swung Kai over one shoulder.
If Cress hadn’t been panicked and flustered and running on eight quarts of throbbing adrenaline, she would have been much more impressed.
“Labs are this way,” Cinder said, taking the lead. Cress picked up her skirt and hurried after her. “Any surprises?”
“Not so far,” Cress answered. “You?”
Cinder shook her head as they darted across the sky bridge into the research wing. “Not really. Just a lot of … this.”
A palace guard appeared in front of them, gripping his gun. “Stop ri—!”
The word became a strangled gasp as his face went blank. His hands fell slack at his sides, the gun dropping to the floor.
Cress gasped, but Cinder pulled her around his dazed form without breaking pace.
“Wow,” said Cress between her panting. “Good thing you’ve been practicing, right?”
“I wish that were the reason it’s so easy,” she said, shaking her head as they rounded another corner. “With Wolf, at least there was some struggle. Some effort involved. But with Earthens … it’s too easy.” She gulped. “If she becomes empress, Earth doesn’t stand a chance.”
They arrived at an elevator bank and Cress punched in the override code.
“Well then,” she said, flashing a weary smile. “Good thing she’s not going to be empress.”
There seemed to be a mutual sigh as they crowded into the elevator. Cress’s nerves were sparking like a million electrodes. Sweat was soaking into the back of her expensive dress. She was frazzled from all the running and the stairs and the panic, but at least they had a brief moment to pause and breathe and prepare themselves for what came next. Cress couldn’t help sneaking a curious glance at the man draped over Wolf’s shoulder. The emperor.
Of all the times she’d imagined meeting him, after years of spying on him and his father, she’d never imagined their first meeting would be quite like this.
Wolf stiffened as the elevator began to slow. “There’s a lot of them out there.”
“We knew there would be,” said Cinder. “Thorne and the doctor had better be ready.”
Cress shifted back, happy to keep Cinder and Wolf between her and whatever awaited them in the hall.
Iko bent toward her. “That dress looks amazing on you,” she said. “Cinder, doesn’t she look amazing?”
Cinder sighed as the elevator came to a full stop. “Iko, after this we’re going to start working on occasion appropriateness.”
The doors slid open and dozens of palace guards in red and gold uniforms stood before them.
“And not an android among them,” Cinder muttered. “Kai and I are going to have a long talk about palace security.” She marched into the corridor. “You,” she ordered, without gesturing to anyone in particular as far as Cress could tell, “are now our personal guard. Form a barrier.”
Eight guards shuffled forward and, in robotic unison, formed a wall between them and their peers. Confusion flashed through the eyes of the others.
Cinder held her palm out and one of the guards set a gun into it, handle first.
She aimed it at Kai’s head, her expression the picture of cold neutrality. “If anyone thinks of getting in our way, your emperor is dead. Now, move.”
With their eight personal guards acting as a protective bubble around them, Cress found herself being herded along with the others toward the lab rooms. When they reached the sixth door, Cinder knocked, using the special rhythm they’d devised.
The door swung open a beat later. Thorne was flushed and scowling. He had his cane in one hand, a cloth bundle in the other, and his blindfold still on.
“Doctor’s not coming,” he said.
A hesitation, before Cinder said, “What do you mean he’s not coming?”
He gestured toward the back of the lab and they all pushed inside, leaving Cinder’s brainwashed puppets to linger, baffled, in the hallway. A window was set into the wall, showing a sterile quarantine room. The doctor was seated on top of a lab table, his head hanging down, his fingers fidgeting with his hat.
With a growl, Cinder marched up to the window and pounded on it with her fist.
The doctor lifted his head, messy gray hair sticking out in all directions.
Grabbing a microphone from the desk, Cinder pushed a button and screamed, “We don’t have time for this! Get out here.”
The doctor only smiled, sadly.
“Cinder,” said Thorne, his tone heavy in a way Cress had rarely heard. “He has the plague.”
Cress’s stomach dropped, as Cinder reeled back from the window.
The doctor smoothed down his hair. “Has everyone made it back safely?” he asked, his voice coming through some speaker