“It sort of matters. I like Cress.” Kai shifted in the harness. “I like you too, despite my better judgment.”
“You’d be surprised how often I hear that.”
“Something tells me Cress might still like you too—against her better judgment.”
Thorne sighed. “Yeah, that pretty much sums that up.”
Kai cocked his head. “How so?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Oh, it’s complicated. Because I have no idea what that’s like.” Kai snorted.
Thorne glared at him. “Whatever, Doctor. It’s just, when Cress thought she was in love with me, she was actually in love with this other guy she’d made up in her head, who was all brave and selfless and stuff. I mean, he was a real catch, so who could blame her? Even I liked that guy. I kind of wish I was that guy.” He shrugged.
“Are you so sure you’re not?”
Thorne laughed.
Kai didn’t.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Not really.”
“Um, hi, I’m Carswell Thorne, a convicted criminal in your country. Have we met?”
Kai rolled his eyes. “I’m saying maybe you should stop putting so much energy into lamenting the fact that Cress was wrong about you, and start putting your energy into proving her right, instead.”
“I appreciate the confidence, Your Imperial Psychologist, but we’re way beyond that. Cress is over me and … it’s for the best.”
“But you do like her?”
When Thorne didn’t respond, Kai glanced over to see Thorne’s attention fixed on the cockpit window. Finally, Thorne responded, “Like I said, it doesn’t matter.”
Kai looked away. Somehow, Thorne’s inability to talk about his attraction to Cress spoke so much louder than an outright confession. After all, he had no trouble making suggestive commentary about Cinder.
“Fine,” he said. “So what is Cress going to do once this is all over?”
“I don’t know,” said Thorne. “Maybe she will go work for you on your royal stalking team.”
Below, the blur of land became beaches and skyscrapers and Mount Fuji and, beyond it, an entire continent, lush and green and welcoming.
“I don’t think that’s what she would want, though,” Thorne mused. “She wants to see the world after being trapped in that satellite her whole life. She wants to travel.”
“Then I guess she should stay with you after all. What better way to travel than by spaceship?”
But Thorne shook his head, adamant. “No, believe me. She deserves a better life than this.”
Kai leaned forward to better get a view of his home spreading out before them. “My point exactly.”
Thirteen
“When did you learn to embroider?” Jacin said, picking through the basket that hung on Winter’s elbow.
She preened. “A few weeks ago.”
Jacin lifted a hand towel from the collection and eyed the precise stitches that depicted a cluster of stars and planets around the towel’s border. “Were you getting any sleep?”
“Not very much, no.” She riffled through the basket and handed him a baby blanket embroidered with a school of fish swimming around the border. “This one’s my favorite. It took four whole days.”
He grunted. “I take it the visions were bad that week.”
“Horrible,” she said lightly. “But now I have all of these gifts.” She took the blanket back from him and tucked it among the rest of the colorful fabrics. “You know keeping busy helps. It’s when I’m idle the monsters come.”
Jacin glanced at her from the corner of his eye. He had been her guard for weeks now, but rarely did they get to talk so casually or walk side by side like this—it was expected that guards keep a respectful distance from their charges. But today Winter had dragged him along to AR-2, one of the domes adjacent to the central sector. It was mostly high-end shops set among residential neighborhoods, but this early in the day all of the shops were still closed and the streets empty and peaceful. There was no one to care about propriety.
“And all these gifts are for the shopkeepers?”
“Shopkeepers, clerks, household servants.” Her eyes glimmered. “The overlooked machine of Artemisia.”
The lower classes, then. The people who dealt with the trash and cooked the food and ensured all the needs of Luna’s aristocracy were met. They were rewarded with lives much more enviable than the laborers in the outer sectors. Full stomachs, at the least. The only downfall was that they had to live in Artemisia, surrounded by the politics and mind games of the city. A good servant was treated like a prized pet—spoiled and fawned over when they were wanted, beaten and discarded when they’d overstayed their usefulness.
Jacin had always thought that, given a choice, he’d rather take his luck to the mines or factories.
“You’ve been visiting them a lot?” he asked.
“Not as much as I’d like to. But one of the milliner’s assistants had a baby and I’ve been meaning to make her something. Do you think she’ll like it?”
“It’ll be the nicest thing the kid has.”
Winter gave a joyful skip as she walked. “My mother was a great seamstress, you know. She was becoming quite popular among the dress shops when—well. Anyway, she embroidered my baby blanket. Levana tried to throw it out, but Papa was able to stash it away. It’s one of my most prized possessions.” She fluttered her lashes and Jacin felt his lips twitch at her, rather against his will.