Scarlet (The Lunar Chronicles #2) - Marissa Meyer Page 0,85

knowing the secret her grandma had so long harbored. “They told me about Logan Tanner. How they think he brought Selene to Earth, and how he may have sought out your help. They told me they think he’s my … my grandfather.”

The wrinkles on her grandma’s forehead deepened and she cast a concerned look at the wall behind Scarlet, toward the other balcony, before drawing her attention back. “Scarlet. My love.” Her expression was gentle, but she didn’t continue.

Scarlet gulped, wondering if, after all these years, her grandma couldn’t stand to dig up the past. The romance that had been so brief, but had been clinging to her for so long.

Did she even know that Logan Tanner was dead?

“Grand-mère, I remember the man that came to the house. The man from the Eastern Commonwealth.”

Her grandma tilted her head up, patient.

“I thought he was coming to take me away, but he wasn’t, was he? You two were talking about the princess.”

“Very good, Scarlet, dear.”

“Why don’t you just tell them his name? You must remember what it was, and then they could go to him. Won’t he know where the princess is?”

“They no longer want to know about the princess.”

She bit down on her lip. Frustration welled up inside her. She was shaking. “Then why don’t they let us go?”

Her grandma squeezed Scarlet’s fingers. Years of pulling weeds and chopping vegetables had made them strong, despite their age. “They can’t control me, Scarlet.”

She scrutinized her grandma’s lined face. “What do you mean?”

“They’re Lunar. The thaumaturge—he has the Lunar gift. But it doesn’t work on me. That’s why they’re keeping me here. They want to know why.”

Scarlet grasped for figments in her mind. All those bits and pieces she’d learned about Lunars—impossible ever to tell which were true and which were exaggerated tales. It was believed that their queen ruled through mind control, and that her thaumaturges were almost as strong as she was. That they could manipulate people’s thoughts and emotions. That they could even control people’s bodies if they chose, like puppets on strings.

Scarlet gulped. “Are there a lot of people who can’t be … controlled?”

“Very few. Some Lunars are born that way. They call them shells. But they’ve never known of an Earthen who could resist before. I’m the first.”

“How? Is it genetic?” She hesitated. “Can I be controlled?”

“Oh yes, dear. Whatever makes me like this, you do not have it. They’ll use that against us, mark my words. I imagine they’ll want to experiment on us both as they attempt to find out where this abnormality comes from. Whether or not they should be worried about other Earthens being able to resist them as well.” In the darkness, her grandmother’s jaw hardened. “It must not be hereditary. Your father was weak also.”

Scarlet was lost in warm brown eyes that had always been soothing, and yet struck her as harsh now in the darkness of the theater. Something gnawed at the back of her thoughts. The faintest suspicion.

Her father was weak. Weak for women. Weak for booze. A weak father, a weak man.

But her grandmother had never suggested she could think the same of Scarlet. You’ll be fine, she always said, after a skinned knee, after a broken arm, after her first youthful heartbreak. You’ll be fine because you’re strong, like me.

Heart thumping, Scarlet lowered her gaze to their intertwined fingers. Her grandmother’s very wrinkled, very frail, very soft hands.

Her chest constricted.

Lunars could manipulate people’s thoughts and emotions. Manipulate the way they experienced the very world around them.

Gulping, Scarlet pulled away. Her grandma’s fingers clenched in a brief effort to restrict her, but then let go.

Scarlet staggered out of her seat and backed against the rail, staring at her grandmother. The familiar unkempt hair in its always crooked braid. The familiar eyes, growing colder as they peered up at her. Growing wider.

She blinked rapidly against the hallucination, and her grandmother’s hands grew larger.

Repulsion ripped through Scarlet. She gripped the railing to hold herself steady.

“Who are you?”

The door at the back of the balcony opened, but instead of her guard, Scarlet saw the thaumaturge’s silhouette in the hallway. “Very well, Omega. We have learned as much as we can from her.”

Scarlet faced her grandmother again. A startled cry was wrenched out of her.

Her grandmother was gone, replaced by Wolf’s brother. Omega Ran Kesley sat staring up at her, perfectly at ease. He wore the same shirt she’d seen him in last, wrinkled and flecked with dried mud. “Hello, dear. How nice