Home > Stars Above (The Lunar Chronicles #4.5)(8)

Stars Above (The Lunar Chronicles #4.5)(8)
Author: Marissa Meyer

Michelle stared. She wasn’t sure if she understood half of what he said, but she was only a pilot and a farmer. Logan was the Lunar, the doctor, the one who had left his home and risked everything to keep the child safe. If he believed she needed to be woken up sooner, then Michelle didn’t think she could argue with him.

“Will she be ready?” she asked.

Logan’s arms dropped to his sides. “She must be.” He opened his mouth to say something else but stopped. Then, after a long moment, he said, “She will not be staying with you once she is stable and awake. I have endangered you for long enough.”

This was the topic they had always skipped around before. The after. It had been difficult enough trying to keep her alive, hidden, secure. It had seemed too distant and complicated to imagine what would become of her once the operation was complete. But now they had no choice but to think of it.

Soon, she would not be a body in a tank. She would be a child. An eleven-year-old girl, who would no doubt be frightened and confused.

“Where will you take her?”

“I’ve found a man who lives in the Eastern Commonwealth, just outside of New Beijing. His name is Garan Linh, and he’s an intelligent man with a vast knowledge of android systems and artificial intelligence, which will be useful given her cyborg … additions. But he’s also an inventor, and he’s created this marvelous device that attaches to a person’s nervous system. In an Earthen, it can keep them from ever being manipulated by the Lunar gift. But in a Lunar, it can ensure that they are unable to use their gift at all, whilst also protecting them from developing the hallucinations associated with Lunar sickness.”

Michelle was frowning again as she tried to take in everything he was telling her. “Well … good, then. That will help you, won’t it? Prevent you from … er, going mad?”

“No, no. I will not take one. He has only two in the prototype stage. One must be for the princess, of course. She will eventually have to be taught how to control her gift, and until then, we can’t risk her revealing her identity. The other prototype is for you.”

“Me?”

“Just in case.” Logan fixed an intense look on her. “Just in case anything should ever happen to you. Just in case any Lunar should find you and … try to manipulate you into giving up the princess’s location.”

Her jaw tensed. There were other ways to get information out of a person. More old-fashioned ways. But Logan wished to protect her mind, at least, and she had heard tales of Queen Levana and her thaumaturges’ creative methods before. She was grateful that Logan wanted to protect her in this small way. She recognized his sacrifice, even if she knew he would never admit that it was such.

“All right,” she said, wiping her sweating palms down the sides of her jeans. “You’ve found this inventor, and the child will receive this device of his. Then what?”

“Then she will go to live with him. He’s already agreed to care for her as his legal ward, and he has two children of his own. It will be a good fit.”

She cocked her head. “Does he know who she is?”

“Not yet.” Logan inhaled a sharp breath. “But I will have to tell him. He must know the full extent of the danger he’s putting himself and his family in if he’s to agree to this. And … and he must know how valuable she is. I’ll try to keep an eye on her for as long as I can, but I’m not sure I will still be lucid enough to tell her the truth once she’s ready. It’s possible that responsibility will fall to him.”

It sounded so certain. So final. It dawned on Michelle how terrified Logan was of whatever was happening inside his own head.

Logan had always prided himself on his thinking mind. How horrible it must be to know he was losing it now.

His mouth quirked unexpectedly. “I will not take your pity now, Michelle. All my decisions have been my own, and I am still convinced that they were the right ones.”

“Of course they were,” she said. “You have changed the course of history.”

“Not yet. But someday, perhaps.” He rubbed his temple and glanced at the secret door that led down to Selene’s room. “How is she?”

“Much the same. Getting taller. She’s grown like a tadpole this year.”

He nodded. “I will need at least a week to complete the operations. We’ll have to conduct them in stages. Can you be ready in a month?”

A month. After so many years of nothing, nothing, nothing, it was so sudden, like a maglev train screeching toward her.

“I will have to send Scarlet away,” she whispered, mostly to herself. “Perhaps she can stay with her father for a while.”

Logan peered at her. She peered back and waited for him to ask. Scarlet. Who is Scarlet? Who is her father? Who is…?

He lowered his gaze first, and she couldn’t read him. She couldn’t tell if he guessed the truth or not. They were together for such a short time, and so long ago. There was no reason for him to suspect …

But he’d always been good at interpreting her silences.

He didn’t ask. Just nodded and said, “I will tell Garan to make his travel arrangements.”

* * *

It all seemed painfully familiar.

Scarlet’s anger had cooled somewhat during the maglev ride from Paris back to Toulouse, but she still had a furious knot in her stomach. She never wanted to see her lousy father again. She’d told herself as much when she’d run away the first time, back when she was seven, but this time she meant it. That drunken, arrogant, condescending jerk was nonexistent to her.

   
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