Winter (The Lunar Chronicles 4)

Kai averted his eyes while the guard pressed a code into a screen and scanned his fingerprints, then twisted the unlock mechanism.

The door, when it opened, was as thick as the guard’s skull.

The vault was lined with velvet and spotlights that shined on empty pedestals. Most of the crowns and orbs and scepters that usually lived there were already down in the great hall.

But it wasn’t empty, either.

Kai took in a deep breath and started pacing around the vault. He inspected every ring, scabbard, coronet, and cuff, all the pieces the Lunar crown had collected over the years to be used in a variety of ceremonies. Most of them, Kai knew, had been gifts from Earth a long, long time ago. A show of goodwill, before the relationship between Earth and Luna had been severed.

He heard a padded footstep outside the vault door but he dared not look up. “Here!” he yelled, turning his back on the guard, his heart lodged in his throat, as he imagined Cress scurrying past the door. He pulled the medallion from his pocket, the one Iko had given him aboard the Rampion, what felt like ages ago. He rubbed his thumb over the tarnished insignia and the faded words. The American Republic 86th Space Regiment. “Found it,” he said, holding the medallion up so the guard could see he was holding something without getting a very good look at it. Cress was gone, and Kai wasn’t faking his relief as he said, “Whew. Great. We couldn’t have done the coronation without it. Her Majesty will be thrilled. I’ll see if we can’t get you a promotion, all right?” He slapped the guard on the arm. “I guess that’s it, then. Thanks for your help. I’d better hurry back.”

The guard grunted, and Kai knew he was anything but convinced, but it didn’t matter.

When he and the guard stepped back into the corridor, Cress had already disappeared.

*   *   *

Cress hurried around the first corner and pressed her back against the wall, her heart in her throat. She waited until she heard the guard shutting the vault door, then she started to run, hoping the noise of the vault’s locking mechanism would cover the sound of her footsteps.

She remembered this hall from when Sybil used to bring her before, and it was easy to find the door to the control center once she had her bearings. She slid to a stop and hesitantly tested the handle. She was relieved to find it locked, a good indication that no one was inside. She’d been confident the security staff would have located themselves to a satellite control room nearer the great hall—that had been the procedure during important events when she worked for Sybil—but being confident wasn’t being certain. The gun, heavy in Torin’s jacket pocket, offered no comfort at all should she run into more opposition now.

Cress crouched before the security panel and retrieved Kai’s portscreen. She unwound the universal connector cable.

It took her twenty-eight seconds to break into the room, which was an eternity, but she was distracted, jumping at every distant noise. Sweat was snaking down her spine by the time she heard the door unlatch.

Her breath was shaky but relieved. No one was inside. The door shut behind her.

Cress’s adrenaline was pumping like jet fuel through her veins as she scanned the room. She was surrounded by invisi-screens and holographs and programming, and the familiarity of it all made the knot in her stomach loosen. Instinct and habit. She formed a checklist in her mind.

The room was big, but crowded with desks and chairs and equipment, panels that switched from video footage of the outer sectors to the underground shuttle map to surveillance feeds of different sections of the palace. A separate recording suite was accessed through a soundproof door. Lights and recording equipment surrounded a replica of the queen’s throne. A sheer veil was draped over a mannequin head and the sight gave Cress a chill down her spine. It felt like it was watching her.

She turned away from the mannequin and settled herself into one of the controller’s chairs. She removed the gun from the jacket pocket and set it and the portscreen on the desk, both within easy reach. She felt the press of time as keenly as Kai had. She’d already wasted too much of it. Kissing Thorne in the atrium. Hiding in that cabinet. Dodging in and out of corridors like a lost rabbit.

But she was here. She’d made it. She’d been heroic—almost.

Her objectives spooled through her thoughts.

Placing her fingertips across the nearest invisi-screen, she began to count them off, one by one.

First, she reconfigured the security codes for the queen’s broadcasting transmitter. She put the palace’s armory under lockdown. She scheduled a retraction for the tunnel barricades surrounding Artemisia.

Breaking through the codes, navigating the protocols—it felt like a choreographed dance, and though her muscles were weary, they still remembered the steps.

Finally, she pulled the chip from her bodice. She envisioned the transmitter on top of the palace, sending the crown’s official feed to receivers throughout the dome. A closed feed, protected by a complex labyrinth of internal firewalls and security codes.

Five minutes could have passed. Eight. Nine, at the most.

Check. Check. Check—

She heard footsteps in the hallway as she was inserting the chip with Cinder’s video into the port. She felt the satisfying click.

Download, data transfer, translate the encryption.

Her fingers danced over the screens, daring the coding to keep up.

Boots outside, pounding faster now.

Her hair clung to the back of her neck.

Check. Check.

Done.

Cress cleared the screens, disguising her motives with a few hasty commands.

The door crashed open. Guards filed in.

Confused silence.

Squeezed into the alcove between the bank of screens and the transmitter’s mainframe, Cress held her breath.

“Spread out—and get tech up here to find out what she did!”

“She left a portscreen,” said someone else, and she heard a subtle clacking on the desk as they picked it up. Trembling, Cress looked down at the gun cradled in her hands. Her stomach was knotted again. She couldn’t help feeling like she’d grabbed the wrong thing. They would know the portscreen was Kai’s easy enough. They would know he’d helped her. “Maybe she was planning on coming back.”

“You, stay here and wait for tech. And I want a guard posted at every door in this wing until she’s found. Go!”

The door slammed shut and Cress released a shaky breath, wilting from the surge of adrenaline.

She was trapped. Thorne was captured.

But they had been heroic.

Seventy-Seven

Jacin had gone back outside by the time Winter finished cleaning the slippery gel-like substance out of her hair. She changed into the dry clothes someone had brought for her.

She could not stop smiling. Jacin was back and he was alive.

And yet, at the same time, her heart ached. People were going to die today.

She checked her arms. The rash was already receding. At least, some of the bruises looked not quite as dark, and the blue had disappeared from beneath her fingernails.

When she left the security of the washroom, she found the clinic crammed full of people—the one doctor and a dozen civilians checking on the patients who had been too ill to line up for the antidote outside. Seven deaths, she’d been told. In the short time since Levana had infected Winter, seven people in this sector had died from letumosis.