“You found a confidential order form from the palace itself?”
“Yes, I did, thank you for noticing. I’m turning into quite the savvy hacker. Not that I have anything better to do.”
Cinder scanned the form. It was a rental agreement placed with the world’s largest escort-droid manufacturer, which was headquartered just outside New Beijing. The palace wanted sixty escorts for the day of the wedding, but only those from the “Reality” line, which included models with average eye colors and varying body types. The idea was that such imperfections (as the company called them) gave a more life-like experience with your escort.
It took her about four seconds to grasp the order’s purpose.
“They’re going to use them as staff during the wedding,” she said, “because Lunars can’t manipulate them. Smart.”
“That’s what I thought too,” said Iko. “The agreement states that they’ll be delivered to the florist and catering companies the morning of the wedding and that they’ll be smuggled into the palace along with the human staff. Well, it doesn’t use the word smuggle.”
It didn’t exactly make Cinder feel better about the wedding, but she was glad that the palace was taking some precautions against their Lunar guests.
Then, as she read through the order form and the delivery instructions, she gasped.
“What is it?” said Iko.
“I just had an idea.” She took a step back, running it through in her head. The idea was too raw and messy for her to be certain, but on the surface … “Iko, that’s it. That’s how we’re going to get onto Luna.”
The lights flickered. “I don’t compute.”
“What if we hid on a ship that was already going to Luna? We could be smuggled in, just like these androids are being sneaked into the palace.”
“Except all the ships that go to Luna are Lunar ships. How will you get aboard one of them?”
“Right now they’re all Lunar ships. But I might know how we can change that.”
The feeds on the netscreen shifted, bringing the ticking clock front and center. “Does it still involve stopping the wedding?”
“Yes. Sort of.” Cinder held up a finger. “If we can delay the wedding, and persuade Queen Levana to host the ceremony on Luna instead of Earth, then all the Earthen guests will have to go there, just like all those Lunar aristocrats are coming here.”
“And then you’ll be on one of their ships?”
“If we can make it work.” She started to pace back and forth through the cargo bay, her thoughts burning with the start of a new plan. “But I have to get Kai to trust me first. If he can persuade Levana to change the location…” Chewing the inside of her cheek, Cinder glanced at the video of the press conference, the headline confirming that he really had ended the draft. “We still need to get into the palace, but no more big distractions or hijacking the media. We need to be subtle. Sneaky.”
“Oh! Oh! You should pose as a guest! Then you would have an excuse to buy a fancy dress too.”
Cinder tried to protest, but hesitated. The idea had potential, if she could keep her glamour up long enough so that no one would recognize her. “I would have to be wary of those escorts. Plus, we would need invitations.”
“I’m on it.” The order form disappeared, replaced with a streaming list of names. “A gossip newsfeed posted a list of all the guests a few days ago. Did you know they’re sending actual paper invitations? Very classy.”
“Sounds wasteful,” Cinder murmured.
“Maybe so,” said Iko. “But also easy to steal. How many do we need? Two? Three?”
Cinder ticked her fingers. One for her. One for Wolf … hopefully. If not, would it be better for her to go alone or to bring the doctor? Or even Jacin? Levana and her entourage would recognize any one of them, and she didn’t trust that they were capable of creating strong enough glamours for themselves.
She would just have to hope that Wolf was better by then.
“Two,” she said. “Hopefully.”
Names and titles dragged down the screen. Diplomats and political representatives, celebrities and media commentators, entrepreneurs and the very, very rich. She couldn’t help thinking that it sounded like a really dull party.
Then Iko shrieked. An ear-splitting, metal-on-metal, overheated-processor and wires-on-fire shriek.
Cinder covered her ears. “What? What’s wrong?”
The list of names stopped and Iko highlighted a line.
LINH ADRI AND DAUGHTER LINH PEARL, OF NEW BEIJING, EC, EARTH
Gaping, Cinder pulled her hands away from her ears.
Linh Adri? And Pearl?
She heard footsteps thumping from the crew quarters and Jacin appeared in the cargo bay, eyes wide. “What happened? Why is the ship screaming?”
“Nothing. Everything’s fine,” Cinder stammered.
“No, everything is not fine,” said Iko. “How can they be invited? I’ve never seen a bigger injustice in all my programmed life, and believe me, I have seen some big injustices.”
Jacin raised an eyebrow at Cinder.
“We just learned that my former guardian received an invitation to the wedding.” She opened the tab beside her stepmother’s name, thinking maybe it was a mistake.
But of course not.
Linh Adri had been awarded 80,000 univs and an official invitation to the royal wedding as an act of gratitude for her assistance in the ongoing manhunt for her adopted and estranged daughter, Linh Cinder.
“Because she sold me out,” she said, sneering. “Figures.”
“See? Injustice. Here we are, risking our lives to rescue Kai and this whole planet, and Adri and Pearl get to go to the royal wedding. I’m disgusted. I hope they spill soy sauce on their fancy dresses.”
Jacin’s concern turned fast to annoyance. “Your ship has some messed-up priorities, you know that?”
“Iko. My name is Iko. If you don’t stop calling me the ‘ship,’ I am going to make sure you never have hot water during your showers again, do you understand me?”
“Yeah, hold that thought while I go disable the speaker system.”
“What? You can’t mute me. Cinder!”
Cinder held up her hands. “Nobody is disabling anything!” She glared at Jacin, but his only response was a one-shouldered shrug. She rolled her eyes. “You’re both giving me a headache, and I’m trying to think.”
Jacin leaned against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. “Did you know that I was there that night, at the Commonwealth ball?”
Her eyelid twitched. “How could I forget?” She didn’t think of it often, not since he’d joined their side, but sometimes when she looked at him she couldn’t help remembering how he had been the one to grab and hold her while Levana taunted Kai, trying to bargain with Cinder’s life.
“Flattered. Thing is, you were pretty memorable that night, too, what with being publicly humiliated, almost shot in the head, and ultimately arrested. So it strikes me as odd that you seem to be doing everything you can to figure out a way to go back there.”
She threw her hands in the air. “And you can’t think of a single reason why I would want to be at that wedding?”
“One more fling with your toy before he becomes Levana’s property? You were swooning over him an awful lot at the—”
Cinder punched him.
Jacin stumbled against the wall, already chuckling as his hand came up to his cheekbone. “Did I hit a nerve, or was it a wire that time? You have plenty of both, right?”
“He’s not a toy, and he’s not her property,” she said. “Insult either of us again and next time I’ll hit you with the metal fist.”
“You tell him, Cinder!” Iko cheered.
Jacin lowered his hand, revealing a red mark. “Why do you care? This wedding isn’t your problem.”
“Of course it’s my problem! In case you haven’t noticed, your queen is a tyrant. Maybe the Commonwealth doesn’t want me anymore, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let Levana come down here and dig her claws into my country and ruin it like she ruined yours.”
“Ours,” he reminded her.
“Ours.”
He shook a strand of hair out of his face. “So that’s it? Some overzealous sense of patriotism for a country that’s trying to hunt you down as we speak? You do have some fried wires. In case you didn’t realize it, the second you step foot on Commonwealth soil, you’re dead.”