i.
Fate and timing have an awful sense of humour. It would have taken her ten minutes, tops, to detach her rusted, too-small foot and attach the replacement. No one would have ever known. She wasn't expecting any customers today – the upcoming festival has captured everyone's attention, and the market is crowded with sun lanterns and red paper dragons and the smell of Chang Sacha's sweet rolls. No one should pay her booth any attention on a day like this.
But somehow, the local prince chooses the very moment she becomes footless, and more cyborg than ever, to come to her booth.
It's laughable. She wobbles on one foot whilst examining the dead android he deposited on her table, struggles even harder to maintain nonchalance as she asks routine questions and goes through the routine checkup. In fact, she's so focused on feigning normality that she doesn't see the prince watching her instead of what she's doing with his android.
Out of the corner of her eye, Cinder sees him lift from the table the eleven-year-old cyborg foot she detached from her leg not two minutes ago. She can't help but tense, terribly aware of the gaping lightweight that is her empty ankle socket. But Prince Kai sets it down with only a curious look, and asks if she can have Nainsi ready before the festival.
When he finally leaves, she heaves a sigh, half-hoping that he won't actually come by the market next week like he promised, and half-hoping that he will. It's not really the prince bit that concerns her – it's the smile that can make her a stammering mess if she isn't careful.
Her relief is short-lived, as Iko wastes no time in informing her that she has a rather conspicuous grease splotch on her forehead.
ii.
"A faulty chip," she tries to tell him, but her voice is drowned out by a mighty cheer from the parade. Her market booth is on one of the busiest festival streets. Kai gets jostled by someone holding the tail end of a dragon that seems to float above everyone's heads.
"Sorry, what?" he yells over the din, cupping a hand around his ear.
It's such a normal gesture that she has to smile. Before she can think too much about it, she leans closer until her mouth is at the shell of his ear and says, "A faulty chip, incompatible with her programming. Removing it was all it took to wake her up. Maybe someone took your android for a different model and put it in by mistake."
Someone collides with Kai from behind and he staggers forward, his temple bumping against hers. When he pulls back, his cheeks are tinted pink, but that's probably just the summer heat. She hands him the ordinary gray chip she plucked from Nainsi's innards.
"Thank you," says Prince Kai with a sheepish smile. He wraps an arm around Nainsi and sets her down. "I'm sorry for bothering you with such a small problem."
"Not at all," Cinder assures him, and is relieved when they exchange goodbyes and he turns to disappear into the crowd. It's nice and all to meet royalty, but you know what else is nice? Not having to worry about etiquette, or the upcoming royal customer review, or all the dirt and grease on her clothes, not to mention –
"Say, Linh-mei," he says, turning back toward her, "would it be all right if I came to you again? I mean, if we had any more mechanical troubles?"
She blinks, thrown completely off guard. "Of course."
Kai smiles again, all carefree boyishness, and disappears with Nainsi into the market crowd. Cinder drops back into her chair, a little disoriented.
"Was that Prince Kai?" Iko squeaks behind her, peeking out from behind the back curtain. She rolls up to Cinder, tugging on her sleeve with her pincers. "Was he here for the android?"
"Yeah." Cinder exhales slowly, giving the little booth a once-over. Maybe it's the prince's lingering presence, but somehow the scattered tools and android parts seem messier than ever. This second home of hers probably resembles a hermit's cave to the heir of the Commonwealth.
Whatever. She's a mechanic. It's her job to get her hands dirty. It's his job to be as cordial, charming, and tactful as he is, so at least she can count on him to not point out grease splotches or give her advice on running her own business like some of the other shopkeepers do.
Beside her, Iko gives a yearning sigh. "Sometimes I wonder if being handsome is in a prince's job description."
"Sometimes," says Cinder with a suspicious look at her friend, "I wonder if psychic abilities are part of your programming error."
Iko's indignant shriek is heard halfway across the market square, making passerby jump and clap their hands over their ears:
"I do not have a programming error!"
iii.
Cinder thought the prince's question had been hypothetical, if we have any more mechanical troubles being almost as likely as if Mars declares war. They have technicians more skilled than she at the palace – why would he ever come back to her booth? Nainsi was an exception, a one-time thing. And yet, a week after the festival, Kai shows up again, this time with a med-droid in tow.
Cinder is unable to hide her surprise. "Did the royal mechanics have a hard time?" she asks as she tugs the android closer across the table.
When Kai doesn't immediately answer, she looks up at him, eyebrows raised. He's looking somewhere off to the side, his hands clasped behind his back. He looks almost … embarrassed.
"Your Highness?" she prompts.
Kai clears his throat. "I … didn't ask the royal mechanics."
Cinder can't help but stare at him, flabbergasted. That makes no sense, why wouldn't he –
He gestures awkwardly at the android. Redirecting her attention. "What do you suppose is wrong with it?"
It takes her a few days to bring the med-droid to rights again. Dead wiring between the optosensor and control panel doesn't take very long to fix, but she takes meticulous care with the diagnostics, just in case. She doesn't want to mess up after having such an easy time with Nainsi.
When he comes to pick up the android, he pauses to inquire about her family. Cinder tells him, a little stiffly, that she doesn't have any. There's Peony, her friend and sister, and Iko, her constant companion, and that's it. Buying her way out of Adri's guardianship was the best and easiest decision she's ever made.
And of course she must now ask after his family, except there's that trivial detail of his family being the one that rules the Commonwealth. Cinder hesitates and says, haltingly, "How is your … household, Your Highness?"
Kai laughs. "Well enough, thank you for asking. It's a pity I don't need to tell you about my own family."
Cinder's lips twitch. "Why not?"
"Well, seeing as everyone already knows who I am, it would be a bit redundant, don't you think?" Seeing her eyebrows lift, he adds quickly, "Not bragging, just a fact."
"Maybe it's only right that you don't need to introduce yourself," says Cinder. "After all, you knew my name before we knew each other, didn't you? When you looked at my business profile." She winces. "Not that we know each other."
"Don't we?" He sounds surprised. "We're not strangers anymore."
But not friends, either. Or even casual acquaintances. "I suppose not."
"I mean," he continues, "you know plenty about me, and now I know a little about you, too."
Cinder quirks an eyebrow. "Like what?"
"Well, now I know firsthand that you are, in fact, the best mechanic in New Beijing."
Her lips curl up against her will and she lowers her eyes, briefly. She's used to her customers' acclaim, but coming from him … well.
"Thank you, Your Highness."
"You should really call me Kai," he says, and smiles – so sweetly, so sincerely, that her heart jolts. Before she can answer, he wraps one arm around the med-droid and steps back. "Until next time, Linh-mei."
Something unforgivably blushy crams itself into her throat. Kai vanishes into the crowd, leaving her to thunk her head on the worktable, several times, in an unsuccessful attempt to knock the clouds from her brain.
iv.
The prince seems to be having an awful lot of mechanical troubles.
Two more androids, a detached netscreen, three royal gadgets and a portscreen all find their way to her booth, courtesy of one Prince Kaito. He insists on paying her for them all, claiming that the royal mechanics are busy with inoperative elevators or some such. Not that Cinder has anything better to do – work has been slow lately, maybe because no sane person is willing to brave the August humidity of the market – but it all seems rather dubious. Surely he has better things to do than run errands like these?
If she didn't know better, she might think that all the "malfunctioning" tech-bits are really just excuses to come to the market or get out of the palace. After all, it must get a little overwhelming to be the crown prince of an empire as vast as the Eastern Commonwealth.
She suspects that someone deliberately unplugged the processor of the third android he brings to her table.
But that's only conjecture.
Still, Cinder isn't going to complain. Prince Kai's weekly – sometimes twice-weekly – visits have become a welcome diversion from the otherwise steady life of a city mechanic. Every time he comes by, he stays longer and longer at her booth, talking amiably and making the occasional joke, before departing once more for the palace … or wherever a prince goes in his free time.
The strange thing is that he puts her at ease. The more time she spends around him, the more she forgets to think of him as the heir to the crown and starts thinking of him just as a boy of her age who happens to have very big responsibilities.
She almost doesn't question it when one day, he comes to her booth empty-handed and joins her behind the table. It starts to rain almost as soon as he pulls up a chair, trapping them together, and Cinder's uncomfortably aware of the fact that there's no one else around. The atmosphere eases when he asks her to name all the tools in her booth and explain their uses. When she challenges him to put a wind-up toy back together and puts a screwdriver in his hands, he looks so completely lost that she can barely suppress a laugh.
Next market day, Kai shows up empty-handed again, and this time Cinder is positive it's not a mistake. An inkling of panic wells up in her. If he keeps coming around like this, as if he truly likes her company, friendship will be on the table – but she hasn't the least idea how to be friends with another person her age, much less a cute boy who's supposed to inherit the throne.
"Nothing for me to fix today?" she says casually as he rounds the table into the shade of the booth.
Kai holds her gaze and asks, utterly serious, "Am I obliged to bring a broken portscreen every time I want to come see you?"
You tell me, she wants to say, but something seems to have short-circuited in her brain; her sarcastic shield has deserted her. "No," she concedes instead, and starts twirling a wrench through her fingers so she doesn't have to meet his warmly laughing eyes.
v.
"A message for you, Linh-mei."
Cinder looks up from her worktable. Nainsi is on the other side, holding something out in her pincers. Behind her, the market is going about its business as usual; no one takes notice of one more white android in the crowd, and the hubbub is enough to drown out any single conversation.
She takes the proffered note. The feeling of paper against her skin is so foreign that for a moment all she does is rub it between her fingers, marvelling. Then she realises that she might smudge the ink and hurriedly smooths it out on her worktable.
"I am to escort you to the palace," Nainsi tells her in that inflectionless voice. "If you accept."
That gets Cinder's attention. If you accept is not something you say when you have a portscreen you need fixed. If you accept implies a choice or an invitation … or a gift. Maybe he wants to ask her a favour?
Or maybe, maybe, this is a different kind of offer. One, she suspects, that's been coming for a while now.
With a glance down at the note, her suspicions are bolstered.
Linh-mei,
As every one of our elevators, androids and netscreens are in full working order, I must do away with all pretense and ask you to meet me in the palace gardens for tea. You usually take a break around three o'clock, right? If a different time would work better, or if you don't care for tea, please don't hesitate to let me know.
I look forward to seeing you again.
Kai
Wait a minute.
This almost sounds like –
"Is this a date?" she blurts out.
Nainsi's sensor flashes blue. "His Highness did not tell me of his intentions."
Pressing her lips together, Cinder looks over the note again. Signed with his first name, plainly and informally, as if he considers them friends. But if that's so, why was he still calling her "Linh-mei" the last time he came to her booth?
Probably because he was raised in a royal household and is as courteous a young man as they come. But more likely, it suddenly occurs to her, because she hasn't told him to call her Cinder.
As every one of our elevators, androids and netscreens are in full working order, I must do away with all pretense …
She runs her eyes over the handwritten words over and over. His penmanship is immaculate, an elegant cursive that befits a prince of the Commonwealth. It doesn't escape her attention that he has tactfully left an opening for her to refuse. It's rather naïve of him. Who would dare to refuse a prince, especially on an excuse as flimsy as "tea isn't really my thing"?
Still, she appreciates the thought. Maybe he has yet to learn something about talking to people, just like her.
"He might have given me some time to clean up," she mutters, stuffing the note into her pocket. Grease stains, messy hair – what does it matter? This is the state she's always in when he visits. "I suppose we'd better get going if we want to get to the palace by three."
vi.
The hover deposits them outside the main palace gates. Nainsi takes her around to the garden entrance, but not before Cinder catches a glimpse of New Beijing from the cliff's edge. The city looks like a piece of ragged quartz, glinting white and blue in the afternoon light. For the first time she can remember, the clamor of two million people is gone, replaced with faint birdsong and a serene wind come to rustle through the grass.
Nainsi leaves her at the garden gate. Tentatively, Cinder walks inside, ducking under the hanging boughs of cherry blossoms. A burbling stream cuts through the neatly trimmed shrubbery. Her feet automatically find the path of flat stones, which leads her to the quiet little bench where Kai is seated, his back to her.
Her nerves are strung so high she has to clench her fists. A part of her mind that sounds an awful lot like Iko screeches the prince! but another one, an affectionate voice, insists Kai. The boy who makes her laugh; the boy who comes to keep her company in the stuffy market booth; the boy who watched, completely enraptured, as she fixed a beaten portscreen, as if she were weaving a rainbow with her bare hands.
There is nothing to be afraid of, she tells herself, but even so she takes a few deep breaths before rounding the bench.
When Kai catches sight of her, he stands to greet her as respectfully as if she's a highborn lady or a queen. Or an empress, a sly voice whispers in her head.
"Linh-mei!"
A small smile sneaks out. "Your Highness."
"I'm sorry I invited you at such short notice" – Kai grins, making no effort to conceal his delight – "but I wanted to speak to you as soon as possible. Would you like some tea?"
Right on cue, a shining white android rolls down the path, bearing a china tea set on a tray. The delicate cups barely jolt thanks to the smooth treads. "Oh. Yes, please," she says, and at his gesture sits beside him on the bench as the android pours tea with an extra set of pincers.
"So," he begins, with a too-casual small-talk tone, "the Commonwealth ball is in two weeks. Any plans?"
"Not really," Cinder replies, matching his nonchalance. She takes a cup of steaming tea on a saucer from the android. Careful not to scald her fingers through the thin china, she brings the cup to her lips and inhales deeply. Blackberry. How many months ago did he ask her about her favourite kind of tea? How long has he been paying attention? "The market closes at five, so I figure I'll be there until then. People tend to break things a lot more on holiday."
He waves the android away. "Portscreens and decorating droids?"
"Among other things," she allows. "What about you, then, Your Highness? What's on the itinerary of the prince?"
"Kai," he reminds her, leaning closer to look her full in the eyes.
Cinder glances away.
"The usual, I guess," he sighs, settling back against the bench. "Receiving guests. Dancing with diplomats. Gazing at the food while some duke or duchess ropes me into small talk." He sighs again, forlornly, as if he has never been allowed to sample the delectable dishes at the ball.
"Aren't you allowed to eat?"
"Technically. But Torin says it's improper to eat hors d'oeuvres in front of citizens. I'm not there to enjoy myself, as it's technically a public appearance. So I'm stuck with a grumbling stomach while the guests clear out the buffet."
She can't help a smile. "That must be pretty frustrating."
"After eighteen years, yes, I'm a little bitter." But he smiles, too, like it doesn't actually bother him all that much. He nudges her shoulder. "So you'll just have to give me a secondhand account. What's the food really like?"
Cinder nudges him back. "I'm sure the palace cooks would be more than willing to make you an entire platter of your own."
"But it's different when you're actually there, with the music and dancing and your best clothes."
"Well, I've never gone to the ball," she admits. "So I couldn't tell you."
Kai's surprise is almost comical, as if she said that she had never heard the lullaby about the twinkling star. "Really? Why not?"
She shrugs uncomfortably as a dozen reasons spring to mind. I had nothing to wear. Adri wouldn't let me. I wouldn't fit in at a fancy ball, anyway. But all she says is, "It's not really my scene."
"The Commonwealth ball is supposed to be everyone's scene," Kai insists, and Cinder almost rolls her eyes because this is exactly the sort of thing you'd expect from a prince. "That's kind of the point."
"I'm a mechanic!"
"Well, you should come this year."
"What for?"
His eyes are bright and earnest. "So you can dance!"
Cinder blows her bangs off her forehead, exasperated. "I don't know how to dance."
"I'll teach you."
"I –" She shakes her head, trying to dispel the thought of dancing. With him. Her hands on his shoulders, his hands on her waist, whirling in tandem across the pavilion. That's supposed to be Peony's dream, not hers. Such a situation can only lead to embarrassment. "I'll just end up standing on the side, anyway."
"No, you won't," Kai persists, shifting on the bench to face her completely, "because I'll ask you to dance, and I don't think you're the kind of person who would reject someone just to prove a point."
She gazes back at him, doubtful. "How can you be so sure?"
"Because I know you."
Her breath hitches.
"Linh-mei," he says quietly. There's uncertainty in his face but determination too. "Come to the ball with me."
Maybe Cinder is stupid for only now realizing that he truly likes her. Surely, it's impossible that he – who lives high on this cliff overlooking a sparkling New Beijing – would like her, one of two hundred thousand single girls from the dirt and dust of the city streets. Impossible, her mind whispers. Impossible.
How does one even date a prince? Friendship is one thing, but if she accepts this offer, the fact of his titanic future will constantly hang over their heads, whispering empress empress empress into her ear as they try to enjoy each other's company. What if they break up? What sort of agonizing awkwardness will arise from that?
On the other hand, what if they don't split up? What if she, a simple mechanic, will be expected to learn to hold her own on the stage of international politics, all in order to stand at the prince's side?
Whatever this is, it can't happen. There are too many strings attached, too much that could go wrong.
She opens her mouth to say no. She sees him see her start to say no, the pre-emptive disappointment in his eyes.
Things might have gone smoothly from there, if it weren't for the blinding flash of light above them.
Cinder and Kai both look up, momentarily distracted; Cinder gets the fleeting impression of gazing into a very wide, very dark tunnel in the sky, like a tornado opening straight onto them. Then something tiny falls out of it, growing larger and larger by the second.
"What the …" Kai mutters.
The something, whatever it is, screams "AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!" as it flails wildly through the air. Only when it blocks the sunlight on their faces does Cinder realise that it's directly overhead –
She leaps away, dragging a yelping Kai by the shirt, but not fast enough.
Something smacks her head, and pain explodes in her shoulders as she's knocked to the ground by the falling object. Her hand is wrenched away from Kai's shirt. The bench snaps and falls to pieces in a racket of splintering wood.
Silence encloses the garden as dust settles around them.
Cinder squeezes her eyes shut and focuses on drawing in one breath after the other. She can barely register what's happened; one moment she was on her feet, the next she's lying flat on her stomach with a dull ringing in her ears. Her lungs can't seem to find air, immobilized by shock and by the heavy thing pinning her to the ground.
It must be a malfunctioned drone – no, a paraglider –
Yet it, too, seems to be breathing. She can feel its warm breath on her shoulders.
Before she can think to say anything, let alone move, the weight rises off Cinder's back and they hear a loud, very much human exhalation of relief. A cheerful voice pipes up:
"Sorry about that! Didn't mean to land on you. I still haven't got the hang of the calibrations on this thing. Did I hurt anybody?"
"Hrrrrngh," Kai groans.
Cinder braces herself on her forearms and struggles up. Her back protests where it was jabbed by somebody's elbow – there'll be bruises there soon – but she manages to get on her hands and knees. Her hands are dusted with dirt, grass and wooden splinters, and beneath them lie the remains of the carved bench they were sitting on only moments before. The china teacups have been completely pulverized.
She twists around weakly on the grass … and stares.
It is neither a drone nor a paraglider.
In the wreckage of the bench, amidst mounds of broken wood and shards of wrought iron, stands a child.
vii.
It's a skinny little boy, maybe nine or ten years old, with floppy black hair, angular eyes and an olive Commonwealth complexion. He's frowning and jabbing at a round black object in his hands, paying no attention whatsoever to the two people he just rammed into the ground. He appears to be perfectly unharmed, with not a speck of dust anywhere on him.
He also looks vaguely familiar. Like someone she should know but can't quite remember.
Cinder cranes her neck, her lips parted in disbelief, searching the sky for a spaceship or skydiving hover the boy might have jumped off, but there are none. No movement, no growling engines, no hang-glider or parachute in sight. He seems to have appeared quite literally out of nowhere.
"Where did you come from?" she croaks out.
The boy looks up at her question, surprised, then a little sheepish. "Oh. Um … it's kind of complicated."
Beside her, Kai props himself up on his elbows, his dumbfounded expression a mirror of Cinder's own. His mouth opens and closes as though everything that comes to mind is unsuitable for the current circumstances.
Finally he breaks the stupefied silence and says, with delicate calm, "You fell from the sky."
"Uh …" The boy focuses on his round black device again, twisting his lips to one side. "Maybe. Hold on a second."
Cinder and Kai exchange a dazed look.
The boy is mumbling to himself, eyes flickering across the device in his hands. "Right. Okay. Eighteen years … fourteen days … fifteen hours after midnight. That should put me right when I'm supposed to be. Space-time continuum, check, DNA tracking, check. But if it's an alternate universe … ugh …"
Not taking his eyes off the child, Kai leans sideways toward Cinder and mutters, "When I'm supposed to be'?"
She just shakes her head. She has no more idea of what the little boy is on about than Kai does.
The boy snaps the device into a protective cover, making them both jump. "Okay! Thank you for your patience! Are you Prince Kaito and Linh –"
But when he finally looks at them properly, for the first time since he crashed down from the sky, his voice trails off. Astonishment flashes across his face, followed by awe, like the sight before him is something fantastically improbable instead of two teenagers lying in the rubble of a smashed garden bench.
"… Cinder," he finishes slowly, recognition dawning on his face.
Recognition.
Neither Cinder nor Kai know what to say, so the three of them stare mutely at each other as birds twitter in the blossoming trees all around them.
The boy tilts his head, eyes narrowed in curiosity as he looks the two of them over. "Huh."
The proverbial desert tumbleweed meanders from stage left to stage right.
"You don't look all that different," the boy says finally, as if it's the most natural thing in the world.
"We don't?" Cinder says faintly.
"Nah. Torin showed me a few pictures from the wedding. You're a little younger now, but you're definitely them." He grins, a spark of mischief in his dark Commonwealth eyes. "Do you, maybe, recognize me?"
Cinder and Kai both shake their heads. Words aren't quite forthcoming yet. Torin? The wedding?
"No?" he says, disappointed. "Well, that's okay. We'll just do this … uh … hypothetically." He tucks the round black object behind his back and squints up at the sky, as if gathering his thoughts. "So I'm here about … um … a little boy you're going to name. Sometime in the near future. And, uh …" It's clear that whatever speech he was planning to give, he hasn't rehearsed it at all. "You might feel the urge to name him something weird or unusual, like, say, something beginning with a Q … because of mythological significance or whatever." He screws up his face in disgust at all weird, unusual, mythological things. "But I'm here to warn you that he would rather be named something easy and cool. You with me so far?"
"No," says Kai in a strangled voice.
"Um, okay." The boy falters. "What part didn't you understand?"
Jaw set, Kai gets to his feet and offers Cinder a hand up. She lets him pull her upright, releasing his hand as soon as possible to brush down her cargo pants. The familiar grounds her a little, offers some sense of normality in a situation that has escalated from improbable to absurd in the span of two minutes.
"Look," Kai starts, turning to the boy, "who are you?"
"That," the boy replies, looking very pleased with himself, "is classified information."
Kai gives a sharp, half-hysterical laugh. "You can't just appear out of nowhere and start making demands. If you want something from us, some context would really help because I have no idea who you are or where you came from or what the galactic gumballs you're talking about!"
Cinder glances at him, bemused in spite of herself. Galactic gumballs?
"I know you're confused," the young boy says soothingly. "It's perfectly natural –"
"Don't tell me it's perfectly natural. You just dropped out of the sky!"
"Yeah, you keep saying that –"
A threatening note enters Kai's voice. "Where are your parents?"
Instead of being cowed, the boy bursts into peals of laughter.
Shaking his head, Kai tries a different tactic. "Do you have some sort of teleportation technology? Are you a spy?"
The smile drops from the boy's face. "No!"
"He's not a spy," Cinder says firmly, coming to stand beside Kai. He looks at her and exhales, hearing the unspoken message: back off, stop being overbearing.
Because if she's sure of anything, it's that this little stranger is no more and no less than what he looks like: a young boy who doesn't necessarily know what he's doing.
She looks into his eyes and tries to compose herself. Her voice shakes only a little as she asks, "What's your name?"
He bites his lip to suppress a grin, as if at some joke only he is aware of. "Are you sure you want to know? You don't want to … find out for yourself in a few years or so?"
Cinder gives him a strange look. "No?"
"All right." The skinny boy takes a deep breath – and it rushes out again in a huff of laughter. He looks as though he's desperately trying to keep a straight face, and is failing miserably. "Oh, boy. This is awkward. How weird is it that I have to introduce myself? Am I, like, completing the cycle of causality here? Hahahhahaha." But at Cinder's warning look, he sobers. Opens his mouth –
And hesitates.
And hesitates some more.
She raises her eyebrows.
He looks down at the ground and mutters something inaudible.
"Sorry, I didn't catch that …?"
"Quintos," he says, too loudly. "My name's Quintos." He grimaces, like it tastes sour on his tongue. "Please tell me you can sympathize with kids with terrible names."
Kai frowns. "Quintos isn't terrible. Isn't that the name of the first-era war hero? I always liked that story."
"What's that?" says Cinder, pointing at the round black object concealed behind the boy's back.
Quintos' eyes widen and he takes a step back. "Nothing! It's just a toy!"
"What were you just doing with it?" she presses. "What calibrations?"
"Nothing," he says again, his voice going high-pitched. "Look, I just want to ask you a favour and get out of your hair."
Kai scoffs. "You can't just drop out of the sky and ask –"
"Fine," Cinder interrupts, laying a hand on Kai's shoulder. Maybe, if they play along, things will start making sense. "What is it?"
"Thank you," says Quintos. "When you have a child, don't call him something lame, okay? Call him Mamoru."
"'Protector of the Earth'?" Kai translates aloud, raising an eyebrow.
Cinder shrugs. "I never planned on having children, anyway. So consider it done."
She thought it was an insignificant, almost irrelevant thing to say, but look on Quintos' face goes from nervousness to unmistakable dismay.
"B-but," he stammers, "you've got to! I mean, for the good of the Commonwealth. How can you not have children?"
Cinder frowns. "What are you talking about?"
"What am I talking about?!" Quintos stares up at her with wide, pleading, fearful eyes, as though he's drowning and she's holding the life buoy over his head. "You're the empress! You have to!"
She gives an alarmed laugh and holds up her hands in the universal gesture for time-out. "Excuse me?"
"You've got it wrong, kid," Kai says slowly. "Cinder isn't the empress. My mother is, actually." He gives Quintos a pointed look, as if to say so watch who you sass, kid.
"Well, yeah, not yet," Quintos amends, as if it's supposed to be obvious, "but when your parents retire and you become emperor, she'll become empress, right?" He stops, squinting at the sky like trying hard to recall a school lesson. "I think that's how it works. Or does the prince's wife stay a princess if she was born a civilian …?"
Not believing her ears, Cinder splutters, "I'm not any prince's wife!"
A blush creeps up Kai's throat.
Quintos blinks, confused. "But you're married, aren't you?" he demands, gesturing to the both of them. "Or you will be by next June …?"
Instead of the confirmation he was obviously expecting, he's met with twin expressions of mortification.
The boy swallows. "You … you're not even engaged yet?"
Resolutely not looking at each other, Cinder and Kai both shake their heads. Neither feel the desire to explain that the possibility of romance has only just been tentatively placed on the table. A date at the ball is one thing, but marriage is … quite another.
"Right," Quintos says hoarsely, his face going milky pale. "I think I might have made a teeny-tiny mistake. Sorry for the inconvenience."
He whips out the round black device and starts frantically punching buttons. A white spark illuminates the interior of the black ball and electricity blooms around the whole thing, crackling on the surface. Quintos cradles it with his bare hands, apparently unaffected, before the electricity surrounds him, too – cocooning him from head to toe.
"Stop!" Kai shouts in sudden panic, reaching to pull him out of the lightning shroud.
You idiot! Cinder wants to scream. Instead, she lunges for Kai, her hand grasping the back of his shirt to pull him back just as his fingers brush the hard casing of the electric device, just as Quintos cries a horrified No! and all three of them vanish from the palace gardens of New Beijing.
~ to be continued ~