She kept reminding herself that whatever was going to happen to them, they deserved it.
It didn’t make her feel any better. In fact, thinking about it was making her feel cruel and petty, and also giving her a headache.
She shook it off.
“I’m Princess Selene,” she answered, turning back to her work.
Pearl laughed, a short hysterical sound, full of disbelief.
Adri stayed silent.
The cell filled with Cinder’s persistent scrape scrape clatter, scrape scrape clatter. Her pile grew larger, pebble by hard-earned pebble.
She was never getting out of here.
“Garan knew.” Adri’s voice was brittle.
Cinder froze again. Garan had been Adri’s husband, the man who had made the decision to adopt Cinder. She’d barely known him.
She was annoyed when her own curiosity forced her to turn around. Switching the screwdriver for her flashlight, she beamed it toward her stepmother. “Excuse me?”
Adri flinched, both arms wrapped around her daughter. They hadn’t moved from their corner. “Garan knew,” she said again. “He never told me, but when he was taken away to the quarantines, he told me to take care of you. He said it as if it were the most important thing in the world.” She fell quiet, like the presence of her dead husband was there, hanging over them all.
“Wow,” said Cinder. “You really excelled at that dying request, didn’t you?”
Adri’s gaze narrowed, full of a disgust Cinder was all too familiar with. “I will not tolerate you speaking to me this way when my husband—”
“You won’t tolerate it?” Cinder yelled. “Should I tell you all the things I’m no longer going to tolerate? Because it’s a long list.”
Adri shrank back. Cinder had wondered if Adri might be afraid of her, now that she was Lunar and a wanted felon. Her reaction confirmed it.
“Why wouldn’t Dad say something?” said Pearl. “Why wouldn’t he tell us?”
“Maybe he knew you’d sell me for ransom the first chance you got.”
Pearl ignored her. “And if you really are the princess, why are you in here?”
Cinder glared at her. Waited. Watched as understanding dawned across Pearl’s face. “She wants to kill you, so she can stay the queen.”
“Give the girl a treat,” Cinder said.
“But what does it have to do with us?” Tears began to pool in Pearl’s eyes. “Why are we being punished? We didn’t do anything. We didn’t know.”
Cinder’s adrenaline and anger were slipping, exhaustion crawling into the spaces they’d left behind. “You gave me your invitations to the royal wedding, which allowed me to kidnap Kai, which drove Levana crazy. Thanks for that, by the way.”
“How can you think only of yourself at a time like this?” Adri snapped. “How can you be so selfish?”
Cinder’s hands curled into fists. “If I don’t take care of myself, nobody will. That’s something I learned early on, thanks to you.”
Adri pulled her daughter closer and smoothed down her hair. Pearl slumped against her without a fight. Cinder wondered if she was in shock. Maybe they both were.
She turned back to the wall and carved a C into the stone. These walls were scored with hundreds of words, names, pleas, promises, threats. She considered adding a “+ K” but the idea of such whimsy made her want to beat her head against the iron door.
“You’re a monster,” Adri whispered.
Cinder smirked, without humor. “Fine. I’m a monster.”
“You couldn’t even save Peony.”
At the mention of her younger stepsister a new bout of rage surged like a thousand sparking wires in Cinder’s head. She spun back. “You think I didn’t try?”
“You had an antidote!” Adri was screaming now too, her eyes wild, though she stayed hunkered over Pearl. “I know you gave it to that little boy. It saved his life. Chang Sunto!” She spat the name like poison. “You chose to save him over Peony. How could you? Did you taunt her with it? Did you give her false hope before you watched her die?”
Cinder gaped at her stepmother, her own anger eclipsed with a surprising jolt of pity. This woman was full of so much ignorance it was almost like she wanted to stay that way. She saw what she wanted, believed anything to support her limited view of the world. Cinder could still remember how she had felt running to the plague quarantines. How she’d desperately clutched the vial of antidote. How she’d been so hopeful she could save Peony’s life, and so devastated when she failed.
She’d been too late. She still hadn’t quite forgiven herself.
Adri would never know, would never understand. To her, Cinder was just a machine, incapable of anything but cruelty.
Five years she had lived with this woman, and never once had she seen Cinder as she was. As Kai saw her, and Thorne and Iko and all the people who trusted her. All the people who knew her.
She shook her head, finding it easier than she’d expected to dismiss her stepmother’s words. “I’m done trying to explain myself to you. I’m done seeking your approval. I’m done with you.”
Kicking at the pile of rock shavings, she jabbed the screwdriver into the wall at the same moment she heard footsteps.
Her jaw tightened. Her time was up. Turning, she reached Adri and Pearl in three long strides. They both shriveled away.
Cinder grabbed the front of Adri’s shirt and pulled her upward.