“Ugh,” said the other girl, rolling her eyes. “That was painful.”

Cinder shot her a glare, but then the girl took a single step toward Kai and dipped into a graceful bow. “Your Imperial Majesty. It is such a pleasure to see you again.”

He said nothing.

Cinder said nothing.

Torin, half positioned between Kai and Cinder, said nothing.

Finally the girl lifted her head. “Anytime now, Cinder.”

Cinder jumped. “Right. Sorry.”

She took a tentative step forward and looked about to speak again, but Kai finally found his voice.

“Are you insane?”

Cinder paused.

“Do you—are you—Queen Levana is in this palace. She’ll kill you!”

She blinked. “Yes. I know.”

“Which is why we need to stop wasting time,” the girl muttered under her breath.

Kai frowned at her. “Who are you?”

She brightened. “Oh, I’m Iko! You may not remember me, but we met at the market that day you brought in the android, only I was about this tall”—she held her hand at hip height—“and shaped kind of like an enormous pear, and significantly more pale.” She batted her eyelashes.

Kai returned his attention to Cinder.

“She’s right,” said Cinder. “We need to leave, now. And you’re coming with us.”

“I’m what?”

“He will do no such thing,” said Torin. He started to move toward Cinder, but then his foot stalled midair and reversed. Suddenly he was stepping over Priya, walking backward until the backs of his knees hit a settee and he sank down onto the cushion.

Kai gaped at him, beginning to think this was all some bizarre anxiety dream.

“I’m sorry,” said Cinder, holding up her cyborg hand. “But I have one more tranquilizer and, if you try to interfere, I’m afraid I’ll have to use it on you.”

Torin glared at her, putting as much seething hatred into the look as Kai had ever seen.

“Kai, I need to remove your ID chip.”

He faced her again and felt—for the first time—a twinge of fear. Something clicked and he glanced down to see her ejecting a short knife from one of her fingers.

She was cyborg. This he’d almost gotten used to.

But she was also Lunar, and while he’d known that for just as long, he’d never before seen her act Lunar. Not so blatantly. Not until now.

Cinder took a step toward him.

He took a step back.

She paused, hurt flickering in her eyes. “Kai?”

“You shouldn’t have come back here.”

She licked her lips. “I know how this must look, but I’m asking you to trust me. I can’t let you marry her.”

He let out an abrupt laugh. The wedding. He’d almost forgotten about it, and he was the one in groom’s clothes. “It’s not your decision to make.”

“I’m making it anyway.” She moved forward again, and with another step back, Kai found himself pressed against a small table. Cinder’s gaze dipped down and her eyes widened.

Kai followed the look.

Her foot was on the table. The child-size foot that had fallen off on the garden steps, its plating dented and the joints packed with dirt. He’d taken it out of his office when the security team had done the sweep for Levana’s spy equipment.

His ears grew hot, and he felt as if he’d just been caught hoarding something strange and overtly intimate. Something that didn’t belong to him.

“You, uh…” He gestured halfheartedly. “You dropped that.”

Cinder peeled her attention away from the foot and met his gaze, speechless. He couldn’t begin to guess what she was thinking. He didn’t even know what it meant that he’d kept it.

The other girl, Iko, cupped her chin with both hands. “This is so much better than a net drama.”

Cinder briefly lowered her gaze to compose herself, then held her hand toward him. “Please, Kai. We don’t have much time. I need your wrist.” Her voice was gentle and kind, and somehow that gave him greater pause than anything. Lunars—always so convincingly gentle, so deviously kind.

Shaking his head, he pressed his vulnerable wrist against his side. “Cinder, look. I don’t know what you’re doing here. I want to believe you have good intentions, but … I don’t know anything about you. You lied to me about everything.”

“I never lied to you.” Cinder stole another look at the foot. “I maybe didn’t tell you the whole truth, but can you blame me?”

He frowned. “Of course I can blame you. You had plenty of opportunities to tell me the truth.”

The words seemed to surprise her, until she fisted her hands on her hips. “Right. And what if I’d said, oh, sure, Your Highness, I’d love to go to the ball with you, but first you should probably know that I’m cyborg. And then what?”

Kai looked away.

“You never would have talked to me again,” she answered for him. “You would have been mortified.”

“So you were just going to keep it hidden forever?”

“Forever?” Cinder waved her arm toward the window. “You are the emperor of an entire country. There was never going to be a forever.”

He was surprised how much the words stung. She was right. There wasn’t room for such absurdity between them—an emperor. A cyborg. Her words shouldn’t have hurt at all.

“What about being Lunar?” he said. “When was that going to come up?”

Cinder huffed, and he could tell she was growing exasperated. “We don’t have time for this.”

“How many times did you manipulate me? How much of it was just brainwashing?”

Her jaw fell open, as if she were appalled he could even suggest it. Then a fire stoked behind her eyes. “Why? Are you worried that you may have had actual feelings for a lowly cyborg?”

“I’m just trying to figure out what was real, and who this person is.” He gestured from her head to her toes. “One day you’re fixing portscreens at the market, the next you’re breaking out of a high-security prison. And now—you’ve disabled my palace security, you’re waving a knife at me, and you’re threatening to tranquilize my chief adviser if you don’t get what you want. What am I supposed to think? I don’t even know whose side you’re on!”

Cinder clenched her fists, but as his angry words settled, her eyes caught on something over his shoulder. The enormous picture window overlooking the Eastern Commonwealth. Her expression became distant. Calculating.

She took another step toward him. Kai flinched.

“I’m on my side,” she said. “And if you want what’s best for the Commonwealth, and this entire planet, you’d better be on my side too.” She held out her hand, palm up. “Now give me your wrist.”

He curled his fingers. “My responsibility is here. I have a country to protect. I’m not running away from that, and I’m certainly not running away with you.” He tried to lift his chin, though it was difficult when Cinder’s glare was making him feel about as important as a grain of salt.

“Really?” she drawled. “You’d rather take your chances with her?”

“At least I know when she’s manipulating me.”

“News flash: I have never manipulated you. And I hope I never have to. But you aren’t the only one with responsibilities and an entire country of people who are relying on you. So I’m sorry, Your Majesty, but you are coming with me, and you’re just going to have to figure out whether or not you can trust me when we’re not so pressed for time.”

Then she raised her hand and shot him.

Fifty-Two

Within seconds of the dart hitting Kai’s chest, his eyelids fluttered closed and he collapsed into Cinder. The adviser yelped and stood, but Iko intercepted him, pressing the man back as Cinder eased Kai’s unconscious body onto the floor.

For a moment, she was paralyzed, her mind reeling from the things she’d just said—at what she’d just done.

“Cinder? Are you all right?” said Iko.

“Fine,” she muttered, trembling as she propped Kai against the table and pulled out the dart. “He’s going to hate me when he wakes up, but I’m fine.” She couldn’t help glancing up again, at the big picture window hung with heavy silk drapes. At her own reflection looking back at her. At the girl with one metal hand and messy hair, wearing the uniform of a servant.