Thorne’s focus shifted to the closed doors.
“I could stay?” suggested Iko, her tone uncertain. “I could go back for her?”
“No,” said Cinder. “We stay together.”
Thorne flinched and Cinder realized the cruelty of her words too late. Their group was already divided.
She inched forward to settle a hand on Thorne’s arm, but thought better of it. “We’d still be out there if it wasn’t for her. We’d all be captured, but thanks to Cress, we’re not. She saved us. Now, we have to go.”
He squeezed his eyes. His shoulders slumped.
His whole body was trembling, but he nodded.
Wolf released him and they ran.
BOOK Two
The huntsman took pity on her and said,
“Run away into the woods, child, and never come back.”
Twenty-One
At some point during the excitement following Emperor Kaito’s arrival, Jacin had placed himself in front of Winter—ever her protector—and she gathered up the back of his shirt’s material in one fist. His presence was part comfort, part annoyance. He kept blocking her view.
Her sight was clear as daybreak, though, as she watched four figures dash through the exit that led down to the maglev shuttles. The doors slammed shut to a volley of gunfire. Though they had been too far away to see clearly, Winter was certain one of them was Linh Cinder.
Her dear missing cousin, Princess Selene.
“Follow them!” Levana shouted. The guards who had been sent to search the emperor’s ship were at the exit within seconds, trying to pry the doors open, but they wouldn’t budge.
Levana wheeled around to face Sir Jerrico Solis. “Send one team through the palace to the lakeside entrances, another through the city. Try to cut them off at the platform.”
Jerrico clasped a hand to his fist and was gone, summoning eight other guards to follow.
“Aimery,” Levana barked, “see to it that all shuttles leaving Artemisia are stopped. Have them searched, along with all connecting tunnels and platforms. They are not to make it out of the city. And find out how they were able to get through those doors!”
Aimery bowed. “I have already summoned the technician. We will have the entire system locked down.”
Nostrils flaring, Levana straightened her spine and turned to face the emperor. He was standing near the back of their small group—alone, but for a handful of Earthen guards and his adviser. Yet he didn’t look afraid. Winter thought he should have looked afraid, but his lips were pressed together in a strained effort not to smile.
Winter cocked her head, inspecting him. He seemed proud. Borderline smug. She began to feel guilty for having teased him before.
“Stowaways,” he said, once he had Levana’s attention. His shoulders twitched in an unconcerned shrug. “What an unexpected surprise.”
Levana’s face was fiercely beautiful. Breathtaking in her viciousness. “You have brought a known enemy into the heart of my country. In a time of mutual cease-fire, you have committed an act of treason.”
Kai didn’t flinch. “My loyalty lies with the Eastern Commonwealth and with Earth. Not with Luna, and certainly not with you.”
Levana’s eyes narrowed. “You seem confident that I won’t have you killed for this.”
“You won’t,” he said with, as her stepmother guessed, an overabundance of confidence. Winter squirmed, suddenly afraid for him. “At least,” Kai amended, “not yet.”
One perfect eyebrow lifted. “You’re right,” said Levana. “Perhaps I will kill your adviser instead. Surely he was aware of this blatant betrayal of my trust.”
“Do with me as you see fit,” said the adviser, as unshaken as Kaito. “My loyalties lie only with my emperor.”
Kai’s cheek twitched. “If you harm any one of your Earthen guests as either a punishment or a threat to me, I will refuse to continue with this wedding.”
“Then I will no longer have any reason to keep you alive.”
“I know,” said Kai, “but you also won’t get to be empress.”
Their gazes warred with each other while Winter, Jacin, and the other guards watched. Winter’s heartbeat was erratic as she waited for the queen’s order to have Emperor Kaito killed—for his insolence as much as for his role in bringing Linh Cinder to Artemisia.
The doors to the palace opened and a guard entered, escorting one of their technicians.
“My Queen, you summoned?”
Aimery stepped forward. “There had been strict orders that the exits out of this port were to be locked, but it seems there has been a malfunction. Her Majesty demands to know what went wrong, and be assured it won’t happen again.”
The technician bowed and scurried around the platform toward the control panel that monitored the exits and the massive spaceship-holding chamber beyond the port doors.
Winter was watching him when her eye caught on a slip of movement. She frowned, sure she saw someone ducking in between some of the Earthen cargo.
Or as sure as she could be of anything she saw, which was not very sure at all.
Her stepmother rounded again on the emperor and flicked her arm toward him, irritated with his presence. “Take the Earthens to their quarters,” she said, “and keep them there.”
The emperor and his entourage put up no resistance as the guards shuffled them away with more force than was necessary. Kai didn’t look in Winter’s direction, but as he passed she could see he was no longer hiding his grin. He might have become a prisoner of the queen, but clearly he saw this as a victory.