there were already down in the great hall.
But it wasn’t empty, either.
Kai took in a deep breath and started pacing around the vault. He inspected every ring, scabbard, coronet, and cuff, all the pieces the Lunar crown had collected over the years to be used in a variety of ceremonies. Most of them, Kai knew, had been gifts from Earth a long, long time ago. A show of goodwill, before the relationship between Earth and Luna had been severed.
He heard a padded footstep outside the vault door but he dared not look up. “Here!” he yelled, turning his back on the guard, his heart lodged in his throat, as he imagined Cress scurrying past the door. He pulled the medallion from his pocket, the one Iko had given him aboard the Rampion, what felt like ages ago. He rubbed his thumb over the tarnished insignia and the faded words. The American Republic 86th Space Regiment. “Found it,” he said, holding the medallion up so the guard could see he was holding something without getting a very good look at it. Cress was gone, and Kai wasn’t faking his relief as he said, “Whew. Great. We couldn’t have done the coronation without it. Her Majesty will be thrilled. I’ll see if we can’t get you a promotion, all right?” He slapped the guard on the arm. “I guess that’s it, then. Thanks for your help. I’d better hurry back.”
The guard grunted, and Kai knew he was anything but convinced, but it didn’t matter.
When he and the guard stepped back into the corridor, Cress had already disappeared.
* * *
Cress hurried around the first corner and pressed her back against the wall, her heart in her throat. She waited until she heard the guard shutting the vault door, then she started to run, hoping the noise of the vault’s locking mechanism would cover the sound of her footsteps.
She remembered this hall from when Sybil used to bring her before, and it was easy to find the door to the control center once she had her bearing
s. She slid to a stop and hesitantly tested the handle. She was relieved to find it locked, a good indication that no one was inside. She’d been confident the security staff would have located themselves to a satellite control room nearer the great hall—that had been the procedure during important events when she worked for Sybil—but being confident wasn’t being certain. The gun, heavy in Torin’s jacket pocket, offered no comfort at all should she run into more opposition now.
Cress crouched before the security panel and retrieved Kai’s portscreen. She unwound the universal connector cable.
It took her twenty-eight seconds to break into the room, which was an eternity, but she was distracted, jumping at every distant noise. Sweat was snaking down her spine by the time she heard the door unlatch.
Her breath was shaky but relieved. No one was inside. The door shut behind her.
Cress’s adrenaline was pumping like jet fuel through her veins as she scanned the room. She was surrounded by invisi-screens and holographs and programming, and the familiarity of it all made the knot in her stomach loosen. Instinct and habit. She formed a checklist in her mind.
The room was big, but crowded with desks and chairs and equipment, panels that switched from video footage of the outer sectors to the underground shuttle map to surveillance feeds of different sections of the palace. A separate recording suite was accessed through a soundproof door. Lights and recording equipment surrounded a replica of the queen’s throne. A sheer veil was draped over a mannequin head and the sight gave Cress a chill down her spine. It felt like it was watching her.
She turned away from the mannequin and settled herself into one of the controller’s chairs. She removed the gun from the jacket pocket and set it and the portscreen on the desk, both within easy reach. She felt the press of time as keenly as Kai had. She’d already wasted too much of it. Kissing Thorne in the atrium. Hiding in that cabinet. Dodging in and out of corridors like a lost rabbit.
But she was here. She’d made it. She’d been heroic—almost.
Her objectives spooled through her thoughts.
Placing her fingertips across the nearest invisi-screen, she began to count them off, one by one.