“Garan’s death wasn’t my fault.” She turned her head away, angry white spots flecking in her vision.
“Fine,” said Adri, her voice losing none of its superiority. “So you’ve returned. Welcome home, Cinder. But so long as you continue to live in my home, you will continue to obey my orders. Do you understand?”
Cinder planted her cyborg hand against the wall, fingers splayed out, grounding herself. “Obey your orders. Right. Like, ‘Do the chores, Cinder. Get a job so I can pay my bills, Cinder. Go play lab rat for these deranged scientists, Cinder.’ Yes, I understand you perfectly.” She glanced back over her shoulder, but Iko had ducked back into the kitchen. “As I’m sure you will understand that I just lost half a day of perfectly good work hours, and I’d better borrow your Serv9.2 to get caught up. You don’t mind, do you?” Without waiting for a response, she stormed back to her closet of a bedroom and slammed the door behind her.
She stood with her back against the door until the warning text on her retina had gone away and her hands stopped shaking. When she opened her eyes, she found that the old netscreen, the one Adri had shoved off the wall, had been heaped on the pile of blankets she called a bed. Bits of plastic had spilled over onto her pillow.
She hadn’t noticed if Adri had already bought them a new one or if the living room wall was empty.
Sighing, she changed her clothes, eager to be rid of the smell of antiseptic that lingered on them. She shoved the spare plastic pieces into her toolbox and tucked the screen beneath one arm before venturing back out into the apartment. Iko hadn’t moved, half-hidden in the kitchen doorway. Cinder cocked her head toward the front of the apartment, and the android followed.
She did not look into the living room as she passed, but she thought she heard the strangled sound of Prince Kai dying from Pearl’s game.
They had barely stepped out into the main corridor—fairly quiet for once with the neighbor children off at school—when Iko wrapped her gangly arms around Cinder’s legs. “How is this possible? I was sure you’d be killed. What happened?”
Cinder handed the toolbox to the robot and headed for the elevators. “I’ll tell you everything, but we have work to do.” She waited until they were alone and on their way to the basement before filling Iko in on all that had happened, leaving out only the part about Prince Kai coming in and finding her unconscious on the floor.
“You mean you have to go back?” said Iko as they stepped out into the basement.
“Yes, but it’s fine. The doctor said I’m not in any danger now. Plus, they’re going to pay me, and Adri won’t know about it.”
“How much?”
“I’m not sure, but a lot, I think.”
Iko grabbed Cinder’s wrist just as Cinder opened the chicken wire door to her workroom. “You realize what this means?”
Cinder held the door open with her foot. “Which part?”
“It means you can afford a pretty dress—prettier than Pearl’s! You can go to the ball, and Adri won’t be able to say anything to stop you!”
Cinder pressed her lips together like she’d just bitten a lemon and pulled her wrist from Iko’s grip. “Really, Iko?” she said, examining her mess of tools and spare parts. “You really think Adri’s going to let me go now just because I can buy my own dress? She would probably tear it off me and try to resell the buttons.”
“Well—fine, we won’t tell her about the dress or about going to the ball. You don’t have to go with them. You’re better than them. You’re valuable.” Iko’s fan was whirring like mad as if her processor could barely keep up with all these revelations. “Immune to letumosis. My stars, you could be a celebrity because of this!”
Cinder ignored her, stooping to prop the netscreen against the shelving unit. Her gaze had landed on a pile of silver fabric crumpled in the far corner, barely shimmering in the dusty light. “What’s that?”
Iko’s fan calmed to a slow hum. “Peony’s ball gown. I…I couldn’t bring myself to throw it away. I didn’t think anyone would ever come down here again, what with you…so I just thought I’d keep it. For myself.”
“That was bad, Iko. It could have been infected.” Cinder hesitated only for a moment before walking to the dress and picking it up by the pearl-dotted sleeves. It was smudged with dirt and covered in wrinkles, and there was a chance it had been exposed to letumosis, but the doctor had said the disease wouldn’t survive long on clothing.
Besides, nobody was ever going to wear it now.
She draped the gown over the welder and turned away. “We’re not using this money on a dress,” she said. “We’re still not going to the ball.”
“Why not?” Iko said, a distinct whine in her robotic voice.
Approaching her desk, Cinder swung her leg up and started unloading the stashed tools from her calf. “You remember that car we saw at the junkyard? The old gasoline one?”
Iko’s speakers made a coarse grumbling noise, the closest she could get to a groan. “What about it?”
“It’s going to take all our time and money to fix it up.”
“No. Cinder! Tell me you’re joking.”
Cinder was recording a mental list as she shut the storage compartment and rolled down her pant leg. The words scrolled across her vision. GET CAR. ASSESS CONDITION. FIND PARTS. DOWNLOAD WIRING BLUEPRINT. ORDER GASOLINE.
She spotted Kai’s android on her worktable. fix android. “I am serious.”