Winter

Twenty-Four

Their progress through Luna’s outer sectors was slow and tedious. Sometimes taking maglev shuttles, sometimes walking through the tunnels, sometimes using Wolf’s identity to send a shuttle on without them before skipping to a different platform and heading in the opposite direction. Sometimes they split up and rejoined one another a couple of sectors over, to confuse any security personnel looking for a group of two men and two women traveling together.

They kept their heads down. Iko kept her hair hidden beneath her cap. Cinder fidgeted with her gloves to be sure her metal hand wouldn’t be seen on any of the cameras. Though they avoided what surveillance cameras they could, she knew they couldn’t miss them all. She hoped there were so many surveillance feeds on Luna they couldn’t possibly all be monitored.

Though they occasionally ventured up to the surface in order to switch to a different shuttle line, they avoided it when they could. Wolf warned them that most of the outer sectors were manned by armed guards. Though they were meant to be there for the security of the people, it seemed they spent more time punishing anyone who dared to speak out against the crown. The few times they did sneak up into the surface domes, they managed to go unassaulted in their disguises and cowed postures, but Cinder knew it wouldn’t be long before security measures were increased all over Luna.

They barely talked. Cinder spent the hours mulling over the battle in the docks, folding every misstep over in her head again and again, trying to determine a way she could have gotten them all away safely, trying to rescue Cress, trying to keep Kai out of Levana’s clutches.

She never found a good solution.

The constant churning of her thoughts threatened to drive her mad.

The farther they traveled from Artemisia, the more their surroundings changed. It began to feel like they’d stepped into a different world altogether. Judging from how opulent the royal docks were, Cinder had constructed an image in her head of how beautiful all of Luna must be. But it soon became clear that the outer sectors received none of the capital’s luxuries. Each platform they passed held new signs of neglect—crumbling stone walls and flickering lights. Graffiti scribbled onto the tunnel walls spoke of unrest.

SHE’S WATCHING…, read one message, painted in white upon the black cave walls. Another asked, HAVE YOU SEEN MY SON?

“How would we know if we had?” Iko asked. “They didn’t leave a description.”

“I think it’s meant to be thought provoking,” said Cinder.

Iko frowned, looking unprovoked.

They stopped when they heard a shuttle approaching or when they had to wait for a platform to clear, relishing their brief respites before moving on. They had brought a couple packs of food rations—not knowing when they would have an opportunity to find more—and Cinder doled them out in small increments, even though no one was all that hungry.

Though Cinder knew she couldn’t be the only one whose back was sore and legs were aching, no one complained. Iko alone kept a graceful bounce to her step, having been fully charged before they left Kai’s ship.

By shuttle, this trip should have lasted only a couple of hours. By the time they finally arrived at their destination, Cinder’s internal clock told her they had left Artemisia over nineteen hours ago.

When they emerged from the darkened tunnel onto the shuttle platform of RM-9: REGOLITH MINING, the elaborate beauty of Artemisia felt like a distant dream. Gone were the glistening tiles and intricate statues, gone were the polished woods and glowing orbs. This platform was dark and cold and tasted of still, sterile air. Every surface was covered in a layer of dust, years of footprints pressed into it. Cinder brushed her hand across a wall and her fingers came away coated in gray.

“Regolith dust,” said Wolf. “It covers everything out here.”

Iko pressed both of her palms against one wall. When she pulled away, two handprints remained, perfect, yet lacking the normal creases of a human palm.

“Doesn’t seem healthy,” Thorne muttered.

“It’s not.” Wolf swiped at his nose, like the dust was tickling him. “It gets in your lungs. Regolith sickness is common.”

Cinder clenched her teeth and added unhealthy living and work conditions to her long list of problems she was going to address when she was queen.

Iko smeared her dust-covered hands on her pants. “It feels abandoned.”

“Everyone’s working, either in the mines or the factories.”

Cinder checked her internal clock, which she had synced with Lunar time before leaving the Rampion. “We have about eight minutes before the workday ends.” She turned to Wolf. “We can wait here, or we can try to find your parents’ house. What do you want to do?”

He looked conflicted as he peered up a set of narrow, uneven steps. “We should wait here. There aren’t many reasons for people to be on the streets during work hours. We’d be too obvious.” He gulped. “Besides, they might not be there. My parents might be dead.”

He tried to say it with nonchalance, but he failed.

“All right,” said Cinder, stealing back into the shadows of the tunnel. “How far are we from the factories?”

Wolf’s brow was drawn, and she could see him straining to remember the details of his childhood home. “Not far. I remember them all being clustered near the dome’s center. We should be able to blend in with the laborers as soon as the day ends.”

“And the mines?”

“Those are farther away. There are two mine entrances on the other side of the dome. Regolith is one of the few natural resources Luna has, so it’s a big industry.”

“So…,” started Thorne, scratching his ear, “your best resource is … rocks?”

Wolf shrugged. “We have a lot of them.”

“Not just rock,” said Cinder, as her net database fed her an abundance of unsolicited information. “Regolith is full of metals and compounds too. Iron and magnesium in the highlands, aluminum and silica in the lowlands.” She chewed the inside of her cheek. “I figured all of the metal would have had to come from Earth.”

“A lot of it did, ages ago,” said Wolf. “We’ve become experts at recycling the materials that were brought up from Earth during colonization. But we’ve also learned to make do. Most new construction uses materials mined from regolith—stone, metal, soil … Almost the entire city of Artemisia was built from regolith.” He paused. “Well, and wood. We grow trees in the lumber sectors.”

Cinder stopped listening. She had already educated herself as well as she could on Luna’s resources and industries. Though, for their purposes, she’d spent most of her time researching Lunar media and transportation.

It was all controlled by the government, of course. Levana didn’t want the outer sectors to have easy communication with one another. The less interaction her citizens had with each other, the more difficult it would be for them to form a rebellion.

A series of chimes pealed through the tunnel, making her jump. A short melody followed.

“The Lunar anthem,” said Wolf, his expression dark, as if he had long harbored a deep hatred for the song.

The anthem was followed by a pleasant female voice: “This workday has ended. Stamp your times and retire to your homes. We hope you enjoyed this workday and look forward to your return tomorrow.”

Thorne grunted. “How considerate.”

Soon they could hear the drumming footsteps of exhausted workers pouring into the streets.

Wolf cocked his head, indicating it was time, and led them up the steps. They emerged into artificial daylight, where the dome’s curved glass blocked out the glow of stars. This sector was not much of an improvement over the tunnels below. Cinder was staring at a patchwork of browns and grays. Narrow streets and run-down buildings that had no glass in their windows. And dust, dust, so much dust.

Cinder found herself shrinking away from the first sparse groups of people they saw—instinct telling her to stay hidden—but no one even glanced at them. The people they passed looked weary and filthy, hardly talking.

Wolf rolled his shoulders, his gaze darting over the buildings, the dust-covered streets, the artificial sky. Cinder wondered if he was embarrassed they were seeing this glimpse into his past, and she tried to imagine Wolf as a normal child, with parents who loved him and a home he grew up in. Before he was taken away and turned into a predator.

It was impossible to think that every member of Levana’s army, every one of those mutants, had started out this way too. How many of them had been grateful to be given the chance to get away from these sectors with the dust that coated their homes and filled their lungs?

How many had been devastated to leave their families behind?

The graffiti echoed back at her: Have you seen my son?

Wolf pointed down one of the narrow streets. “This way. The residential streets are mostly in the outer rings of the sector.”

They followed, trying to mimic the dragging feet and lowered heads of the laborers. It was difficult, when Cinder’s own adrenaline was singing, her heartbeat starting to race.

The first part of her plan had already gone horribly wrong. She didn’t know what she would do if this failed too. She needed Wolf’s parents to be alive, to be allies. She needed the security they could offer—a safe place to hide while they figured out what they were going to do without Cress.

It was as far ahead as she could think.

Find a sanctuary.

Then she would start worrying about revolutions.

They hadn’t gone far from the maglev tunnel when Cinder spotted the first guards, in full uniform, each clutching ominous guns in their arms. Unlike the civilians, their noses and mouths were covered to protect them from the dust.

Cinder shivered at the sight of them and cast her attention around, searching for the signature aura of a thaumaturge. She had never known a guard to be far from one, but she didn’t sense any here.

How was it possible that a few weak-minded guards could hold such power over hundreds of gifted civilians? Though she guessed the Lunars in these outer sectors wouldn’t be nearly as strong as Levana or her court, surely they could manipulate a few guards?

No sooner had she questioned it than the answer came to her.

These guards may not have a thaumaturge with them, but the threat was still there, implied in their very presence. The people of this sector could revolt. They could have these guards killed or enslaved easily. But such an act of defiance would bring the wrath of the queen down on them. The next guards that came would not be without the protection of a thaumaturge, and retribution would not be merciful.

When they passed by the guards, Cinder made sure to keep her face turned away.

They shuffled through the dome’s center, where a water fountain stood in the middle of a dust-covered courtyard, forcing the crowd to flow around it. The fountain was carved into the figure of a woman, her head veiled and crowned, clear water pouring from her outspread hands as if she were offering life itself to the people who crossed her path.

The sight of it made the blood freeze in Cinder’s veins. Levana had been queen for barely over a decade, yet she’d already put her mark on these far-reaching sectors.

Such a beautiful, serene fountain, but it felt like a threat.

They followed the dispersing crowd through blocks of factories and warehouses that smelled of chemicals, before the industrial buildings gave way to houses.

Though houses was a relative term. More like shacks, these homes were as unplanned and patched together as the overcrowded Phoenix Tower Apartments in New Beijing. Now Cinder understood what Wolf meant by how they had become experts at recycling materials. Every wall and roof looked like it had been cut and chopped and resoldered and rebolted and twisted and reconfigured again. As there was no weather to rust or corrode the materials, they were left to deteriorate at the hands of people. Houses pulled apart and reconstituted as families moved and changed and grew. The entire neighborhood was a ramshackle assortment of metal sheets and wood panels and stray materials left abandoned in the spaces between, waiting to be given a new use.

Wolf froze.

Nerves humming, Cinder scanned the nearby windows and opened the tip of her pointer finger in preparation for an attack. “What is it?”

Wolf didn’t speak. Didn’t move. He was focused on a house down the street, unblinking.

“Wolf?”

His breath rattled. “It might be nothing, but I think … I thought I smelled my mother. A soap that seemed familiar … though I didn’t have these senses last time I saw her. It might not…”

He looked burdened and afraid.

He also looked hopeful.

A few of the shanties had flower boxes hung from their windows, and some of them even had live flowers. The house Wolf was staring at was one of them—a messy cluster of blue daisies spilling over the rough-hewn wood. They were a spot of beauty, simple and elegant and completely at odds with their dreary surroundings.

They paused in front of the house. There was no yard, only a spot of concrete in front of a plain door. There was one window but it had no glass. Instead, faded fabric had been tacked around its frame.

Wolf was rooted to the ground, so it was Thorne who shouldered past him and gave a quick rap against the door.

With the fabric alone acting as a sound barrier, they could hear every creak of the floors within as someone came to the door and opened it a timid crack. A small woman peeked out, alarmed when she saw Thorne. She was naturally petite but unnaturally gaunt, as if she hadn’t had a complete meal in years. Brown hair was chopped short, and though she had olive-toned skin like Wolf’s, her eyes were coal black, nothing like his striking green.

Thorne flashed his most disarming smile.

It had no obvious effect.

“Mrs. Kesley?”

“Yes, sir,” she said meekly, her gaze sweeping out to the others. She passed over Wolf first, then Cinder and Iko, before her eyes rounded, almost comically. She gasped and looked at Wolf again, but then her lips turned down with distrust.

“My name,” Thorne said, with a respectful tilt of his head, “is Captain Carswell Thorne. I believe you may know—”

A strangled sound escaped the woman. Her shock and suspicion multiplied by the second, warring against each other as she stared at her son. She pulled open the door the rest of the way and took one hesitant step forward.

Wolf had become a statue. Cinder could feel the anxiety rolling off him in waves.

“Ze’ev?” the woman whispered.

“Mom,” he whispered back.

The uncertainty cleared from her eyes, replaced with tears. She clapped both hands over her mouth and took another step forward. Paused again. Then she strode the rest of the way and wrapped her arms around Wolf. Though he dwarfed her in every way, he looked suddenly small and fragile, hunching down to fit better into her embrace.

Wolf’s mother pulled away far enough to cup his face in her hands. Taking in how handsome and mature he’d become, or maybe wondering about all the scars.

Cinder spotted a tattoo on her forearm, in the same place where Wolf had one marking him as a special operative. His mother’s, though, was stamped simply RM-9. It reminded Cinder of how someone might mark their pet, to be returned home in case it got lost.

“Mom,” Wolf said again, choking down his emotions. “Can we come inside?”

The woman raked her attention over the others, pausing briefly on Iko. Cinder wondered if she was confounded by Iko’s lack of bioelectricity, but she didn’t ask. “Of course.”

With those simple words, she extracted herself from Wolf and ushered them inside.

They found themselves in a tiny room with a single rocking chair and a sofa, a seam ripped open to reveal yellow stuffing inside. A fist-size holograph node was stuck in the center of one wall and a squat table was pushed beneath it. There was a drinking glass full of more blue daisies.

One doorway led to a short hall where Cinder assumed there were bedrooms and the washroom. A second door offered a glimpse into an equally small kitchen, the shelves and counters overflowing with dishes.

It looked like it hadn’t been dusted in a year. But then, so did the woman.

Wolf hunched in the room as if he no longer physically fit inside it, while his mother gripped the back of the chair.

“Everyone,” said Wolf, “this is my mother, Maha Kesley. Mom—this is Iko and Thorne and … Cinder.” He chewed on the words like he wanted to say more, and Cinder knew he was debating whether or not to tell his mom her true identity.

Cinder did her best to look friendly. “Thank you for welcoming us. I’m afraid we’ve put you into a lot of danger by coming here.”

Maha stood a little straighter, still wary.

Thorne had his hands in his pockets, as if he was afraid to touch anything. “Will your husband be home soon?”

Maha stared at him.

“We don’t want any surprises,” Cinder added.

Maha pursed her lips. She looked at Wolf, and Cinder knew. Wolf tensed.

“I’m sorry, Ze’ev,” said Maha. “He died four years ago. There was an accident. At the factory.”

Wolf’s expression gave away nothing. Slowly, his head bobbed with acceptance. He’d seemed more surprised to see his mother alive than to learn of his father’s death.

“Are you hungry?” said Maha, burying her shock. “You were always hungry … before. But I suppose you were a growing boy then…”

The words hung between them, filled with a lost childhood, so many years.

Wolf smiled, but not enough to show his sharp canine teeth. “That hasn’t changed much.”

Maha looked relieved. She tucked a stray hair behind her ear and bustled toward the kitchen. “Make yourselves comfortable. I think I might have some crackers.”