Scarlet

Thirty-Five

“She’s going to be fine, you know.”

Cinder jumped, startled from a reverie. Thorne was piloting the small podship into Rieux, France, and Cinder was somewhat amazed they hadn’t crashed and died yet.

“Who’s going to be fine?”

“That Émilie girl. You shouldn’t feel bad about knocking her out with your Lunar mind-trick thing. She’ll probably be extra refreshed when she wakes up.”

Cinder screwed up her mouth. Her thoughts had been so preoccupied with finding a power cell and making it back to Iko before anyone else showed up on the farm that she’d hardly thought of the blonde girl they’d left behind. Oddly enough, once she’d made the decision to glamour the girl into trusting them, all the doubt and guilt she’d felt about it had faded away. It had seemed so natural, so easy, so clearly the right thing to do.

The ease of it frightened her more than the lack of guilt. If it was so natural for her, after only a few days of practicing her new gift, how could she ever survive against a thaumaturge? Or the queen herself?

“I just hope we’re long gone before she wakes up,” she muttered. Returning her focus to the window, Cinder redid her ponytail in the ghost reflection. She could vaguely make out her brown eyes and plain features. She tilted her head, wondering what she looked like with her glamour. She would never know, of course. Mirrors couldn’t be fooled by glamours. But Thorne had sure seemed impressed, and Kai …

You’re even more painful to look at than she is.

His words made her whole body feel heavy.

The town came into focus beneath them and Thorne made a too-fast descent. Jolting, Cinder grabbed for the harness around her waist.

Thorne straightened the ship and coughed. “There was a gust of wind.”

“Sure there was.” She let her head fall against the rest.

“You’re extra gloomy today,” Thorne said, nicking her chin. “Cheer up. We may not have found Michelle Benoit, but now we know for sure that she housed the princess. This is good. This is progress.”

“We found a ransacked house and were identified by the first civilian who spotted us.”

“Yeah, because we’re famous.” He sang the word with a certain measure of pride. When Cinder rolled her eyes, he nudged her in the arm. “Oh, come on, it could be worse.”

She quirked an eyebrow at him and his grin broadened.

“At least we have each other.” He held out his arms, like he would have given her a huge hug if they hadn’t been strapped into their seats. The nose of the ship tipped to the right and he quickly grasped the controls again, leveling it out just in time to dodge a flock of pigeons.

Cinder covered a laugh with her metal hand.

It wasn’t until Thorne had landed, crookedly, on a cobblestoned side street that Cinder began to realize what a bad idea this was. But they didn’t have a choice—they needed a new power cell if they wanted to get the Rampion back into space.

“People are going to see us,” she said, glancing around as she emerged from the podship. The street was empty, serenely overshadowed by centuries-old stone buildings and silver-leafed maples. But the tranquility did nothing to quell her nerves.

“And you are going to pull your very handy brainwashing magic on all of them and they won’t even know they’re seeing us. Well, I mean, I guess they’ll still see us, they just won’t recognize us. Or, hey, can you make us invisible? Because that would come in handy.”

Cinder stuffed her hands into her pockets. “I don’t know if I’m ready to trick a whole town. Besides, I don’t like doing it. It makes me feel … evil.”

She knew if her internal lie detector could see her, it would have recognized a lie. It felt all too right, and maybe that’s what felt so horrendously wrong about it.

Blue eyes twinkling, Thorne hooked his thumbs behind his belt. He looked slightly ridiculous in his fancy leather jacket in this quaint rural town, and yet he had the swagger of a man who belonged there. Who belonged anywhere he wished to. “You might be a crazy Lunar, but you’re not evil. As long as you’re using your glamour to help people, and more important, to help me, then there’s nothing to feel guilty about.” He stopped to check his hair in the dirty window of a shoe store while Cinder gawked after him.

“I hope that wasn’t your idea of a pep talk.”

Smirking, he jerked his head toward the next store. “Here we are,” he said, pushing open a creaking wooden door.

The hollow sound of digital bells greeted them, meshed with the smell of engine grease and burnt rubber. Cinder sucked in the scent of home. Mechanics. Machinery. This is where she belonged.

Though the shop had seemed prettily charming from outside, with its stone facade and aged wooden windowsills, she could see now that it was enormous, stretching back the length of the town block. Near the front, towering metal shelves held replacement parts for androids and screens. Toward the back, Cinder could make out parts for the bigger machines: hovers and tractors and ships.

“Perfect,” she muttered, heading toward the back wall.

They passed a young, acne-faced clerk sitting behind a worktable, and though Cinder instantly called up her glamour, disguising her and Thorne as the first thing that came to mind—dirty, grungy farmhands—she doubted the ploy was necessary. The boy didn’t even bother with a polite nod, his attention fixed on a portscreen that emanated the upbeat tune of a game app.

Cinder rounded the aisle of power converters and spotted a boulder of a man leaning against an engine lift, the only other customer in the store. His attention was focused on picking at his nails instead of browsing the shelves, and when he met Cinder’s gaze it was with a taunting smirk.

Shoving her metal hand into her pocket, Cinder found the vibrations of his thoughts in the air and twisted them away. You are not interested in us.

But his smile only widened, sending a chill down her back.

When he turned away a moment later, Cinder crept into the aisle, her attention divided between maintaining the glamour and scouring the mishmashed parts until she found the power cell they’d come for. She snatched it off the shelf, gasping at its weight, and hurried back toward the front.

Thorne exhaled as soon as they were out of the stranger’s sight. “He scared me.”

Cinder nodded. “You should go start the podship, in case we need to make a quick getaway.” She dropped the power cell onto the clerk’s desk with a thunk.

The clerk didn’t bother to look up, one hand still playing the game single-thumbed while the other held the scanner out to Cinder. The red laser flickered across the counter.

Dread settled in Cinder’s stomach. “Um.”

The kid managed to pull his attention away from the game and gave her an irritated glare.

Cinder gulped. Neither of them had an ID chip or any means of paying. Could she glamour her way out of that? She imagined Levana probably wouldn’t have had any trouble …

Before she could speak, something sparkly dangled in the corner of her eye.

“Will this cover it?” said Thorne, holding out a gold-plated digital portscreen watch. Cinder recognized it as the one Alak had been wearing, the man who owned the spaceship hangar in New Beijing.

“Thorne!” she hissed.

“This isn’t a pawn shop,” said the boy, dropping the scanner gun on the counter. “Can you pay or not?”

Cinder glared at Thorne, but then spotted the strange man plodding out of the aisle near the back of the shop. Strolling toward them, he whistled a chirpy tune, then pulled a pair of thick work gloves out of one pocket and made a big show of pulling one onto his left hand.

Heart hammering, Cinder turned back to the kid. “You want the watch,” she said. “It’s a fine trade for this power cell and you’re not going to report us for taking it.”

The kid’s eyes glazed over. He’d just started to nod when Thorne deposited the watch into his palm and Cinder grabbed the power cell off the counter. They marched out the door, leaving the ringing of fake bells behind.

“No more stealing!” she said as Thorne fell into step beside her.

“Hey, that watch saved us in there.”

“No, I saved us in there and in case you already forgot, that is exactly the kind of mental trick that I don’t want to pull on people.”

“Even if it saves your skin?”

“Yes!”

A light flashed in Cinder’s eye, indicating an incoming comm. A moment later, words began tracking across her vision.

WE’VE BEEN DETECTED—POLICE. WILL KEEP THEM OUT AS LONG AS POSSIBLE.

She stumbled in the middle of the street.

“What?” said Thorne.

“It’s Iko. The police have found the ship.”

Thorne paled. “No time to shop for new clothes then.”

“Or an android body. Come on.”

She took off running, Thorne keeping step, until they spun around the corner and both skidded to a halt.

Two policemen stood between them and their podship—one comparing the ship’s model with something on his portscreen.

Something beeped on the other officer’s belt. As he reached for it, Cinder and Thorne backed away, ducking around the building.

Pulse racing, Cinder glanced up at Thorne, but he was scanning the nearest window. RIEUX TAVERN was painted off center on the glass.

“Here,” he said, dragging her around two wrought-iron tables and through the door.

The tavern stank of booze and fried fat, and was thrumming with sports on the netscreens and uproarious laughter.

Cinder took two steps inside, her breath caught, and she spun around to leave. Thorne blocked her path with an outstretched arm. “Where are you going?”

“There are too many people. We’ll have better luck with the police.” She pushed him away but froze when she spotted a green hover easing onto the cobblestones outside, the emblem of the Eastern Commonwealth military painted on its side. “Thorne.”

His arm stiffened and then the tavern seemed to quiet. Cinder slowly faced the crowd. Dozens of strangers, gaping at her.

A cyborg.

“Stars,” she whispered. “I need to find a new pair of gloves.”

“No, you need to calm down and start using your brainwave witchery thing.”

Cinder drew closer to Thorne and swallowed her growing panic. “We belong here,” she murmured. Sweat beaded on the back of her neck, dripping down her spine. “We’re not suspicious. You don’t recognize us. You have no interest or curiosity or…” She trailed off as the attention of people around the room began to drift back to their food and drinks and the netscreens behind the bar. Cinder continued the mindless chanting in her head, We belong here, we are not suspicious, until the statements blurred together into a sensation of invisibility.

They weren’t suspicious. They did belong there.

She forced herself to believe it.

Scanning the crowd, she saw that only one set of eyes was still on her—vibrant blue and filled with laughter. He was a muscular man sitting at a table near the back, a smile playing on his mouth. When Cinder’s gaze held his, he sat back and lifted his attention to the screens.

“Come on, then,” said Thorne, guiding her toward an open booth.

The sound of the door creaking behind them sent Cinder’s stomach heaving like a dying motor. They slid into the booth.

“This was a bad idea,” she whispered, tucking the power cell beside her on the bench. Thorne said nothing, both of them bending their necks over the table as three red uniforms brushed past. A scanner beeped, sending Cinder’s pulse thrumming against her temples, and the last officer paused.

With her cyborg hand beneath the table, Cinder deftly opened the barrel of her imbedded tranquilizer gun, the first time she’d engaged that finger since Dr. Erland had given her the hand.

The officer remained beside their booth and Cinder forced herself to turn toward him, thinking innocence, normal, indistinguishable from anyone else.

The officer was holding a portscreen with a built-in ID scanner. Cinder gulped and looked up. He was young, perhaps in his early twenties, and his face was contorted in confusion.

“Is there a problem, monsieur?” she said, sickened to hear her own voice come out as saccharine sweet as she’d once heard Queen Levana’s.

His eyes blinked wildly. The attention of the other officers, one man and one woman, was captured too, and Cinder could see them hovering nearby.

Heat spread out from the base of her neck, creeping uncomfortably down her limbs. She clenched her fists. The wash of energy in the room was pulsing, almost visible. Her optobionics were beginning to panic, sending concerned warnings about hormones and chemical imbalances across her eyesight, and all the while she desperately grasped for control over her Lunar gift. I am invisible. I am unimportant. You do not recognize me. Please, don’t recognize me.

“Officer?”

“You are … um.” His eyes darted from the port to her face, and he shook his head to dispel the cobwebs. “We’re looking for someone, and this says … you wouldn’t happen to…”

Everyone was watching now. The waitresses, the customers, the eerie guy with the stormy eyes. No amount of internal pleading could make her invisible when a military officer from another country was speaking to her. She was becoming dizzy with the effort of it. Her body was warming, sweat beading on her brow.

She gulped. “Is everything all right, Officer?”

His brow drew together. “We’re looking for a girl … a teenager, from the Eastern Commonwealth. You wouldn’t happen to be … Linh…”

Cinder raised her eyebrows, feigning ignorance.

“Peony?”