Forty-Nine
Cress was getting antsy. The royal nuptials were slated to begin in a mere twenty-seven minutes, and as far as she could tell, all guards and security personnel were still very much at their stations. On top of that, she and Wolf were running out of ways to make themselves inconspicuous without having to relocate to their seats. So far they’d each nibbled at the prawn hors d’oeuvres being waiter-pa.s.sed (Cress: one, Wolf: six), taken turns excusing themselves to pretend to use the washroom while really trying to discern if any of the guards appeared concerned about a potential security breach, and three times Cress had had to laugh dreamily and hold Wolf’s hand in order to get some loitering female admirer to mosey on. It was the most impressive acting she’d ever done, because touching Wolf made her uneasy and it was difficult to imagine him making any jokes.
“Maybe we should start thinking of a Plan B,” Cress murmured when she noticed that the symphony had begun replaying their set.
“Already done,” said Wolf.
She peered up at him. “Really? What is it?”
“We continue on to the security center as planned. I just have to knock out a lot more guards between here and there.”
She chewed on her lip, not terribly enthusiastic with Plan B.
Then— “There. Look.”
She followed his gesture. Two guards were speaking with their heads lowered. One had badges indicating a significantly higher rank. He pointed down a corridor, in the direction of the research wing.
Well, it was really in the direction of just about anything, but Cress hoped he was talking about a disturbance in the research wing. That would mean that the others had made it inside and raised the alarms.
A second later, the two guards left the ballroom.
“Do you think they’ve done it?” Cress said.
“Time to find out.”
Wolf offered her his elbow and together they meandered out into the main corridor. The remaining guards paid them no attention as they turned down a connecting hallway. Cress kept repeating the instructions that she’d memorized—take the fourth hallway on the right, past the courtyard with the tortoise fountain, then the second left. Her heart began to pound fervently in her chest.
Twice they were stopped by palace staff, and twice they asked for directions like confused, slightly drunk wedding guests and had to backtrack to a safe hiding place before Wolf deemed it safe to move again. But no alarm was raised and no guards came for them. Cress knew they had already been captured on countless cameras set throughout the palace, but she and Wolf wouldn’t be recognizable like Cinder or Thorne or Dr. Erland, and even if they did raise suspicions, she hoped everyone would be too distracted by the emergency in the research labs to care. Still, the farther they got from the ballroom, the less likely it was that anyone would buy their innocence act.
She was grateful when Wolf’s pace picked up. Cinder and Iko would be waiting on them now, and they were running out of time.
They reached a skybridge that locked together two of the palace’s towers. The gla.s.s floor showed a peaceful stream bubbling underneath, amid lush gra.s.ses and heavy-headed chrysanthemums. Past the bridge, they found themselves in a circular lobby, with empty seating arrangements carved from dark wood, statues of mythical creatures circling the perimeter, and a jungle of potted bamboos and orchids giving the room a heady scent.
Recognizing the s.p.a.ce, Cress marched to a three-foot carving of a luck dragon and spun it around on its pedestal to face the wall. “Lunar camera in the left eye,” she explained, then hurried toward the elevators.
A white android stood in the center of the elevator bank with its p.r.o.nged grippers folded in front of its abdomen. It flashed a blue sensor over them.
“I apologize for the inconvenience,” it said, in a perfect monotone meant to convey a diplomatic lack of bias. “We are experiencing a level-one security breach and all elevators have been temporarily shut down. Please enjoy a hot cup of tea while we wait for clearance.” One of its p.r.o.ngs gestured to an alcove where a machine held a fine porcelain teapot, steaming at its spout, and an a.s.sortment of leaves and spices.
“Do you have security override capabilities?” Cress asked the android.
“I do, but only an official code or—”
Cress crouched down and swiveled the android away from her. “Don’t suppose you have a screwdriver or something we can use to open the control panel?”
“—a palace official with sufficient clearance—”
Wolf stooped over her, dug his fingernails into the groove, and snapped the whole panel off in his fist.
“—could override a level-one security breach. I apologize for the continued inconvenience, but I have to ask that you—”
Wolf pulled the portscreen that the doctor had given him out of his pocket and pa.s.sed it to Cress. She yanked out a connector cable and plugged it into the android, stopping the automatic diagnostics scan before it could begin. She began a manual search for the security override settings.
“—stop tampering with official government property. Tampering with a royal android could result in a fine of up to 5,000 univs and six months of— Ident.i.ty confirmed: Royal Adviser Konn Torin. Security override complete. Awaiting instructions.”
“Elevator to main floor,” said Cress.
“Proceed to Elevator A.”
Cress ejected the cable. Wolf pulled her to her feet as the nearest doors opened and tugged her inside.
Her heart was thumping as the elevator descended. She imagined those doors opening again onto an army of guards, their guns aimed and ready. She figured that by now they were no doubt being watched. Thorne’s distraction could only count for so much, and there were two cameras in each elevator in the palace. The only question was how long it would take any guards to reach them once they figured out where they were heading.
The elevator came to a stop. The doors hesitated for too long, and her pulse fluttered wildly, until they opened onto an empty hallway. She released a long-held breath.
This floor of the palace was mostly business s.p.a.ce, used for diplomatic meetings and the offices of a mult.i.tude of government officials. She recognized bits and pieces of it. The name plaque on that desk. The painting on that wall. In her head, Cress was back in her satellite, even as she and Wolf jogged through the carpeted corridor. She was seeing Wolf and herself through the cameras along the ceilings. She was picturing how the two of them would have looked to her from up there, always disconnected and uninvolved and watching, watching. As they rounded a corner, she imagined herself clicking to another feed. As they pa.s.sed one camera, she pictured it changing from their front view to their backs.
They reached the next elevator bank without issue, though this one had no watchful android.
She tapped the elevator key, but it remained blank. The words ELEVATORS TEMPORARILY DOWN DUE TO LV. 1 BREACH were scrolled across its screen in red text. Cress scowled and dug her fingernails around the frame. Surely there was a way to get clearance in the event that someone important enough needed to get past, but without a designated android—
She was grabbed by the elbow and hauled back. She yelped, thinking for a moment a guard had captured her, but it was only Wolf pulling her toward an alcove.
“Stairs,” he said, yanking open a door. As it shut behind them, Cress heard the sounds of boots clomping in the distance.
Her heart leaped into her throat and she glanced at Wolf to see if he’d heard, but before she could speak, he swept her over one shoulder and was jumping over the stairs, leaping down to the landing in a single bound. She squealed, but then clamped her hand over her mouth to rein in her sudden terror.
Down, down, down. Finally they pa.s.sed a plaque labeled SUBLEVEL D: MAINTENANCE / SECURITY.
This time, when Wolf set her down and pushed open the door, it felt as if they were no longer inside the palace at all. The walls were plain white, the floors dull concrete gray. The stairwell had spilled them into a small lobby, with the elevator off to their left and a cluttered desk in front of them. Behind the desk was a room fully enclosed in tinted gla.s.s, where an empty chair sat before a bank of three dozen screens showing security footage within the palace and the surrounding property. Four of the screens were flashing security-breach warnings.
And then there was the guard, aiming a gun at them.
“Stay where you are! Put your hands where I can see them!”
Cress shakily moved to follow his command, but before her fingertips could even brush her hair, Wolf had shoved her out of the way. She cried out and fell to the ground. Her dress ripped somewhere in the lining and a gunshot echoed off the concrete. She screamed and covered her head.
“Cress, get up. Now.”
Pulling her arms away, she saw that the guard was unconscious and slumped against his desk. Bending down, Wolf kicked the gun away, then slid the guard toward the gla.s.s door and held his wrist over the ID scanner. A light flickered green.
“Come on. There were more guards right behind us.”
Trembling, Cress pushed herself off the floor and followed Wolf into the security control room.
Fifty
“Am I wearing this right?” Cinder said, fidgeting with the belted wraparound blouse that had three different ties that were supposed to lace together in some mysterious fashion.
“Yes, it’s fine,” said Iko. “Would you stop moving your head?” She slapped her hands on Cinder’s ears to hold her head still.
Cinder shifted from foot to foot, trying to calm her racing thoughts while Iko twisted her hair into a pinching bun that made her scalp throb. It seemed as if it had been hours since Thorne and Dr. Erland had left them, though the clock counting the seconds in her head claimed it had been less than seventeen minutes.
In one corner of her vision was a newsfeed hosting its own countdown. The countdown to the start of the royal wedding.
Cinder shut her eyes and tried to will away another bout of nausea. She’d never been so nervous in her entire life, and it wasn’t just the waiting or the knowledge that so many things could go wrong or the terror that she could be caught and returned to prison at any minute.
What really terrified her, what really made her nerves hum, was knowing that she was going to see Kai again. Face to face. Looking into his eyes for the first time since she’d fallen in the palace gardens.
At the time, his expression was so filled with shock and betrayal her heart had split in two, especially when not an hour before she had stood dripping wet at the top of the ballroom stairs and Kai had looked up at her and smiled.
Smiled.
The two expressions could not have been more different, and they’d both been directed at her.
She didn’t know what to expect when he saw her now, and the uncertainty was terrifying.
“Cinder—are you watching the news?”
She refocused on the news broadcaster who was reporting word of a temporary delay to the ceremony. They were being told that all was well and the ceremony would begin shortly, but that the security team was taking extra precautions—
“That’s it. Let’s go.”
Only once they peered down the service corridor in each direction, confirming both that no one was around and that the pale lights on the nearest ceiling cameras were off, did Cinder begin to appreciate the extent of her vulnerability.
She was the most-wanted criminal in the world, returning to the scene of her crime.
But there was no changing her mind now.
She sent the news broadcast away, pulling the palace blueprint over her vision instead. “Locating now,” she said, using her internal positioning system to mark where she and Iko stood, before inputting the tracker code for Emperor Kai that Cress had given them.
She held her breath while it searched, and searched.
And then—there he was. A green dot in the north tower. Fourteenth floor. The sitting room connected to his personal chambers. He was pacing.
She shivered. She was so close to him, after being a galaxy apart.
“Got him.”
They kept to hallways that she expected to be unoccupied. She found herself continuously glancing at the cameras on the ceilings, but not one of them moved or flashed or indicated that it was turned on, and slowly Cinder’s paranoia began to fade.
Cress had done it. She’d shut down the security system.
Then they rounded a corner into the elevator bank of the north tower and Cinder crashed into a woman.
She stumbled back. “Oh—sorry!”
The woman eyed Cinder. She was a member of the staff, dressed in the same blush-toned top and black pants that they were.
Cinder called up her glamour, turning her cyborg hand into a human one and giving her complexion the same flawless tone as an escort’s. She flashed a smile that she hoped hid her surprise and bowed.
It took a few heartbeats more to realize why she was so startled. Not because they’d run into someone here in the hallway, but because she hadn’t sensed this woman around the corner.
It was a feeling so subtle she’d hardly known she was doing it before—reaching out with her consciousness and lightly touching on the bioelectricity that shimmered off every human being. She’d gotten used to feeling Thorne and Wolf and Jacin and Dr. Erland when they were nearby, their presence like a shadow in her subconscious. It was instinctual, no more difficult than breathing.
But this woman was a blank slate to her. Like Cress, a sh.e.l.l. Like Iko.
“My apologies,” said the woman, returning Cinder’s bow. “This wing of the palace is off-limits to anyone without a crown-issued pa.s.s. I must ask you to leave.”
“We have a pa.s.s,” said Iko, smiling brightly. “We’ve been asked to check with His Imperial Majesty and see if he requires any refreshments while we wait for the ceremony to begin.” She made to step around the woman, but a palm shot out and pressed against her sternum.