“What?”
“Nothing.” Cinder shook her head. There were too many problems to fix, too many puzzles to solve. The mystery of Garan’s device would have to wait. “I just can’t imagine how Levana would have even known about the device in the first place, that’s all.”
“I told her.”
Cinder snapped her head toward the door, where Jacin was standing as still and quiet as the door frame itself, sporting a decent-size bruise on his jaw, compliments of Thorne. “You told her?”
“Information has value. I traded that piece for my life.”
It was always difficult to read Jacin’s emotions, but if Cinder had to guess, she would have thought he was incensed over making such a trade. She remembered telling Jacin about the device, ages ago, in the little oasis town of Farafrah. His face had taken on a curiosity that bordered on hunger when he learned there was an invention that could prevent a Lunar from using their gift and prevent their gift from driving them mad.
She stifled a gasp.
Winter.
Of course.
Jacin jerked his chin toward the hallway. “I hate to rush you, but the crown just released a new video that you might be interested in seeing. Evidently you’re dead.”
He and Iko led her to the mansion’s home theater, with enormous lounging chairs that each had a built-in beverage dispenser on its side. Thorne and Cress were standing beside a larger-than-life holograph depicting Levana. She was wearing her veil, but the sound was muted. The enormity of it made Cinder recoil.
“Jacin says they found my body?”
Thorne gave her a passing glance. “That’s the word, corpse girl. You were dredged up from the lake last night. They even have this mannequin thing with a painted metal hand and they keep showing a grainy photo of it. Stay around a while—you’ll see. It keeps looping with this speech from Levana. They have the most boring entertainment on this rock.”
“What is she saying?”
Thorne’s voice pitched high in imitation of the queen. “The impostor of my beloved niece is vanquished … Let us put this messiness behind us while we go forward with the coronations … I am a psychotic, power-hungry nut basket and my breath smells really bad under this veil.”
Cinder snickered. She tried to check the time with her internal clock before remembering it no longer worked. “How long until the coronation?”
“Nine hours,” said Iko.
Nine hours. They’d been in this mansion for an entire day and night and Cinder had been asleep for most of it.
“There’s also the ticker…” Cress pointed to the holograph, where a list of sectors was trekking across the bottom, making a constant floating ring around Levana.
“That’s the interesting part,” said Thorne. “She’s passed an edict that any sector found in violation of curfew or suspected of assisting ‘the impostor’ will be barricaded, to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis after the coronation. Then she goes on some spiel about repentance and begging their queen for mercy.”
“It seems a lot of people were motivated by your stunt at the wedding feast,” said Jacin. “The number of barricaded sectors keeps growing.”
“How many?”
“Eighty-seven at last count,” said Cress.
“Including RM-9,” added Thorne, “and every sector in its immediate surroundings. Rather than discouraging the rebellion, the raid there seems to have angered people even more.”
Eighty-seven at last count.
“And you think they’ve all … that all these sectors…” Cinder swallowed. Her head still felt foggy. “What do we think this means?”
“It means the queen is having a bad day,” said Jacin.
Thorne nodded. “Some of it could be her own paranoia, but even when Iko and I were trying to get into Artemisia there were rumors of some sectors blockading their own tunnels to keep supplies out of the city, or looting their factories for weapons, that sort of thing. And that was before your trial. Of course, we don’t know if the people believe you’re really dead, but I’m not sure it matters at this point. If you’re alive, then you’re one hell of a revolutionary. If you’re dead, then you’re one hell of a martyr.”
“It sort of matters to me,” Cinder said, watching the ticker scroll by.
Eighty-seven sectors had been ready to fight for her—for themselves. From what she’d seen, each sector housed at least a thousand civilians, and sometimes many times that. That should be more than enough to overwhelm the capital and overthrow Levana …
Except all those people were trapped.
“Don’t faint,” said Thorne.
She looked at him. “What?”
“You look stressed out.”
Glowering, Cinder started to pace. “Can we do something about these barricades? The people can’t come to our aid if they’re confined to their own sectors.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” said Thorne, “we are so far ahead of you. Cress?”
Cress pulled up the holograph of Luna they’d spent a lot of time studying aboard the Rampion—all the domes and subway tunnels laid out on the moon’s rocky, cratered surface. She had been tagging the barricaded sectors as they were listed on Levana’s broadcast. It was still only a fraction of all the sectors on Luna, but then, it was possible there were plenty more sectors in uprising that Levana didn’t know about yet.
Levana was focusing on those sectors closest to Artemisia, which made sense. No wonder she was nervous—the revolution had already crept up to her doorstep.
Cress adjusted the holograph, zooming in on Artemisia, then the palace.
“The barricade controls are a part of the main security network that operates out of the palace’s security center,” said Cress. “I could hack them remotely, but not without raising alarms. At least, not with the amount of time I have to do it. So…”
“We thought we’d break in,” said Thorne. He had claimed one of the lounge chairs and kicked up his feet.
“Of course you did,” said Cinder.
“We got into New Beijing Palace, we can get into this one. From there, Cress undoes the barricades on the outer sectors and schedules the security barriers around the central dome to open at the end of the coronation.” He filled an expensive-looking goblet with a blue drink from the chair’s dispenser and took a big gulp. “It’s the best way to coordinate a surprise attack and make sure everyone is entering Artemisia at the same time, even if we have no way of communicating with one another.”
Cress pulled back the holograph’s focus, highlighting the eight maglev tunnels that were the only passages in and out of the city—excepting the spaceship ports.
Cinder massaged her wrist. “It’s too risky to send you in. I’d rather Cress remove the barricades remotely, even if it does raise alarms.”
“That makes two of us,” said Thorne, “but that’s not the only reason we need to get into the palace. We also need access to the queen’s broadcast room if we want to do anything with that video of yours. Levana disabled all outside access to the system after your last stunt, so if we want to project it over the whole system, we have to do it from inside.”