Winter

Seventy

Cress was relieved to find that she and Thorne were not the only crazily clothed guests milling around the palace gates hours before the royal coronation. The entire city had come to partake in the festivities, as if Artemisians had nothing at all to fear from a possible insurgence or the crazed claims of a cyborg girl.

The palace’s main entrance was surrounded by an imposing wall topped with sharp finials. The main gate was open, revealing a lush courtyard. The walkway was lined with an assortment of sculptures depicting mythical beasts and half-dressed moon gods and goddesses.

No one gave Cress or Thorne a second glance as they strolled through the open gates, joining the crowd of gathered aristocrats who were drinking from jeweled flasks and promenading between the statues. Between Cress’s frilly orange skirt and Thorne’s light-up bow tie, they fit right in.

Trying to avoid eye contact with the other guests, Cress let her gaze travel up the gilded arched doors of the palace. Like the gates, they were swung wide open, inviting the queen’s guests to enter, although palace guards did stand on either side.

Her heart hammered.

It felt like she and Jacin had only just escaped.

She had been inside the palace a handful of times in her youth to perform different programming tasks for Sybil. She had been so eager to please back then. Can you track the arrivals and departures between Sectors TS-5 and GM-2? Can you create a program that will alert us to specific phrases picked up from the recorders in the holograph nodes? Can you track the ships that come and go from the ports and ensure their destinations match the itineraries in our files?

With each success, Cress had grown more confident. I think so. I will try. Yes, Mistress, I can do that.

That had been back when Cress still harbored hopes of one day being welcome here, before her imprisonment aboard the satellite. She should have known better when Sybil refused to ever bring her through this breathtaking main entrance, instead smuggling her in through the underground tunnels as something shameful and secret.

At least this time she was entering the palace beside an ally and a friend. If there was anyone in the galaxy she trusted, it was Thorne.

As if hearing her thoughts, Thorne pressed a hand against her lower back.

“Pretend you belong here,” he murmured against her ear, “and everyone else will believe it.”

Pretend you belong here.

She let out a slow breath and tried to mimic Thorne’s swagger. Pretending. She was good at pretending.

Today, she was Lunar aristocracy. She was a guest of Her Royal Majesty. She was on the arm of the most handsome man she had ever known—a man who didn’t even have to use a glamour. But most important …

“I am a criminal mastermind,” she murmured, “and I’m here to take down this regime.”

Thorne grinned at her. “That’s my line.”

“I know,” she said. “I stole it.”

Thorne chuckled and strategically placed them behind a group of Lunars, close enough that they would appear part of the group, and they glided up the white stone stairs. The doors loomed larger and larger as they stepped into the palace’s shadow. The chatter of the courtyard was replaced with the echo of stone floors and the resounding laughter of people with nothing to fear.

She and Thorne were inside the palace. As far as she could tell, the guards hadn’t even looked at them.

Cress released her breath, but it snagged again as she took in the extravagance.

More aristocrats loitered in droves in the grand entrance, picking at trays of food that floated in the basins of crystal-blue pools. Everywhere were gilded columns and marble statues and flower arrangements that stood twice as tall as she was. Most breathtaking of all was a statue at the center of the hall depicting the ancient moon goddess, Artemis. It towered three stories tall and showed the goddess wearing a thorny crown atop her head and holding an arched bow, the arrow pointing toward the sky.

“Good day,” said a man, stepping forward to greet them. Thorne’s fingers dug into Cress’s back.

The man wore the uniform of a high-ranking servant, though his dreadlocked hair was dyed in variegated green—pale foam green at the roots and deep emerald at the tips. Though Cress was on guard, waiting for suspicion or disgust, the man’s face was pure joviality. Perhaps servants, like the guards, were chosen for having little talent with their gift, and he wasn’t able to sense that Cress was nothing but a shell.

She could hope.

“We are glad you have come to enjoy the festivities on this most celebrated day,” the man said. “Please enjoy the comforts our generous queen has laid out for her guests.” He gestured to his left. “In this wing you are free to enjoy our menagerie, full of exotic albino animals, or listen to an assortment of musical performances that will be taking place in our grand theater throughout the day.” He lifted his right arm. “This way there is an assortment of game rooms should you care to test the providence of luck, as well as our renowned companionship rooms—not that the gentleman is in need of further companionship. Of course, a variety of refreshments are available throughout the palace. The coronation ceremony will begin at sunrise and we ask that all guests begin to make their way to the great hall at half before. For the safety of all our guests, there will be no continued access to the corridors once the coronation has begun. If you require anything to make your day more pleasurable, please let me or another courtier know.”

With a tilt of his head, he walked off to welcome another guest.

“What do you suppose he meant by ‘companionship rooms’?” Thorne asked.

When Cress shot him a glare, he stood straighter and ran a finger in between his throat and his shirt collar. “Not that I’m tempted to … or … this way, right?”

“You two seem lost,” someone purred.

Thorne spun around, tucking Cress behind him as he did. A man and a woman were standing not far away, eyeing Thorne as if he were on display in a candy shop window. Both of them wore rhinestone-studded suits.

The man dropped a pair of thick-framed glasses to the end of his nose, letting his gaze swoop over Thorne from head to foot and back up. “Maybe we can help you find your way?”

Thorne was quick to draw on his signature grin. “Flattered, ladies,” he purred right back.

Cress frowned, but then, realizing the man must have glamoured himself as a woman, schooled her face into indifference. She couldn’t let on to anyone that she wasn’t affected by mind control.

“We’re on something of a covert mission right now,” Thorne was saying, “but we’ll keep our eye out for you at the coronation.”

“Ooh, a covert mission,” swooned the woman, chewing on her pinkie nail. “I will want to hear that story later.”

Thorne winked. “I will want to tell it.” Wrapping an arm around Cress’s shoulders, he led her away from the couple. When they had gone far enough that he was sure they wouldn’t be overheard, Thorne let out a low whistle. “Holy spades. The women in this place.”

Cress bristled. “You mean, the glamours in this place. One of them was a man.”

Stumbling, Thorne looked down at her. “You don’t say. Which one?”

“Um … the one wearing glasses?”

He glanced back over his shoulder, scanning the crowd for the couple. “Well played, Lunars,” he murmured, duly impressed. He faced forward again. “Jacin said to take the third hallway, right?” He tugged her toward a curving hall, where floor-to-ceiling windows offered a breathtaking view of the front gardens.

“Try to keep in mind that they can make themselves look however they want to,” said Cress. “No one in this palace is as beautiful as you think they are. It’s all just mind control.”

Thorne grinned and squeezed her closer against his side. “I’m fairly certain there’s at least one exception to that rule.”

Cress rolled her eyes. “Yeah. Thaumaturges.”

He laughed and dropped his arm, though she wasn’t sure what was funny.

They passed by a group of young men, and Cress watched, baffled, as they stumbled across the hallway. One of them shoved open a glass door and headed toward the lakeshore and expansive gardens. He nearly tumbled off the staircase that led down to the sprawling lawn.

Shaking her head, Cress faced forward again—and realized she was alone.

Every muscle tensed as she swiveled around, relieved to spot Thorne a few paces away. Not relieved to see he’d been accosted by another girl who was quite pretty even to Cress’s untrickable eyes. She was smiling at Thorne through her long lashes in a way that was both sultry and vicious.

For his part, Thorne just looked surprised.

“I thought I sensed an Earthen boy,” said the girl. Reaching up, she traced the glowing lights on Thorne’s bow tie, then trailed her finger down his chest. “And a well-dressed one at that. What a lucky find.”

Pulse thumping, Cress surveyed the corridor. The crowd was beginning to trickle toward the great hall, but plenty of guests were still fluttering around one another in no apparent hurry. No one was paying them any attention. This woman, too, seemed to have eyes only for Thorne. Cress racked her brain for some way to get him away from her without raising suspicion or drawing attention to herself.

Then the woman wrapped her arms around Thorne’s neck and every thought flew out of Cress’s head. Dumbfounded, Thorne offered no resistance as she pulled him into a kiss.