"Two days?" Kai asked.
"Yes, your highness. You do have matters to attend to," replied Torin in an unusually soft voice that told Kai he was sorry for him.
Of course, he thought. He had a kingdom to run. He couldn't stay here forever just lunging around with Cinder all day, no matter how tempting that sounded.
Cinder. Kai already felt so awful, so alone. What would he do without her? Without her smile or her laugh, without her witty comments or cutting sarcasm, without her awkward stuttering or clumsy ways, without her kiss on his lips or her arms around his neck? The answer was simple; he'd be miserable.
How would she take the news? he wondered. Probably a little better than he currently was. She'd probably make a sarcastic comment or give him a hug. And for another two days, all would be right with the world.
He had to see her.
Kai mumbled a goodbye to Torin and quickly left for the queen's suite. He just needed to talk to Cinder, to be with her for a couple hours, and then everything would be fine. He hadn't seen her in a long time. A long time being five hours. Kai sighed-clearly, he would be having a couple problems in the near future.
He knocked on the door of Cinder's room. No answer. He tried again. Nothing. Slowly, he opened the door just a crack.
Nobody.
So obviously, Cinder wasn't in that room. That was fine. She was probably with Iko or someone, maybe Cress or Scarlet.
He checked all their rooms. Not there. Cress had been on her computer, trying to teach Thorne a little about technology and failing epically. They were laughing as Thorne managed to disable the computer for half an hour. Scarlet and Wolf were huddled on the couch watching a horror movie and eating tomatoes, the juice from Wolf's tomato coincidentally squirting Scarlet in the face at the same time that the serial killer stabbed the main character. Scarlet screamed, Wolf flushed bright red and mumbled his apologies. They both laughed. When Kai had looked around in Winter's room, she had flown inside, crammed herself into a wardrobe, and ordered Kai to shut the door. Kai was extremely confused-Winter was crazy, but not this crazy-and then Jacin had rushed into the room too, calling Winter's name in a singsongy voice. "I know you're innnn here, Winter!" He'd said. And then Kai had understood. They were playing hide and seek. Jacin had opened the door and Winter had tumbled out. They, too, laughed. Iko and Kinney were in the hall, insulting each other and hiding smiles behind their glares.
Finally, Kai checked the throne room.
It was dark, but Kai could make out a slim fugue sitting on the throne. He opened the door completely, swinging it wide to allow light to penetrate the room.
Cinder was on the throne looking tired and miserable and quite frankly, she was a wreck. There were dark circles under her eyes and her hair was even more disheveled than usual. Her simple cream colored gown was covered in grease stains. It reminded him of the beautiful creamy gloves he had given her, the ones she had stained with oil and then wore to the ball.
Kai couldn't help but smile.
She was still the most beautiful girl, on Earth or Luna.