“Are you all right, Your Majesty?”
“Fine.” He gulped. “We knew she was cyborg. None of this should be a surprise. I just hadn’t expected it to be so much.”
Torin slid his hands into his pockets. “I’m sorry. I know I haven’t always been fair where Linh Cinder was concerned. From the moment I saw you talking to her at the ball, I’ve been worried she would be an unnecessary distraction to you, and you were already dealing with so much. But it’s obvious that you did have legitimate feelings for her, and I’m sorry for all that’s happened since then.”
Kai shrugged uncomfortably. “The problem with that is that even I don’t know if I had legitimate feelings for her, or if it was always just a trick.”
“Your Majesty. The Lunar gift has limitations. If Linh Cinder had been forcing these feelings onto you, then you wouldn’t still be feeling them.”
Starting, Kai met Torin’s gaze. “I don’t…” He gulped, heat climbing up his neck. “It’s that obvious?”
“Well, as Queen Levana likes to point out, you are still young and not yet adept at disguising your emotions like the rest of us.” Torin smiled, a teasing look that crinkled the corners of his eyes. “To be frank, I feel that it is one of your better qualities.”
Kai rolled his eyes. “Ironically, I think that might be why I liked Cinder so much in the first place.”
“That she couldn’t disguise her emotions?”
“That she didn’t try. At least, that’s how it seemed.” Kai leaned back against the exam table, feeling the sterile paper crinkle beneath his fingers. “Sometimes it just seems like everyone around me is pretending. The Lunars are the worst. Levana and her entourage … Everything about them is so fake. I mean, I’m engaged to Levana, and I still don’t even know what she really looks like. But it isn’t just them. It’s the other Union leaders, even my own cabinet members. Everyone is trying to impress everyone else. Trying to make themselves out to be smarter or more confident than they actually are.”
He raked his hand through his hair. “And then there was Cinder. This completely normal girl, working this completely mundane job. She was always covered in dirt or grease and she was so brilliant when she was fixing things. And she joked about stuff with me, like she was talking to a normal guy, not a prince. Everything about her seemed so genuine. At least, that’s what I’d thought. But then it turned out she was just like everyone else.”
Torin paced to the window overlooking the quarantine room. “And yet you’re still trying to find reasons to believe in her.”
It was true. This whole escapade had been sparked by Torin’s accusations that Kai didn’t know anything about Cinder. That even now, knowing that she was cyborg, knowing that she was Lunar, he still wanted to believe that not everything about her had been based on some complicated deception.
And in coming here, he had learned some things.
He’d learned that she was immune to letumosis, that maybe all Lunars were.
He’d learned that those brown eyes that kept infiltrating his dreams had been man-made, or had at least been tampered with.
He’d learned that her guardian had sold her body off for testing, and that she hadn’t hated her sister, and that the cyborg draft was still in effect. Still ordering cyborgs to the labs every day. Still sacrificing them in order to find an antidote that Queen Levana already had.
“Why cyborgs?” he murmured. “Why do we only use cyborgs for the draft?”
Torin sighed. “All due respect, Your Majesty. Do you really think this is the best issue to be concerning yourself with right now? With the wedding, the alliance, the war…”
“Yes, I do. It’s a valid question. How did our society decide that their lives are worth less? I’m responsible for everything that happens in this government—everything. And when something affects the citizens like this…”
The thought struck him like a bullet.
They weren’t citizens. Or, they were, but it was more complicated than that, had been since the Cyborg Protection Act had been instated by his grandfather decades ago. The act came after a series of devastating cyborg crimes had caused widespread hatred and led to catastrophic riots in every major city in the Commonwealth. The protests may have been prompted by the violent spree, but they were a result of generations of growing disdain. For years people had been complaining about the rising population of cyborgs, many of whom received their surgeries at the hands of taxpayers.
Cyborgs were too smart, people had complained. They were cheating the average man out of his wages.
Cyborgs were too skilled. They were taking jobs away from hardworking, average citizens.
Cyborgs were too strong. They shouldn’t be allowed to compete in sporting events with regular people. It gave them an unfair advantage.
And then one small group of cyborgs had gone on a spree of violence and theft and destruction, demonstrating just how dangerous they could be.
If doctors and scientists were going to continue to perform these operations, people argued, there needed to be restrictions placed on their kind. They needed to be controlled.
Kai had studied it all when he was fourteen years old. He had agreed with the laws. He’d been convinced, as his grandfather before him had been, that they were so obviously right. Cyborgs required special laws and provisions, for the safety of everyone.
Didn’t they?
Until this moment, he didn’t think he’d given the question a second thought.
Realizing that he’d been staring at an empty lab table with his knuckles pressed against his forehead, he turned around and stood a little straighter. Torin was watching him with that ever-present wise expression that so often drove him crazy, waiting patiently for Kai to form his thoughts.
“Is it possible the laws are wrong?” he said, peculiarly nervous, like he was speaking blasphemy against his family and his country’s age-old traditions. “About cyborgs?”
Torin peered at him for a long time, giving no hint to what he thought of Kai’s question, until finally he sighed. “The Cyborg Protection Act was written up with good intentions. The people saw a need to control the growing cyborg population, and the violence has never again reached the level it was at that time.”
Kai’s shoulders sloped. Torin was probably right. His grandfather had probably been right. And yet …
“And yet,” said Torin, “I believe it is the mark of a great leader to question the decisions that came before him. Perhaps, once we’ve solved some of our more immediate problems, we can readdress this.”
More immediate problems.
“I don’t disagree with you, Torin. But there’s a draft subject in this very research wing, at this very moment. I’m sure this seems like an immediate problem to him … or her.”
“Your Majesty, you cannot solve every problem in a week. You need to give yourself time—”
“You agree that it’s a problem then?”
Torin frowned. “Thousands of citizens are dying from this disease. Would you discontinue the draft and the research opportunities it provides on the basis that the Lunars are going to solve this for us?”
“No, of course not. But using cyborgs, and only cyborgs … it seems wrong. Doesn’t it?”
“Because of Linh Cinder?”
“No! Because of everyone. Because whatever science has made them, they were once human too. And I don’t believe—I can’t believe that they’re all monsters. Whose idea was the draft anyway? Where did it come from?”
Torin glanced toward the netscreen, looking strangely conflicted. “If I recall, it was Dmitri Erland’s idea. We had many meetings about it. Your father wasn’t sure at first, but Dr. Erland convinced us that it was for the best of the Commonwealth. Cyborgs are easy to register, easy to track, and with their legal restrictions—”
“Easy to take advantage of.”
“No, Your Majesty. Easy to convince both them and the people that they are the best candidates for the testing.”
“Because they aren’t human?”
He could see that Torin was growing frustrated. “Because their bodies have already been aided by science. Because now it’s their turn to give back—for the good of everyone.”