Winter

Five

Scarlet pressed her body against the steel bars, straining to grasp the tree branch that dangled just outside her cage. Close—so close. The bar bit into her cheek. She flailed her fingers, brushing a leaf, a touch of bark—yes!

Her fingers closed around the branch. She dropped back into her cage, dragging the branch closer. Wriggling her other arm through the bars, she snapped off three leaf-covered twigs, then broke off the tip and let go. The branch swung upward and a cluster of tiny, unfamiliar nuts dropped onto her head.

Scarlet flinched and waited until the tree had stopped shaking before she turned the hood of her red sweatshirt inside out and shook out the nuts that had attacked her. They sort of looked like hazelnuts. If she could figure out a way to crack into them, they might not be a bad snack later.

A gentle scratching pulled her attention back to the situation. She peered across the menagerie’s pathway, to the white wolf who was standing on his hind legs and batting at the bars of his own enclosure.

Scarlet had spent a lot of time wishing Ryu could leap over those bars. His enclosure’s wall was waist high and he should have been able to clear it easily. Then Scarlet could pet his fur, scratch his ears. What a luxury it would be to have a bit of contact. She had always been fond of the animals on the farm—at least until it was time to slaughter them and cook up a nice ragoût—but she never realized how much she appreciated their simple affection until she had been reduced to an animal herself.

Unfortunately, Ryu wouldn’t be escaping his confinement any sooner than Scarlet would. According to Princess Winter, he had a chip embedded between his shoulder blades that would give him a painful shock if he tried to jump over the rail. The poor creature had learned to accept his habitat a long time ago.

Scarlet doubted she would ever accept hers.

“This is it,” she said, grabbing her hard-earned treasure: three small twigs and a splintered branch. She held them up for the wolf to see. He yipped and did an enthusiastic dance along the enclosure wall. “I can’t reach any more. You have to take your time with these.”

Ryu’s ears twitched.

Rising to her knees—as close to standing as she could get inside her cage—Scarlet grabbed hold of an overhead bar, took aim with one of the smaller twigs, and threw.

Ryu chased after it and snatched the stick from the air. Within seconds, he pranced back to his pile of sticks and dropped the twig on top. Pleased, he sat back on his haunches, tongue lolling.

“Good job, Ryu. Nice show of restraint.” Sighing, Scarlet picked up another stick.

Ryu had just taken off when she heard the padding of feet down the path. Scarlet sat back on her heels, instantly tense, but relieved when she spotted a flowing cream-colored gown between the stalks of exotic flowers and drooping vines. The princess rounded the path’s corner a moment later, basket in hand.

“Hello, friends,” said Princess Winter.

Ryu dropped his newest stick onto the pile, then sat down, chest high as though he were showing her proper respect.

Scarlet scowled. “Suck-up.”

Winter tilted her head in Scarlet’s direction. A spiral of black hair fell across her cheek, obstructing her scars.

“What did you bring me today?” Scarlet asked. “Delusional mutterings with a side of crazy? Or is this one of your good days?”

The princess grinned and sat down in front of Scarlet’s cage, uncaring that the path of tumbled black rock and ground covers would soil her dress. “This is one of my best days,” she said, settling the basket on her lap, “for I have brought you a treat, with a side of news.”

“Oh, oh, don’t tell me. They’re moving me to a bigger cage? Oh, please tell me this one comes with real plumbing. And maybe one of those fancy self-feeders the birds get?”

Though Scarlet’s words were laced with sarcasm, in truth, a larger cage with real plumbing would have been a vast improvement. Without being able to stand up, her muscles were becoming weaker by the day, and it would be heaven if she didn’t have to rely on the guards to lead her into the next enclosure, twice a day, where she was graciously escorted to a trough to do her business.

A trough.

Winter, immune as ever to the bite in Scarlet’s tone, leaned forward with a secretive smile. “Jacin has returned.”

Scarlet’s brow twitched, her emotions at this statement pulling in a dozen directions. She knew Winter had a schoolgirl’s crush on this Jacin guy, but Scarlet’s one interaction with him had been when he was working for a thaumaturge, attacking her and her friends.

She’d convinced herself that he was dead, because the alternative was that he killed Wolf and Cinder, and that was unacceptable.

“And?” she prodded.

Winter’s eyes sparkled. There were times when Scarlet felt like she’d hardened her heart to the girl’s impeccable beauty—her thick hair and warm brown skin, her gold-tinged eyes and rosy lips. But then the princess would give her a look like that and Scarlet’s heart would skip and she would once again wonder how it was possible this wasn’t a glamour.

Winter’s voice turned to a conspiratorial whisper. “Your friends are alive.”

The simple statement sent the world spinning. Scarlet spent a moment in limbo, distrusting, unwilling to hope. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. He said that even the captain and the satellite girl were all right.”

Like a marionette released, she drooped over her knees. “Oh, thank the stars.”

They were alive. After nearly a month of subsisting on dogged stubbornness, finally Scarlet had a reason to hope. It was so sudden, so unexpected, she felt dizzy with euphoria.

“He also said to tell you,” Winter continued, “that Wolf misses you very much. Well, Jacin’s words were that he drove everyone rocket-mad with his pathetic whining about you. That’s sweet, don’t you think?”

Something cracked inside Scarlet. She hadn’t cried once since she’d come to Luna—aside from tears of pain and delirium when she was tortured, mentally and physically. But now all the fear and all the panic and all the horror welled up inside her and she couldn’t hold it back, couldn’t even think beyond the onslaught of sobs and messy tears.

They were alive. They were all alive.

She knew Cinder was still out there—word had spread even to the menagerie that she had infiltrated New Beijing Palace and kidnapped the emperor. Scarlet had felt smug for days when the gossip reached her, even if she didn’t have anything to do with the heist.

But no one mentioned accomplices. No one said anything about Wolf or Thorne or the satellite girl they’d been trying to rescue.

She swiped at her nose and pushed her greasy hair off her face. Winter was watching Scarlet’s show of emotion like one might watch a butterfly shucking its cocoon.

“Thank you,” said Scarlet, hiccuping back another sob. “Thank you for telling me.”

“Of course. You’re my friend.”

Scarlet rubbed her palm across her eyes and, for the first time, didn’t argue.

“And now for your treat.”

“I’m not hungry.” It was a lie, but she’d come to despise how much she relied on Winter’s charity.

“But it’s a sour apple petite. A Lunar delicacy that is—”

“One of your favorites, yeah, I know. But I’m not—”

“I think you should eat it.” The princess’s expression was innocent and meaningful all at once, in that peculiar way she had. “I think it will make you feel better,” she continued, pushing a box through the bars. She waited until Scarlet had taken it from her, then stood and made her way across the path to Ryu. She crouched to give the wolf a loving scratch behind his ears, then leaned over the rail and started gathering up his pile of sticks.

Scarlet lifted the lid of the box, revealing the red marble-like candy in its bed of spun sugar. Winter had brought her many treats since her imprisonment, most of them laced with painkillers. Though the pain from Scarlet’s finger, which had been chopped off during her interrogation with the queen, had faded to a distant memory, the candies still helped with the aches and pains of life in such cramped quarters.

But as she lifted the candy from the box, she saw something unexpected tucked beneath it. A handwritten message.

Patience, friend. They’re coming for you.

She closed the box fast before the security camera over her shoulder could see it, and shoved the candy into her mouth, heart thundering. She shut her eyes, hardly feeling the crack of the candy shell, hardly tasting the sweet-and-sour gooeyness inside.

“What you said at the trial,” said Winter, returning with a bundle of sticks in her arms and laying them down where Scarlet could reach them. “I hadn’t understood then, but I do now.”

Scarlet swallowed too quickly. The candy went down hard, bits of shell scratching her throat. She coughed, wishing the princess had brought some water too. “Which part? I was under a lot of duress, you might recall.”

“The part about Linh Cinder.”

Ah. The part about Cinder being the lost Princess Selene. The true queen of Luna.

“What about it?” she said, bristling with suspicion. Had Jacin said something about Cinder’s plans to reclaim her throne? And whose side was he on, if he spent weeks with her friends but had now returned to Levana?

Winter considered the question for a long time. “What is she like?”

Scarlet dug her tongue into her molars, thinking. What was Cinder like? She hadn’t known her for all that long. She was a brilliant mechanic. She seemed to be honorable and brave and determined to do what needed to be done … but Scarlet suspected she wasn’t always as confident as she tried to appear on the outside.

Also, she had a crush on Emperor Kai as big as Winter had on Jacin, although Cinder tried a lot harder to pretend otherwise.

But Scarlet didn’t think that answered Winter’s question. “She’s not like Levana, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

Winter exhaled, as if a fear had been released.

Ryu whined and rolled onto his back, missing their attention.

Winter grabbed a stick from the pile and tossed. The wolf scrambled back to his feet and raced after it.

“Your wolf friend,” Winter said. “Is he one of the queen’s?”

“Not anymore,” Scarlet spat. Wolf would never belong to the queen again. Not if she could help it.

“But he was, and now he has betrayed her.” The princess’s tone had gone dreamy, her eyes staring off into space even after Ryu returned and dropped the stick beside his bars, beginning a new pile. “From what I know of her soldiers, that should not be possible. At least, not while they are under the control of their thaumaturge.”

Suddenly warm, Scarlet unzipped her hoodie. It was filthy with dirt and sweat and blood, but wearing it still made her feel connected to Earth and the farm and her grandmother. It reminded her that she was human, despite being kept in a cage.

“Wolf’s thaumaturge is dead,” she said, “but Wolf fought against him even when he was alive.”

“Perhaps they made a mistake with him, when they altered his nervous system.”

“It wasn’t a mistake.” Scarlet smirked. “I know, they think they’re so clever, giving soldiers the instincts of wild wolves. The instincts to hunt and kill. But look at Ryu.” The wolf had lain down and was gnawing at the stick. “His instincts lean as much toward playing and loving. If he had a mate and cubs, then his instincts would be to protect them at all costs.” Scarlet twirled the cord of her hoodie around a finger. “That’s what Wolf did. He protected me.”

She grabbed another stick from the pile outside her cage. Ryu’s attention was piqued, but Scarlet only ran her fingers over the peeling bark. “I’m afraid I’ll never see him again.”

Winter reached through the bars and stroked Scarlet’s hair with her knuckles. Scarlet tensed, but didn’t pull away. Contact, any contact, was a gift.

“Do not worry,” said Winter. “The queen will not kill you so long as you are my pet. You will have a chance to tell your Wolf that you love him.”

Scarlet glowered. “I’m not your pet, just like Wolf isn’t Levana’s anymore.” This time, she did pull back, and Winter let her hand fall into her lap. “And it’s not that I love him. It’s just…”

She hesitated, and again Winter listed her head and peered at Scarlet with penetrating curiosity. It was unnerving, to think she was being psychoanalyzed by someone who frequently complained that the castle walls had started bleeding again.

“Wolf is all I have left,” Scarlet clarified. She threw the stick halfheartedly across the path. It landed within paw’s reach of Ryu and he simply stared at it, like it wasn’t worth the effort. Scarlet’s shoulders slumped. “I need him as much as he needs me. But that doesn’t make it love.”

Winter lowered her lashes. “Actually, dear friend, I suspect that is precisely what makes it love.”