Cinder slumped onto the floor again and scratched at her wrist—a tick that was becoming awkward now that she had no gloves to fiddle with. “We’re not landing a stolen American ship in the American Republic,” she said, fixing her attention on the netscreen, where her own prison picture hovered in the corner. She was so sick of that picture.
“Do you have any suggestions?” said Thorne.
Africa.
She heard herself saying it, but nothing came out.
That’s where she was supposed to go. To meet Dr. Erland, so that he could tell her what to do next. He had plans for her. Plans to make her a hero, a savior, a princess. Plans to overthrow Levana and instate Cinder as the true queen.
Her right hand started to shake. Dr. Erland had set up the cyborg draft and treated dozens, perhaps hundreds of cyborgs like throwaways, all for the sake of finding her. And then, when he found her, he kept the secret of her identity until he had no other choice but to tell her, all the while planning out the rest of her life. He had made his need for revenge the highest priority.
But what the doctor hadn’t considered was that Cinder had no desire to be queen. She didn’t want to be a princess or an heir to anything. All her life—at least, all the life she could remember—all she’d ever wanted was freedom. And now, for the first time, she had it, however tenuous it was. There was no one telling her what to do. No one to judge or criticize.
But if she went to Dr. Erland, she would lose all that. He would expect her to reclaim her rightful place as the queen of Luna, and that struck her as the most binding shackles of all.
Cinder gripped her shaking hand with the steady cyborg one. She was tired of everyone deciding her life for her. She was ready to figure out who she really was—not what anyone else told her to be.
“Uh … Cinder?”
“Europe.” She pressed her back into the crate, forcing herself to sit straight, to feign certainty. “We’re going to Europe.”
A brief silence. “Any reason in particular?”
She met his gaze and pondered a long moment, before choosing her words. “Do you believe in the Lunar heir?”
Thorne propped his chin on both palms. “Of course.”
“No, I mean, do you believe she’s still alive?”
He peered at her as if she were being cute. “Because it was so vague the first time. Yes, of course I think she’s alive.”
Cinder drew back. “You do?”
“Sure. I know some people think it’s all conspiracy theories, but I’ve heard that Queen Levana was really paranoid for months after that fire, when she should have been ecstatic because she was finally queen, right? It’s like she knew the princess had gotten away.”
“Yeah, but … those could only be stories,” Cinder said, not knowing why she was trying to dissuade him. Perhaps because she’d never believed any of it, until she’d known the truth.
He shrugged. “What does this have to do with Europe?”
Cinder shifted to face him more fully, crisscrossing her legs. “There’s a woman who lives there, or at least, she used to live there. She used to be in their military. Her name is Michelle Benoit, and I think she might be connected to the missing princess.” She took in a slow breath, hoping she hadn’t said anything that could give her secret away.
“Where did you hear this?”
“An android told me. A royal android.”
“Oh! Kai’s android?” Iko said, excitedly changing the screen to one of Kai’s fan pages.
Cinder sighed. “Yes, His Majesty’s android.”
Unbeknownst to her at the time, her cyborg brain had recorded every word that the android, Nainsi, had spoken, as if it had known that Cinder would someday need to draw on this information again.
According to Nainsi’s research, a Lunar doctor named Logan Tanner had brought Cinder to Earth when she was still a child, after Levana’s murder attempt had failed. He’d eventually been incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital and committed suicide, but not before passing her off to someone else. Nainsi had thought that someone else was an ex–military pilot from the European Federation.
Wing Commander Michelle Benoit.
“A royal android,” Thorne said, showing the first sign of speculation. “And how did it get this information?”
“That, I have no idea. But I want to find this Michelle Benoit and see if it was right.”
And hope that Michelle Benoit had some answers that Dr. Erland didn’t. Perhaps she could tell Cinder about her history, about those eleven long years lost to her memory, about her surgery and the surgeons and Linh Garan’s invention that had kept Cinder from using her Lunar gift until Dr. Erland had disabled it.
Perhaps she had her own ideas about what Cinder should do next. Ideas that left her some choices for the rest of her life.
“I’m in.”
She started. “You are?”
“Sure. This is the biggest unsolved mystery of the third era. There’s got to be someone out there offering a reward for finding this princess, right?”
“Yeah, Queen Levana.”
Thorne tilted toward her, nudging her with his elbow. “In that case, we already have something in common with the princess, don’t we?” He winked, setting Cinder’s nerves on edge. “I just hope she’s cute.”
“Could you at least try to focus on the important things?”
“That would be important.” Thorne pulled himself up with a groan, still sore from all the rearranging. “Hungry? I think there’s a can of beans in there calling my name.”
“No, I’m fine. Thank you.”
When he had gone, Cinder hefted herself up onto the nearest crate and rolled out her shoulders. The news was still broadcasting on the screen, muted. A ticker read, “Hunt continues for Lunar fugitive Linh Cinder and crown traitor Dmitri Erland.”
Her throat constricted—crown traitor?
She shouldn’t have been surprised. How long had she expected it to take them to figure out who had helped her escape?
Cinder sank onto her back, feet dangling off the crate, and stared at the maze of pipes and bundled wires that cluttered the ship’s rafters. Was she making a mistake by going to Europe? It was a draw she didn’t think she could resist. Not only because of what Nainsi had said, but because of Cinder’s own jumbled memories too. She’d always known that she’d been adopted in Europe and she had the faintest recollection of it. Only drug-muddled memories that she’d always thought might be part dream. A barn. A snow-covered field. A gray sky that never ended. And then a long, long train ride bringing her to New Beijing and her new family.
She felt compelled to go there now. To figure out where she had been during all those lost years and who had taken care of her, who else knew her biggest secret.
But what if she was only avoiding the inevitable? What if this was just a distraction to keep her from going to Dr. Erland and accepting her fate? At least the doctor could teach her how to be Lunar. How to protect herself from Queen Levana.
She didn’t even know how to use her glamour. Not properly anyway.
Pursing her lip, she held her cyborg hand up over her face. Its metal plating shone almost mirror-like beneath the ship’s dim lights. It was so pristine, so well crafted—it did not seem like her hand. Not yet.
Tilting her head, Cinder held up her other, human hand beside it and tried to imagine what it would be like to be fully human. Two limbs made of skin and tissue and bones. Blood pumping in faintly blue veins beneath the surface. All ten fingernails.
An electric current traipsed down her nerves and her cyborg hand began to morph in her vision. Little wrinkles appeared in her knuckles. Tendons stretched beneath her skin. The edges softened. Warmed. Turned to flesh.