Cress

Scarlet paid no heed to the conversation until Charleson began to yell, and she forced open her swollen eyes. The boy was throwing a tantrum. His mother was talking in a soothing voice, trying to appease him. Promising something. Charleson, it seemed, was not appeased. A minute later, he stomped out of the room and Scarlet heard a door slam.

She exhaled with shaky relief. Her muscles relaxed, as they never could when the little terror was around.

She pushed her red hood and a tangle of curls out of her face. His mother sent her a withering glance, as if Scarlet were as disgusting as a mole, as offensive as a swarm of maggots on the woman’s pristine kitchen counters.

Without a word, she turned and left the room.

It wasn’t long before a different shadow filled the doorway, a handsome man wearing a black, long-sleeved jacket.

A thaumaturge.

Scarlet was almost happy to see him.

*   *   *

“She was captured during my battle with Linh Cinder. This girl was one of her accomplices.”

“The battle in which you failed to either eradicate or apprehend the cyborg?”

Sybil’s nostrils flared as she paced in between Scarlet and the lavishly carved marble throne. She was wearing a pristine new coat, and moving with an awkward stiffness, no doubt a result of the gunshot wound. “That is correct, My Queen.”

“As I thought. Go on.”

Sybil clasped her hands behind her back, knuckles whitening. “Unfortunately, our software technicians have had no success in tracking the Rampion using either the podship or the D-COMM chip that I confiscated. Therefore, the primary purpose of this interrogation is to ascertain what information our prisoner might have that will be useful in our ongoing search for the cyborg.”

Queen Levana nodded.

Scarlet, kneeling in the center of the stone-and-glass throne room, had a very good view of the queen, and though part of her wanted to look away, it was difficult. The Lunar queen was as beautiful as she’d always been told—more, even. Scarlet suspected there had been a time when men would have fought wars to possess a woman of such beauty.

These days, Emperor Kai was being forced to marry her in order to stop a war.

In her famished, delirious, mind-weary state, Scarlet almost laughed at the irony. She barely swallowed it back down.

The queen noticed the twitch of her lips, and frowned.

Pulse quickening, Scarlet cast her eyes around the throne room. Though she had been forced to kneel, they had not put her in any restraints. With the queen herself present, plus a handful of guards and a total of ten thaumaturges—Sybil Mira, plus three in red and six in black—she supposed they hadn’t been too concerned that she might try to escape.

On top of that, the velvet-draped chairs to either side of the throne were filled with at least fifty … well, Scarlet didn’t know who they were. Jurors? The Lunar media? Aristocrats?

All she knew was that they looked ridiculous. Clothing that twinkled and floated and glowed. Faces painted to look like solar systems and rainbow prisms and wild animals. Brightly colored hair that curled and wisped, defying gravity in order to create massive, elaborate structures. Some of the wigs even housed caged songbirds, though they were being remarkably quiet.

With that thought, it occurred to Scarlet that these were all probably glamours that she was looking at. These Lunars could be wearing potato sacks for all she knew.

Sybil Mira’s heels tapped against the hard floor, drawing Scarlet’s attention back to her.

“How long had you been a part of Linh Cinder’s rebellion prior to your capture?”

She stared up at the thaumaturge, her throat sore from days of screaming. She considered saying nothing. Her gaze flicked to the queen.

“How long?” said Sybil, her tone already growing impatient.

But, no, Scarlet did not care to remain silent. They were going to kill her, that much was obvious. She was not so naïve that she couldn’t see her own mortality closing in around her. After all, there were bloodstains on the throne room floor, streaking toward the wall opposite the queen’s throne. Or, where a wall should have been, but it was instead an enormous open window, and a ledge that jutted out, leading to nowhere.

They were fairly high up—three or four stories, at least. Scarlet didn’t know what was beyond that ledge, but she guessed it made for a convenient way to dispose of the bodies.

Sybil grabbed her by the chin. “I suggest you answer the question.”

Scarlet clenched her teeth. Yes, she would answer. When would she ever be given such an audience again?

When Sybil released her, she turned her attention back to the queen.

“I joined Cinder on the night your special operatives attacked,” she said, her voice hoarse but strong. “It was also the night you killed my grandmother.”

Queen Levana had no reaction.

“You probably have no idea who my grandmother was. Who I am.”

“Is it relevant to these proceedings?” asked Sybil, sounding annoyed that Scarlet had already hijacked her interrogation.

“Oh, yes. Incredibly relevant.”