Winter (The Lunar Chronicles 4)

Outside their confined closet, the voices grew louder. Something crashed against the floor.

Cinder tightened her gloved fists. “Wolf, Thorne, the second a thaumaturge sees either of you they’ll try to control you.” She licked her lips. “Do I have permission to take control of you first? Just your bodies, not your minds.”

“I’ve been waiting for you to admit you wanted my body,” said Thorne. He laid a hand on the gun at his waist. “Be my guest.”

Wolf looked less enthusiastic, but he gave her a sharp nod.

Cinder slipped her will into Thorne as easily as slicing through a block of tofu. Wolf’s energy was more chaotic, but she’d spent so much time training with him aboard the Rampion that his energy, too, offered little resistance. Cinder felt their limbs as if they were an extension of her own. Though she knew she was doing it for their own protection, keeping them from being turned into weapons for the enemy, she couldn’t help feeling like manipulating them was a betrayal of their trust. It was an unfair balance of power—their safety was now her responsibility.

She thought of Levana, forcing her guard to take a bullet for her at the royal ball, and wondered if she would ever make that same decision with one of her friends.

She hoped she would never have to.

A voice echoed in the nearby corridor: “Nothing in the engine room. You—split up. Search these corridors and report back.”

They were close, and if there was a thaumaturge, she knew it wouldn’t be long before he or she was near enough to detect the bioelectricity coming from this storage closet. She pictured the ship’s layout and tried to formulate a plan, but there was little hope now of slipping away without announcing their presence.

They would have to fight their way out of the ship. They would have to fight all the way to the maglev shuttles.

“Cinder,” Thorne whispered. His body was statue still, waiting for Cinder’s command. “Send me out there.”

Cress’s head snapped up, but he didn’t return the look.

Cinder frowned. “What?”

“Send me as a decoy, out the main ramp and away from the maglev doors. I’ll draw them off long enough for you to get out through the cargo bay.”

“Thorne…”

“Do it.” His eyes flashed. He still wouldn’t look at Cress. “We made it to Luna. You don’t need a pilot here, or a captain.”

Her pulse thundered. “You don’t have to—”

Outside someone called, “Press room is clear!”

“Stop wasting time,” Thorne said through his teeth. “I’ll lead them away and circle back to you.”

She knew he was being overconfident, but Cinder found herself nodding at the same time Cress started shaking her head.

“My control of you will be intermittent inside the ship, but if I can find you, I’ll reclaim you as soon as we’re all outside.” If they don’t claim you first, she thought, unwilling to speak it out loud. Controlling an Earthen like Thorne was easy, but wresting control away from a thaumaturge was significantly more difficult.

“Got it.” Thorne’s jaw tensed.

“Be careful,” Cress said, more a squeak than a whisper, and Thorne’s attention alighted on her for the briefest of moments …

Before Cinder kicked open the door and sent Thorne bolting into the corridor. He collided with the wall, but pushed himself off and careened to the left. His arms and legs pumped as he raced toward the main deck. It wasn’t long before he was out of her reach. Too much steel divided them. Cinder lost control, and Thorne was on his own.

Seconds after her grasp on him had snapped, they heard a crash. Thorne had broken something.

Cinder hoped it wasn’t some priceless Commonwealth artifact.

In the next chamber, a stampede of feet raced after him. When Cinder reached out with her thoughts, she couldn’t feel any bioelectricity other than Wolf’s. This side of the ship had been cleared.

She tipped her head into the corridor. No sign of anyone aboard. On the other side of the ship, she heard yelling.

Cinder ran in the opposite direction she’d sent Thorne. The others hurried after her—down two levels on a narrow, spiraling stairwell, through an industrial galley that made the kitchen on the Rampion feel like a child’s play set, and along a utilitarian corridor dividing the podship docks. They paused above the hatch that would drop them into the cargo bay. Cinder could still hear shuffling and the crank of machinery below, but she had no way of knowing if it was the Earthen workers unloading the cargo, or Lunars inspecting it.

Whoever it was, they didn’t have time to wait for them to leave.

Cinder loaded a bullet into her projectile finger. They’d found plenty of ammunition aboard the Rampion, but she couldn’t help wishing Kai had been able to procure more tranquilizer darts for her on Earth.

Too late. No time to think.

Wolf popped open the hatch and jumped down first. Cinder once again took control of his body, in case there were Lunars down there, but she had nothing to do with the growl or flash of teeth.

Cinder swung herself down beside him. The floor clanged as Iko dropped next, followed by the tentative thuds of Cress’s footsteps on the ladder.

Three figures that had been inspecting the crates swung around to face them. Cinder registered the uniforms of a black-coated thaumaturge and two Lunar guards at the same moment a gun fired.

Her left leg kicked out from under her, the shock wave vibrating up through her hip and into her spine. The bullet had hit her metal thigh.

Cress cried out and froze on the ladder, releasing the rungs only when Iko grabbed her and yanked her off. Cinder urged Wolf’s legs to move. They scurried behind a pallet loaded with Commonwealth merchandise just as another bullet pinged on the wall overhead. A third hit the crate, splintering the wood on the other side.

The firing stopped.

Cinder pressed her back to the crate, reorienting herself. She stretched out her thoughts, finding the Lunars’ bioelectricity sizzling in the room, but of course the guards were already under the thaumaturge’s control.

The ramp that would let them escape from the ship was on the opposite side of the cargo bay.

Eerie silence fell, leaving Cinder jumpy as she strained to listen for footsteps coming toward them. She expected the Lunars would try to surround them. Their weapons wouldn’t stay quiet for long.

Wolf’s limbs were still for once, and it occurred to Cinder that she was holding him so still. Only his expression was alive. Fierce, wild. He was her best weapon, but under her control he would be clunky and awkward—not half as brutal as he could be on his own. Their training aboard the Rampion had focused on stopping an enemy. Disarming them. Removing a threat.

She wished now they would have spent more time practicing how to turn people into weapons. It was a skill that Levana and her minions excelled at.

Wolf met her gaze, and a thought occurred to her. Cinder was controlling his body, but not his mind or his emotions. What if she changed tactics? She could still protect him from the thaumaturge’s power while allowing him to do what he did best.

“Get the thaumaturge,” she whispered, then released Wolf’s body and snatched at his thoughts instead. She fed him a vision of the first terrible thing that came to mind: the fight aboard the Rampion between them and Sybil Mira. The day Scarlet had been taken.