Cress (The Lunar Chronicles #3) - Marissa Meyer Page 0,168

sneered. “I remember two people trying to kill me and my friends.”

“Yes, and Jacin was one of them,” she said, evidently unconcerned with the whole killing part of Scarlet’s statement.

“I guess so. There was a blond guard.”

Glee spread over the girl’s face. The look had the power to stop hearts and brighten rooms.

But not to Scarlet.

“And how did he look?”

“He looked like he was trying to kill me. But I’m sure my friends killed him first. That’s usually what we do to people who work for your queen.”

The smile vanished and the girl shriveled away, tying her arms around her waist. “You don’t mean that.”

“I do. And believe me, he deserved it.”

The girl was beginning to shake now, like she was on the verge of hyperventilating.

Scarlet decided without much guilt that if that happened, she wouldn’t do a thing about it. She wouldn’t try to help her. She wouldn’t call for the guard.

This stranger was no friend.

Across the aisle, the wolf had climbed onto all fours and was pawing at the base of his enclosure. He began to whimper.

After a few moments, the girl managed to get herself under control. Sliding the lid back onto the candies, she settled them into her basket and stood, hunching in the small cage.

“I see,” she said. “That will conclude this visit. I prescribe adequate rest and—” She sobbed and turned away, but paused before she could call for the guard. Slowly, stiffly, she turned back. “I wasn’t lying about the walls that bleed. Someday soon, I fear the palace will be soaked through with blood and all of Artemisia Lake will be so red, even the Earthens will be able to see it.”

“I’m not interested in your delusions.” A sharp, unexpected pain shot up through the arm that Scarlet was using to support herself and she crumpled to the ground, waiting for the pinpricks of pain to fade. She glared up at the girl, angry at how weak and vulnerable she was. Angry at the flash of concern in the girl’s eyes that seemed so honest. She snarled up at her. “And I don’t care for your mock sympathy, either. Your glamour. Your mind control. You people have built your entire culture on lies, and I want nothing to do with it.”

The girl stared at her for so long, Scarlet began to wish she hadn’t said anything. But keeping her mouth shut had never been a great talent of hers.

Then, finally, the girl tapped her knuckles against the bars. As the guard’s footsteps patted down the pathway, she reached into the basket and retrieved the box again. She set it down at Scarlet’s side, tucking it beside her so the guard wouldn’t see.

“I haven’t used my glamour since I was twelve years old,” she whispered, gaze piercing as if it were very important to her that Scarlet understand this. “Not since I was old enough to control it. That’s why the visions come to me. That’s why I’m going mad.”

Behind her, the bolts of the cage door clunked open.

“Your Highness.”

She swiveled on her toes and ducked out of the cage, her head lowered so that her thick hair hid both her beauty and her scars.

Your Highness.

Stunned, Scarlet lay on the ground until her tongue began to turn to chalk from thirst. As far as she knew, there was only one Lunar princess. Other than Cinder, of course.

Princess Winter, the queen’s stepdaughter.

The unspeakable beauty. The scars that, according to rumor, had been inflicted by the queen herself.

When she glanced back toward the wolf’s cage, Ryu had wandered away, toward the back of his enclosure. He had been given much more space to prowl than Scarlet, perhaps a quarter of an acre of dirt and grass, trees, and a fake fallen log that formed a quaint little den.

Sighing, Scarlet looked back up at the glass ceiling, where she could see black sky and countless stars between the tree branches. Her stomach panged, a reminder that her one small meal had been devoured hours ago, and unlike Ryu and the white stag that lived in an enclosure farther down the aisle and the albino peacock that sometimes wandered freely between them, Scarlet wouldn’t get another meal until tomorrow.

It took a long time of battling with her weakened willpower, feeling the weight of the candies beside her. She had no reason to trust that girl. She didn’t trust that girl. But after her stomach had begun to ache from hollowness and her head to spin with hunger,