“They’ll think the blood is yours.” He was explaining something, but she didn’t understand. “Wait here. Don’t move until I turn out the lights. Got it? Princess?”
“Don’t move,” she whispered.
Jacin pulled away and she heard the knife being ripped from the wolf’s flesh. The body sagged against the bars. Jacin cupped her scarred cheek, studying her to be sure she wasn’t mid-breakdown, to be sure she’d understood, but all she could comprehend was the warm stickiness soaking through her skirt. Blood was flooding the pathway. Gallons and gallons of blood were suddenly dripping from the gla.s.s ceiling, splattering on her arms, filling up the pond.
“Winter.”
She gaped at Jacin, incapable of speaking. The memory of the kiss clouded over with something awful and unfair. Ryu. Sweet, innocent Ryu.
“Until the lights go out,” he repeated. “Then I want you to get your redhead friend and get off this d.a.m.ned game board.” Jacin’s thumbs rubbed against her skin, stirring her from her shock. “Now play dead, Princess.”
She sagged, finding relief in the command. They were playing a game. A game. Like when they were kids. It’s a game and the blood isn’t real and Ryu—!
She scrunched her face against the tears. A sob stayed locked in her throat. Jacin propped her against the cage wall and then his warmth was gone. The heaviness of his boots thudded away, leaving a path of sticky footprints in his wake.
Twenty-Nine
Scarlet’s frown felt etched into her face as she stared down the empty pathway of the menagerie. Winter had gone that way what felt like hours ago, and Scarlet knew no guests were supposed to be in the menagerie this late. Probably those rules didn’t apply to princesses, though. Maybe Winter was getting that romantic tryst she’d wanted, after all.
But something didn’t feel right about it. Scarlet could have sworn she’d heard Ryu emerge from his den, but he hadn’t yet come to see her, as was his normal routine. And she’d heard a noise—something that reminded her of the sound a goat makes during slaughter. Something that sent chills down her limbs, despite the menagerie’s warmth and her zipped-up hoodie.
Finally, footsteps. Scarlet wrapped her hands around the bars.
She knew her suspicions were right as soon as the guard came into view, a knife clutched in one hand. Her heart pounded. Even from this distance she could see darkness on the blade. Even not knowing Jacin, she could read the regret on his face.
Her knuckles whitened on the bars.
“What did you do?” she said, choking back the fury that wanted to explode out of her, but would have nowhere to go. “Where’s Winter?”
His gaze didn’t waver as he came to stand outside her cage, and Scarlet didn’t shrink back from him, despite the knife and the blood.
“Hold out your hand,” he said, crouching.
She sneered. “Do you know what happens to people around here who ‘hold out their hand’?”
He stabbed the point of the knife into the soft moss and, before Scarlet could move, reached for her wrist and twisted so hard a scream of pain arced up her shoulder. Scarlet gasped and her hand betrayed her, opening, palm up. It wasn’t mental manipulation, just a plain old dirty trick.
Scarlet tried to rip her arm back through the bars, but his grip was iron. Changing tactics, she pressed her body against the cage and clawed at his face, but he hovered out of reach.
Dodging a second swipe of Scarlet’s nails, the guard removed his scabbard from his belt and tipped it over. A tiny cylinder dropped into her palm.
He released her. Scarlet’s fingers curled around the cylinder instinctively, her body shuddering back out of the guard’s reach.
“Plug that into the security port of a Lunar ship and it will allow royal access. You can figure out the rest. There’s also a message from a friend of yours encoded in there, but I suggest you wait until you’re far away before worrying about that.”
“What’s going on? What did you do?”
He slammed the knife into the scabbard and, to her surprise, tossed it at her. She flinched, but it landed harmlessly in her lap.
“You need to find Artemisia Port E, Bay 22. Repeat it.”
Her pulse was hammering. She looked down the path again, expecting Winter’s black curly hair and glittering dress and the uncanny grace of her walk to appear any second. Any second …
“Repeat it.”
“Port E, Bay 22.” She wrapped her fingers around the knife’s handle.
“I suggest going through the gamekeepers’ halls first. Winter will know the way from there. We’ll do what we can about the security, but try not to do anything stupid. And if you’re tempted to try and leave Luna, fight it. You’ll just draw attention, and that little pod isn’t equipped for far distances anyway. Act like you’re going to pick up a delivery in RM-9. That’s where your boyfriend grew up. Understand?”
“No.”
“Just get away from Artemisia. Port E, Bay 22. Sector RM-9.” He stood. “And when you see that princess of yours, tell her to hurry up.”
Scarlet dragged her attention back to him, thinking, Winter? Winter had better hurry up? But then she realized he was talking about the other princess. Selene. Cinder.
Jacin rounded the cage to the side with the barred door and pressed his thumbprint into the pad, identifying himself. He entered a code. Scarlet heard the telltale release of the lock, the clunk of the bolt. Her nerves hummed.