She dragged her attention back to Kai. “To rescue Thorne,” she said, without thinking. But then she remembered his last words to her. Be heroic. She gulped. “No, I … I need to get to the control center. I need to play this video over Levana’s broadcasting system. Cinder’s counting on it.”
Kai ran a hand through his hair. Cress flinched as he went from neat-and-tidy emperor to concerned teenage boy with that one movement. She could see his indecision. How badly he wanted to help, in contrast to how much danger his involvement could put his country in.
Cress felt time ticking away.
“Your Majesty.”
Kai nodded at his adviser. “I know. They’ll probably send a search party if I don’t show up soon. But I just need a minute to … to think.”
“What is there to think about?” said Torin. “You asked this girl what she needed, and she gave you a very concise answer. We all know you’re going to help her, so it seems like a waste of time to argue the pros and cons of such a decision.”
Cress fidgeted with her gloves, feeling the butterfly wings graze her arms. The adviser looked both stern and kind as he handed the gun back to her, handle first.
Cress shuddered. “You can keep it, if you want.”
“I don’t,” said Torin. “Neither do I intend to put myself into any situations in which I might want it.”
With a resigned sigh, Cress took it from him. She spent a moment considering where she might be able to store it, but her outfit didn’t offer any good solutions.
“Here.” Torin removed his tuxedo jacket and handed it to her. Cress hesitated, hearing Iko’s voice in her head—that doesn’t match at all!—before casting the voice away and allowing him to help her into the sleeves. She was drowning in the jacket, but already she felt more composed, less vulnerable.
“Thank you,” she said, finding an inside pocket and sliding the gun into it with an enormous sense of relief.
“His Majesty is expected to be in the main hall within the next two minutes,” Torin said, then passed his attention to a baffled Kai. “I’m confident I can delay them for at least fifteen more.”
Seventy-Six
Kai wasn’t sure if he or Cress was in the lead as they rushed through the abandoned corridors, their footsteps loud and brisk. When Cress started to fall behind, struggling to keep up, he forced himself to slow his pace.
“We’re going to try to accomplish this without the gun,” he said, as if they’d been discussing it, although they’d hardly spoken since parting ways with Torin. “We’re going to take care of this diplomatically. Or … at least, sneakily. If we can.”
“I have no problem with that,” said Cress. “However, I don’t think that just because you’re an emperor and you’re about to become their king they’re going to let you waltz into their broadcasting room and start fiddling with their equipment.”
Each door they passed had a different design carved into the wood. A beautiful woman holding up a long-eared rabbit. A falcon-headed man with a crescent moon balanced on his head. A young girl dressed in the mantle of a fox and carrying a hunting spear. Kai knew they were symbolic of the moon and its importance in Earthen cultures, many of them lost and forgotten. Even Kai no longer recognized the significance.
They turned down another hallway and passed over a skybridge made of glass. A silver stream passed beneath their feet.
“You’re right,” said Kai, “but I think I can at least get you inside.” He hesitated, before adding, “Cress, I won’t be able to stay. If I’m absent for too long, Levana will get suspicious, and that’s the last thing we need right now. You understand, right?”
“I understand.” She dropped her voice, although the hallways were empty—every guest, every guard, every servant waiting for the coronation to begin. “I suspect the door locks will be coded. The plan was to hack them, but Thorne had the portscreen with him…”
Kai unclipped his portscreen from his belt. “Can you use mine?”
She stared at the device. “You won’t … need it?”
“Not like you will. I couldn’t have brought it into the ceremony, anyway. All recording devices are prohibited.” He rolled his eyes and handed the port to her. Though it once would have felt like giving up one of his limbs, he’d gotten used to being without it after Levana had it confiscated.
Besides, a part of him was giddy with the knowledge that he was helping to undermine the queen.
“How do you know where we’re going?” Cress asked, tucking the port into one of the pockets in Torin’s jacket.
Kai scowled. “I had the great experience of partaking in one of her propaganda videos a while back.”
As they neared the palace wing on the opposite side of the lake from the great hall, where the coronation was set to start, oh, six minutes ago, Kai held up a hand, bringing them to a stop.
“Wait here,” he whispered, holding a finger to his lips.
Cress pressed herself against a wall. She looked tiny and terrified and preposterous in that poufy orange skirt, and some chivalrous instinct told Kai he shouldn’t abandon her here, of all places. But he shoved that instinct down, reminding himself that she was also the genius who had single-handedly shut down the entire security system of New Beijing Palace.
Straightening his patriotic sash, Kai stepped around the corner. This wing was sealed off, and as far as Kai knew, there was only this one door in and out. As expected, a guard stood in front of the door at mute attention. The same guard, Kai thought, who had been on duty when Levana had dragged him here before.