As New Beijing came into view, Cinder sent the newsfeeds away. The buildings at the city’s center were grand and imposing, like willowy sculptures of chrome and glass reaching toward the sky. Cinder was caught off guard by the sudden ache that hit her—homesickness. A homesickness she’d been too busy to recognize until that moment.
The palace stood regally beneath the morning sun, high on its watchful cliff, but they veered away from it. Jacin followed Cinder’s directions toward downtown, eventually mixing with clusters of hovers and, she was glad to see, multiple podships as well. Cinder’s stop was first, two blocks away from the Phoenix Tower Apartments.
She took in a deep breath as she disembarked. Though autumn would be sweeping in fast over the next few weeks, New Beijing was still in summer’s grip, and the day was starting off cloudless and warm. The temperature was just a click above comfortable, but not stifling with humidity as it had been the last time Cinder was in the city.
“If you don’t see me at the checkpoint in ten minutes,” she said, “loop the block a few times and come back.”
Jacin nodded without looking at her.
“If you get the chance,” said Iko, “give Adri a big kick in the rump for me. With the metal foot.”
Cinder laughed, though the sound was awkward. Then they were gone, leaving her alone on a street she’d walked a thousand times.
She’d already called up her glamour, but it was difficult to focus, so she kept her head down anyway as she made her way to the apartments she had once called home.
It was strange to be alone, after weeks of being surrounded by friends and allies, but she was glad that no one else was joining her for this stage of the plan. It seemed weirdly important to distance herself from the girl she’d been when she lived in this apartment, and the idea of her new friends meeting her ex-stepfamily made her cringe.
Her shirt was already sticking to her back as she approached the apartment’s main entrance. She waited until another resident came through, unlocking the doors with their embedded ID chip, and slipped in behind them. A familiar dread settled over her as she crossed the small lobby, a feeling that had once seemed normal. But this time, she also felt a sense of purpose as she entered the elevator. She was no longer the unwanted cyborg orphan who did as she was told and skittered off to her basement workroom to avoid Adri’s bitter glares.
She was free. She was in control. She didn’t belong to Adri anymore.
For perhaps the first time, she stepped out of the elevator with her head high.
The hallway was empty except for a mangy gray cat cleaning himself.
Cinder came to apartment 1820, squared her shoulders, and knocked.
Footsteps padded on the other side of the door, and she focused on her glamour. Cinder had chosen to take on the appearance of one of the officials she’d seen standing behind Kai at the last press conference. Middle-aged, slightly pudgy, with gray-flecked black hair and a too-small-for-her-face nose. She mimicked her exactly, down to the blue-gray business suit and sensible tan shoes.
The door opened and a cloud of stale hot air swept into the hallway.
Adri stood before her, tying the belt around her silk bathrobe. She almost always wore her bathrobe when she was at home, but this was not the same one Cinder was familiar with. Her hair was pulled back, and she wasn’t yet wearing any makeup. There was a fine sheen of sweat on her face.
Cinder expected her body to recoil under her stepmother’s inspection, but it didn’t. Rather, as she looked at Adri, she felt only a detached coldness.
This was just a woman with an invitation to the royal wedding. This was just another task to cross off the list.
“Yes?” said Adri, skeptical gaze swooping over her.
Cinder-the-Palace-Official bowed. “Good morning. Is Linh Adri-jiĕ at home?”
“I am Linh Adri.”
“A pleasure. I apologize for disturbing you at such an early hour,” said Cinder, launching into her practiced speech. “I am a member of the royal wedding planning committee, and I understand you were promised two invitations to the nuptials between His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Kaito, and Her Lunar Majesty, Queen Levana. As you are one of our distinguished civilian guests, I am honored to personally deliver your invitations for tonight’s ceremony.”
She held out two pieces of paper—in reality, disposable napkin scraps, but to Adri’s eye, two finely crafted, hand-pressed paper envelopes.
At least, she hoped that’s what Adri was seeing. The closest Cinder had yet to come to changing the perception of an inanimate object was her own prosthetic hand, and she wasn’t sure if that counted.
Adri frowned at the napkins, but it quickly turned into a patient smile. No doubt because she now believed she was talking to someone from the palace. “There must be some mistake,” she said. “We received our invitations last week.”
Cinder feigned surprise and withdrew the napkins. “How peculiar. Would you mind if I took a look at those invitations? So I can make sure some mishap hasn’t occurred?”
Adri’s grin tightened, but she stepped aside and ushered Cinder into the apartment. “Of course, please come in. Can I offer you some tea?”
“Thank you, no. We’ll just clear up this confusion and I won’t intrude anymore on your time.” She followed Adri into the living room.
“I must apologize for the heat,” said Adri, grabbing a fan off a small side table and flicking it before her face. “The air has been broken for a week now and the maintenance here is completely incompetent. I used to have a servant to assist with these things, a cyborg ward my husband took in, but—well. It doesn’t matter now. Good riddance.”
Cinder bristled. Servant? But she ignored the comment as her gaze traveled over the room. It hadn’t changed much, with the exception of the items displayed on the mantel of the holographic fireplace. Belongings that had held such prominent position before—Linh Garan’s award plaques and alternating digital photos of Pearl and Peony—had been crammed together at the mantel’s far edge. Now, at its center, stood a beautiful porcelain jar, painted with pink and white peonies and set atop a carved mahogany base.
Cinder sucked in a breath.
Not a jar. An urn. A cremation urn.
Her mouth went dry. She heard Adri padding across the living room, but her focus was pinned to that urn, and what—who—would be inside it.
Of their own accord, her feet began to move toward the mantel and Peony’s remains. Her funeral had come and gone and Cinder had not been there. Adri and Pearl had wept. Had no doubt invited every person from Peony’s classes, every person from this apartment building, every distant relative who had barely known her, who had probably griped about having to send the expected sympathy card and flowers.
But Cinder hadn’t been there.
“My daughter,” said Adri.
Cinder gasped and pulled away. She hadn’t realized that her fingers were brushing against a painted flower until Adri had spoken.
“Gone only recently, of letumosis,” Adri continued, as if Cinder had asked. “She was only fourteen.” There was sadness in her voice, true sadness. It was perhaps the one thing they had ever had in common.
“I’m sorry,” Cinder whispered, grateful that in her distraction, some instinct had maintained her glamour. She forced herself to focus before her eyes started trying to make tears. They would fail—she was incapable of crying—but the effort sometimes gave her a headache that wouldn’t go away for hours, and now was not the time for mourning. She had a wedding to stop.
“Do you have children?” Adri asked.
“Er … no. I don’t,” said Cinder, having no idea if the palace official she was impersonating did or not.
“I have one other daughter—seventeen years old. It was not very long ago that all I could think of was finding her a nice, wealthy husband. Daughters are expensive, you know, and a mother wants to give them everything. But now, I can’t stand the thought of her leaving me too.” She sighed and tore her gaze away from the urn. “But listen to me, carrying on, when you must have so many other places to be today. Here are the invitations we received.”