The town came into focus beneath them and Thorne made a too-fast descent. Jolting, Cinder grabbed for the harness around her waist.
Thorne straightened the ship and coughed. “There was a gust of wind.”
“Sure there was.” She let her head fall against the rest.
“You’re extra gloomy today,” Thorne said, nicking her chin. “Cheer up. We may not have found Michelle Benoit, but now we know for sure that she housed the princess. This is good. This is progress.”
“We found a ransacked house and were identified by the first civilian who spotted us.”
“Yeah, because we’re famous.” He sang the word with a certain measure of pride. When Cinder rolled her eyes, he nudged her in the arm. “Oh, come on, it could be worse.”
She quirked an eyebrow at him and his grin broadened.
“At least we have each other.” He held out his arms, like he would have given her a huge hug if they hadn’t been strapped into their seats. The nose of the ship tipped to the right and he quickly grasped the controls again, leveling it out just in time to dodge a flock of pigeons.
Cinder covered a laugh with her metal hand.
It wasn’t until Thorne had landed, crookedly, on a cobblestoned side street that Cinder began to realize what a bad idea this was. But they didn’t have a choice—they needed a new power cell if they wanted to get the Rampion back into space.
“People are going to see us,” she said, glancing around as she emerged from the podship. The street was empty, serenely overshadowed by centuries-old stone buildings and silver-leafed maples. But the tranquility did nothing to quell her nerves.
“And you are going to pull your very handy brainwashing magic on all of them and they won’t even know they’re seeing us. Well, I mean, I guess they’ll still see us, they just won’t recognize us. Or, hey, can you make us invisible? Because that would come in handy.”
Cinder stuffed her hands into her pockets. “I don’t know if I’m ready to trick a whole town. Besides, I don’t like doing it. It makes me feel … evil.”
She knew if her internal lie detector could see her, it would have recognized a lie. It felt all too right, and maybe that’s what felt so horrendously wrong about it.
Blue eyes twinkling, Thorne hooked his thumbs behind his belt. He looked slightly ridiculous in his fancy leather jacket in this quaint rural town, and yet he had the swagger of a man who belonged there. Who belonged anywhere he wished to. “You might be a crazy Lunar, but you’re not evil. As long as you’re using your glamour to help people, and more important, to help me, then there’s nothing to feel guilty about.” He stopped to check his hair in the dirty window of a shoe store while Cinder gawked after him.
“I hope that wasn’t your idea of a pep talk.”
Smirking, he jerked his head toward the next store. “Here we are,” he said, pushing open a creaking wooden door.
The hollow sound of digital bells greeted them, meshed with the smell of engine grease and burnt rubber. Cinder sucked in the scent of home. Mechanics. Machinery. This is where she belonged.
Though the shop had seemed prettily charming from outside, with its stone facade and aged wooden windowsills, she could see now that it was enormous, stretching back the length of the town block. Near the front, towering metal shelves held replacement parts for androids and screens. Toward the back, Cinder could make out parts for the bigger machines: hovers and tractors and ships.
“Perfect,” she muttered, heading toward the back wall.
They passed a young, acne-faced clerk sitting behind a worktable, and though Cinder instantly called up her glamour, disguising her and Thorne as the first thing that came to mind—dirty, grungy farmhands—she doubted the ploy was necessary. The boy didn’t even bother with a polite nod, his attention fixed on a portscreen that emanated the upbeat tune of a game app.
Cinder rounded the aisle of power converters and spotted a boulder of a man leaning against an engine lift, the only other customer in the store. His attention was focused on picking at his nails instead of browsing the shelves, and when he met Cinder’s gaze it was with a taunting smirk.
Shoving her metal hand into her pocket, Cinder found the vibrations of his thoughts in the air and twisted them away. You are not interested in us.
But his smile only widened, sending a chill down her back.
When he turned away a moment later, Cinder crept into the aisle, her attention divided between maintaining the glamour and scouring the mishmashed parts until she found the power cell they’d come for. She snatched it off the shelf, gasping at its weight, and hurried back toward the front.
Thorne exhaled as soon as they were out of the stranger’s sight. “He scared me.”
Cinder nodded. “You should go start the podship, in case we need to make a quick getaway.” She dropped the power cell onto the clerk’s desk with a thunk.
The clerk didn’t bother to look up, one hand still playing the game single-thumbed while the other held the scanner out to Cinder. The red laser flickered across the counter.
Dread settled in Cinder’s stomach. “Um.”
The kid managed to pull his attention away from the game and gave her an irritated glare.