“When she catches you,” the guard snarled, “my queen will eat your heart with salt and pepper.”
“Well,” said Cinder, unconcerned, “my heart is half synthetic, so it’ll probably give her indigestion.”
Kinney looked almost amused. “We guards tend to be treated well here. You’ll find that a lot of us will stay loyal to Her Ma—to Levana.” The queen’s given name was awkward and Iko wondered if he’d ever said it before.
“Why aren’t you?” Cinder asked.
“Something tells me I’m going to like your offer more.” His gaze slipped toward Iko. “Even if you do keep strange company.”
She huffed.
Stepping forward, Cinder disarmed the second guard, taking his handgun for herself. “Maybe when this is over I can convince them that I intend to treat you pretty well too.”
Cinder turned, and Iko could make out the conflict warring across her facial muscles. “Stay with Kai. In case she does send a thaumaturge after them, I want someone there who can’t be controlled. And try to get him and any Earthens away from here.” She inhaled sharply. “I’m going after Levana.”
“No, wait,” said Iko. “I should come with you.”
Ignoring her, Cinder jutted a finger toward Kinney. “If you’re loyal to me, then you’ll be loyal to the Earthen emperor. Protect him with your life.”
The guard hesitated, but then brought a fist to his heart.
Her new gun in one hand and her knife in the other, Cinder turned and started running back the direction they’d come from.
“Cinder, wait!” Iko yelled.
“Stay with Kai!”
“But … be careful!”
When Cinder turned the corner, Iko swiveled back to the two guards, just as the second guard realized he had control of his body again. Gaze darkening, he lifted the gun, aiming for Iko.
Kinney clubbed him over the head with the butt of his own rifle. Iko jumped back as the guard sprawled face-first on the ground.
“I feel like I should be going with her,” said Kinney.
Snarling, Iko stepped over the fallen guard and jabbed a finger at his chest. “I have known her a lot longer than you have, mister, and if there’s one of us who should be going with her, it’s me. Now open these doors.”
One eyebrow—dark and thick—shot upward. She could see him struggling to say something, or not say something. He gave up and turned away, shoving the wooden board through the handles. He hauled open the door.
Iko took two steps into the great hall and froze.
The room was not filled with hundreds of Lunar aristocrats and Earthen leaders and her handsome emperor. In fact, only a few dozen vibrantly dressed Lunars stood at the far end of the room. The rest of the floor was littered with chairs, many of them on their sides so there was hardly any space to walk in, making it difficult to traverse.
“He made us!” a Lunar woman cried, drawing Iko’s attention. “We didn’t want to help the Earthens but he threatened to bomb the city. Oh, please don’t tell the queen.”
Iko glanced back, but judging from the way Kinney’s mouth had fallen open, he was as surprised as she was. She started forging a path through the fallen chairs, and it occurred to Iko that whoever had scattered them had likely done it intentionally, to slow down anyone who tried to pursue them.
As they got closer, Iko saw an open door behind an enormous altar—a curtain pulled across it would normally have kept it hidden.
“That door leads into the servants’ halls,” said Kinney, “but they should have been guarded too.”
“Oh, you look terrible!” the first woman screamed, covering her mouth as she took in Iko’s injuries. “Why would anyone glamour themselves to look like that?”
Before Iko could process an indignant response, Kinney said, “Emperor Kaito is taking the other Earthens to the ports?”
The Lunars nodded, a few pointing to the open door. “That way,” said the offensive woman. “You can catch them if you hurry. And don’t forget to tell Her Majesty that we stayed behind!”
They ignored her and barreled toward the door.
Iko started to look up the most direct route to the ports, but it became obvious that Kinney knew which way to go, so she allowed him to lead. They hadn’t been running for long before her audio sensor picked up on voices echoing down the corridor.
They turned a corner and Iko saw the source of the noise up ahead—here were the hundreds of Lunar aristocrats, staggered in a messy line, waiting to pass through a doorway into a stairwell that would lead them down, down to the sublevels beneath the palace.
Among the chatter, her audio input recognized a voice.
Kai.
She picked up her speed. The Lunars, who didn’t notice her until she was right behind them, cried out with surprise, many throwing themselves against the walls to let her pass.
“Kai!”
The crowd shifted. Kai and his adviser, Konn Torin, stood beside the stairwell door, urging the crowd to move faster, to keep pace.
His eyes collided with her. Relief. Happiness. “Iko?”
She threw herself into Kai’s arms, for once not caring about the singed paneling on the side of her face or the holes in her torso. He squeezed her back. “Iko. Thank the stars.”
Just as fast as he had embraced her, he pushed her back to arm’s distance and glanced past her shoulder, but his joy fell when he saw only Kinney at her side. “Where’s Cinder?”
Iko, too, glanced back. Kinney was sneering contemptuously at Kai’s hand on Iko’s broken arm. She pressed her lips into her own sneer. “She’s looking for Levana. We think she went to the throne room.”