Marissa Meyer - Cress

“All due respect,” said Jacin. “I did shoot her during our last engagement. And the comm was sent anonymously—she may not have realized I was the one who had sent the tip in the first place.”

Levana waved away the statement. “We will investigate further, Sir Clay. But as you claim to have been gathering information for weeks, tell me, what useful things have you learned about our enemies?”

“I’ve learned that Linh Cinder has the ability to control a Lunar special operative,” he said, reciting the information with as much emotion as an Earthen android. “However, she is untrained and lacks focus. She shows no talent for simultaneously engaging in both mental and physical battles.”

“Interesting speculation,” Levana mused. “In your estimation, would she have the mental focus required to torture an enemy, driving them to the brink of insanity?”

“Absolutely not, Your Majesty.”

“ Absolutely not. Well then. You are either much stupider than I ever suspected, or you are lying, as that is precisely what Linh Cinder did today, against my head thaumaturge herself.”

Another spike of emotion announced a sudden bout of nerves, but it was overshadowed by loud thumping from the quarantine.

“Of course he’s lying!” the doctor screeched, his voice breaking. He had managed to haul himself off the lab table and was now pounding on the glass with his palms, leaving smears of bloodied spittle. “She’s capable of killing your head thaumaturge and all your guards and your entire court. She’s Princess Selene, the true heir to the throne. She can kill you all, and she will kill you all. She’s coming for you, My Queen, and she will destroy you !”

Levana snarled. “Shut up! Shut up, you old man! Why won’t you die already?”

He was too busy gasping for breath to hear her. He collapsed to the ground, hands on his chest, his wheezing punctuated with hacking coughs.

Jacin Clay, when she turned back to him, was staring skeptically at the window. But within moments his eyes began to fill with comprehension. His lips twitched, like he was ready to laugh at a joke he just now understood. It was a rare show of emotion that only angered her more. “Take him away. He will undergo a full investigation on Luna.”

As Jacin was marched back into the corridor, she faced Thaumaturge Park again, her hands fisted at her sides. “You are hereby promoted. Begin planning our departure immediately, and alert our research team to this new strain of letumosis. Also, initiate mobilizing procedures for our soldiers. Linh Cinder is too afraid to face me herself. The people of Earth will suffer for her cowardice.”

“You understand that with the loss of Thaumaturge Mira’s programmer, we are not able to transport our ships to Earth without notice?”

“What do I care if Earth sees them coming? I hope it gives them time to beg for mercy before we destroy them.”

Aimery bowed. “I will see it done, Your Majesty.”

Levana glanced back to see that Dr. Sage Darnel was sprawled out on the floor, his body seizing between his coughs. She watched him writhe and jerk, her blood still boiling at his words.

As far as the people of Luna and Earth knew, Selene had died thirteen years ago.

Levana was going to make sure it stayed that way.

She was the rightful queen of Luna. Of Earth. Of the entire galaxy. No one would take that from her.

Seething, she stepped closer, close enough that she could see the trail of tears left on the doctor’s scourged face.

“Sweet Crescent Moon…,” he whispered, his lips barely able to form the words. He began to shiver. “Up in the sky…” He hummed a few bars of a song, a lullaby that seemed barely familiar. “You sing your song … so sweetly … after sunshine passes.…”

The last word hovered unspoken as he stopped shuddering and lay still, his blue eyes staring upward like empty marbles.

“Satellite AR817.3 … deflect tracker … set alternating timer … and check. Which should just leave Satellite AR944.1 … and … that … should … do it.” Cress paused, breathed, and slowly lifted her fingers away from the cockpit’s main screen, where she’d spent the last three hours ensuring that any satellites in their path would be conveniently turned away from them as they passed. As long as the Rampion’s orbital path held, they shouldn’t be detected.

At least, not by satellite or radar.

There was still the problem of visual sightings, and as the Eastern Commonwealth had announced twenty minutes ago that an enormous monetary reward would go to anyone who found the stolen Rampion, every ship between here and Mars would be on the lookout.

They had to be prepared to run if anyone did spot them, which was made extra difficult now that they no longer had a trained pilot onboard. At least, not one who could see. Thorne had managed to talk Cinder through the liftoff procedures, with vast amounts of help from the Rampion’s new auto-control system, but it had been a rocky takeoff followed by an immediate switch to neutral orbit. If they were faced with anything requiring more complicated maneuvers before Thorne got his eyesight back, they’d be in trouble.

According to Cinder, they’d be in trouble even when he did have his eyesight back.

Cress massaged her neck, attempting to get her thoughts to stop spinning. When she was in the middle of a hack, it tended to fill up her brain until her vision hummed with coding and mathematics, skipping ahead to each necessary task faster than she could complete them. It tended to leave her in a state of drained euphoria.

But for now, at least, the Rampion was safe.

She turned her attention to a yellow light at the base of the screen that had been annoying her since she’d begun, but that she’d been too preoccupied to deal with. As expected, when she prompted the ejection, a small shimmering D-COMM chip popped out from the screen.

The match to the chip that Sybil had taken from her satellite, cutting off any hope that Cress and Thorne had of contacting their friends.

Friends.

She squinted at the chip as she held it up, wondering if that was the right word. It felt like having friends, especially after they’d survived the mission together. But then, she didn’t have anything to compare this friendship to.

One thing she knew for sure, though, was that she no longer needed to be rescued.

She looked around for something she could use to destroy the chip, and caught the ghost of a reflection in the cockpit window. Thorne stood in the doorway behind her, hands tucked into his pockets.

She gasped and spun to face him, her full skirt twisting around the chair’s base. Though it was dirty and torn in places, she hadn’t had the time to change yet, and wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to. The gown made her feel like she was still living in a drama, and was perhaps keeping her from going into shock at all that had happened that day. “You scared me!”

Thorne flashed a moderately embarrassed grin. “Sorry?”

“How long have you been standing there?”

He shrugged. “I was listening to you work. It’s kind of relaxing. And I like it when you sing.”

She flushed. She didn’t realize she’d been singing.

Feeling his way forward, Thorne took the copilot’s seat, setting the cane across his lap and kicking his boots up on the dash. “Are we invisible again?”

“To radars, for now.” She tucked some hair behind her ear. “Could I see your cane?”

He raised an eyebrow, but handed it to her without question. Cress dropped the D-COMM chip to the ground and crushed it beneath the cane’s tip. A shiver of empowerment ran through her.