“Aha!” Cinder beamed. “Magbelt.”
Peony cupped her cheek in her palm, raising her voice. “And then he’ll recognize me at the ball, and I’ll dance with him and—Pearl will be livid!” She laughed, as if angering her older sister were life’s greatest accomplishment.
“If the android’s even done before the ball.” Cinder selected a wrench from the tool belt slung around her hips. She didn’t want to inform Peony that Prince Kai probably wouldn’t be the one signing for deliveries at the palace.
Peony whisked her hand through the air. “Well, or whenever.”
“I want to go to the ball,” said Iko, gazing up at the horizon. “It’s prejudice not to let androids attend.”
“Petition the government then. I’m sure Peony will be happy to take your cause direct to the prince himself.” Cinder clamped onto Iko’s spherical head and forced her to aim the light back into the hood. “Now hold still. I’ve just about got this end detached.”
Cinder stuck the wrench to Iko, then pried the magbelt from its bracket, letting it clatter to the ground below. “One side down, one to go.” She led the way around the hover, clearing a path through the garbage so Iko’s treads wouldn’t get stuck.
Peony followed and climbed on top of the hover’s trunk, folding her legs beneath her. “You know, some people are saying he’s going to be looking for a bride at the ball.”
“A bride!” said Iko. “How romantic.”
Cinder lowered herself onto her side behind the hover’s back bumper and took a small flashlight from her tool belt. “Hand me that wrench again?”
“Didn’t you hear me? A bride, Cinder. As in, a princess.”
“As in, not going to happen. He’s only, what? Nineteen?” Tucking the flashlight between her teeth, Cinder took the wrench from Iko. The bolts in the back had less rust on them, better protected from the overhanging trunk, and took only a few quick turns to loosen.
“Eighteen and a half,” said Peony. “And it’s true. All the gossip links are saying so.”
Cinder grunted.
“I would marry Prince Kai in a heartbeat.”
“Me too,” said Iko.
Cinder spit out the flashlight and shuffled to the fourth corner. “You and every other girl in the Commonwealth.”
“Like you wouldn’t,” said Peony.
Cinder didn’t answer as she loosened the final bolt gripping the magbelt. It released and fell to the ground with a clang. “There we go.” She slid out from beneath the car and tucked the wrench and flashlight into her calf compartment before standing. “See any other hovers worth scavenging while we’re here?” Pulling the magbelt out from beneath the hover, she folded it at its hinges, forming a less cumbersome metal rod.
“I did see something over there.” Iko swished the light around the stacks. “Not sure what model.”
“Great. Lead the way.” Cinder nudged the android with the belt. Iko took off, muttering about being stuck in junkyards while Adri was all clean and cozy at home.
“Besides,” said Peony, hopping off the trunk, “the rumor that he’s looking for a bride at the ball is a lot better than what the other rumors are saying.”
“Let me guess. Prince Kai is actually a martian? Or no, no—he had an illegitimate child with an escort, didn’t he?”
“Escort-droids can have children?”
“No.”
Peony huffed, blowing a curl off her brow. “Well, this is even worse. They say there’s been talk of him marrying…” She dropped her voice to a harsh whisper. “Queen Levana.”
“Queen—” Cinder froze and clamped a gloved hand over her mouth, glancing around as if someone could be lurking in the piles of garbage, listening. She pulled her hand away but kept her voice down. “Honestly, Peony. Those tabloids are going to rot your brain.”
“I don’t want to believe it either, but they’re all saying it. That’s why the queen’s witchy ambassador has been staying at the palace, so she can secure an alliance. It’s all very political.”
“I don’t think so. Prince Kai would never marry her.”
“You don’t know that.”
But she did know. Cinder may not know much about inter-galactic politics, but she knew Prince Kai would be a fool to marry Queen Levana.
The lingering moon caught Cinder’s attention, and a shock of goose bumps covered her arms. The moon had always given her a sense of paranoia, like the people who lived up there could be watching her, and if she stared for too long, she might draw their attention. Superstitious nonsense, but then everything about Lunars was eerie and superstitious.
Lunars were a society that had evolved from an Earthen moon colony centuries ago, but they weren’t human anymore. People said Lunars could alter a person’s brain—make you see things you shouldn’t see, feel things you shouldn’t feel, do things you didn’t want to do. Their unnatural power had made them a greedy and violent race, and Queen Levana was the worst of all of them.
They said she knew when people were talking about her even thousands of miles away. Even down on Earth.
They said she’d murdered her older sister, Queen Channary, so she could take the throne from her. They said she’d had her own husband killed too so she would be free to make a more advantageous match. They said she had forced her stepdaughter to mutilate her own face because, at the sweet age of thirteen, she had become more beautiful than the jealous queen could stand.
They said she’d killed her niece, her only threat to the throne. Princess Selene had only been three years old when a fire caught in her nursery, killing her and her nanny.
Some conspiracy theorists thought the princess had survived and was still alive somewhere, waiting for the right time to reclaim her crown and end Levana’s rule of tyranny, but Cinder knew it was only desperation that fueled these rumors. After all, they’d found traces of the child’s flesh in the ashes.
“Here.” Iko raised her hand and knocked on a slab of metal jutting from a huge mound of junk, startling Cinder.
She shoved the thoughts aside. Prince Kai would never marry that witch. He could never marry a Lunar.
Cinder pushed a few rusted aerosol cans and an old mattress aside before she was able to clearly make out the hover’s nose. “Good eye.”
Together they shuffled enough junk out of the way so that the full front of the vehicle could be seen. “I’ve never seen one like this,” Cinder said, running a hand over the pitted chrome insignia.
“It’s hideous,” said Peony with a sneer. “What an awful color.”
“It must be really old.” Cinder found the latch and pulled open the hood. She drew back, blinking at the mess of metal and plastic that greeted her. “Really old.” She squinted into the front corner of the engine, but the undercarriage hid the magbelt clamps from view. “Huh. Point the light over there, would you?”
Cinder lowered herself to the dirt. She tightened her ponytail before squirming under the hover, shoving aside the jumble of old parts that had been left to rust in the weeds beneath it.
“Stars,” she muttered when she was able to look up into its belly. Iko’s light filtered down from above, through cables and wires, ducts and manifolds, nuts and bolts. “This thing is ancient.”