Aimery scanned the stricken faces of those closest to him, smiling pleasantly. “I will ask you again. Where is Linh Cinder?”
They all kept their eyes pinned to the ground. No one looked at Aimery. No one looked at the growing pool of blood. No one spoke.
Inside her head, Cinder was screaming. The gunshot still echoed in her skull, her audio interface repeating it again and again and again. She pressed her hands over her ears, shaking, furious.
She would kill Aimery. She would destroy him.
A body pressed against her back. Scarlet wrapped her arms around Cinder, tucking her face into the crook of Cinder’s neck. To restrain her, she thought, as much as to comfort her.
She didn’t pull away, but she was not comforted.
Below, Aimery signaled to a woman seven rows back, a strategically random choice that would ensure no one felt safe. Another shot fired from one of the guards. The woman convulsed and crumpled against the person beside her.
A shudder pulsed through the crowd.
Cinder sobbed. Scarlet held her tighter.
How long would it go on? How many would he kill? How long could she stand to wait up here and do nothing?
“All it takes is one person to tell me her location,” said Aimery, “and this will all be over. We will leave you to your peaceful lives.”
Something damp fell on Cinder’s neck. Scarlet was crying, shaking every bit as hard as she was. But her arms didn’t loosen.
She wanted to look away, but she forced herself not to. Their bravery left her both speechless and horrified. She found herself wishing someone would betray her just so it would end. Just so the choice would no longer be hers.
Thorne took her hand and squeezed. Wolf formed a barrier to her other side, all three of them acting both as her jailers and her life raft. She knew they shared her horror, but none of them could understand the responsibility she felt clawing at her from the inside. These people trusted her to fight with them, to give them the better future she’d promised.
Did it matter that they were willing to die for her cause? Did it matter that they would sacrifice their own lives so she might succeed?
She didn’t know.
She didn’t know.
All she saw were blinding sparks. All she heard were gunshots pulsing through her head.
Aimery pointed at another victim and Cinder’s knees weakened. It was the young boy who had been so smitten with Iko.
Cinder sucked in a breath, prepared to cry out, to stop it, to scream—
“No!”
Aimery held up his hand. “Who was that?”
A girl a few rows behind the boy had begun to cry hysterically. “No, please. Please, leave him alone.” She was about Cinder’s age. A sister, she guessed.
New tension rolled through the crowd. A few nearby people cast the girl betrayed looks, but Cinder knew it wasn’t fair. This girl didn’t know Cinder. Why should she protect her over someone she loved?
Aimery raised an eyebrow. “Are you prepared to give up the cyborg’s location?”
“Maha Kesley,” the girl stammered. “The cyborg was being housed by Maha Kesley.”
With a flick of Aimery’s fingers, the guard who had targeted the boy lowered his gun. “Where is this Maha Kesley?”
Maha stood up before anyone was forced to betray her, a pillar in the kneeling crowd. “I’m here.”
Wolf took in a shaky breath.
“Come to the front,” said Aimery.
Maha’s slender shoulders were back as she walked among her friends and neighbors. A change had occurred in the short time Cinder had known her. On that first day she had seemed beaten, heavy shouldered, afraid. The woman who stood defiantly before the queen’s head thaumaturge was someone new.
It made Cinder even more terrified for her.
“What is the number of your residence?” Aimery asked.
Maha gave it with a steady voice.
Aimery gestured at the captain of the guard and a female thaumaturge. They stepped away, signaling for one additional guard to join them as they headed toward Maha’s house.
Aimery’s attention had returned to Maha. “Have you been sheltering the cyborg Linh Cinder?”
“I do not know that name,” said Maha. “The one cyborg I know is named Princess Selene Blackburn and she is the true queen of Luna.”
The crowd rustled. Chins lifted. Shoulders squared. If anyone had forgotten why they were risking their lives for a stranger, Maha’s statement reminded them.
Aimery smirked. Cinder’s blood iced over.
As she watched, Maha raised both of her hands over her head so everyone could see. Then she grabbed her right thumb and yanked it back, hard.
Cinder heard the pop even from here, followed by Maha’s cry. She didn’t know if Aimery had forced her to break her thumb or merely dislocate it, and she didn’t care. She made a decision.
In another moment, she had slipped into the minds of her friends and forced them to back away from her.
She spun around. Scarlet, Thorne, and Wolf gawked at her, dismayed.
Wolf recovered first. “Cinder, don’t—”
“It’s the people’s revolution now, not mine. Wolf, you’re coming with me. I’ll keep your mind under control but not your body, just like we did in Artemisia. Thorne, Scarlet, stay here and target Aimery and the other thaumaturges, but don’t shoot unless you have a clear shot, otherwise you’re just giving away your location.”
“Cinder, no,” Scarlet hissed, but Cinder was already leaving her and Thorne behind, forcing Wolf to follow in her tracks.
He growled.
“I have to, Wolf,” she said as they rushed down the staircase to the second landing. Outside, muffled by thick factory walls, she heard another cry of pain from Maha. “I can’t do nothing.”
“He’ll kill you.”
“Not if we kill him first.” She raced down the last staircase and braced herself. She checked that she had control of Wolf’s bioelectricity so no thaumaturge could claim him, then pushed through the factory doors. A third scream from Maha felt like a knife in Cinder’s chest. One look told her that Maha’s first three fingers were bent at crippling angles. Tears were on her pain-clenched face.
“Here I am,” Cinder bellowed. “You found me. Now let her go.”
In one uniform movement, all the guards swiveled, turning their weapons on Cinder. She sucked in a breath, prepared to be riddled with bullets, but no one fired.
Across the sea of prostrated laborers, Aimery grinned. “So the impostor has finally graced us with her presence.”
She clenched her fists and started toward him. The guns followed. So did Wolf, his energy crackling. “You know very well that my claims are true,” she said. “It’s the only reason Levana is so determined to have me killed.” She stretched out her thoughts to the people surrounding her, but none of their minds were available to her. She had expected as much.
She had a trained killer at her side and two skilled shooters at her back. It would have to be enough.
She reached the front row of the gathered civilians. “You came here for me, and here I am. Leave these people alone.”
Aimery cocked his head. His gaze swooped over Cinder, from head to toe and back up, making her feel like easy prey. She knew how she looked in her drab clothing, with her metal hand and clunky boots, her messy ponytail, and most likely, a hearty amount of dust smudged across her face. She knew that she did not look like a queen.