Ryu chased after it and snatched the stick from the air. Within seconds, he pranced back to his pile of sticks and dropped the twig on top. Pleased, he sat back on his haunches, tongue lolling.
“Good job, Ryu. Nice show of restraint.” Sighing, Scarlet picked up another stick.
Ryu had just taken off when she heard the padding of feet down the path. Scarlet sat back on her heels, instantly tense, but relieved when she spotted a flowing cream-colored gown between the stalks of exotic flowers and drooping vines. The princess rounded the path’s corner a moment later, basket in hand.
“Hello, friends,” said Princess Winter.
Ryu dropped his newest stick onto the pile, then sat down, chest high as though he were showing her proper respect.
Scarlet scowled. “Suck-up.”
Winter tilted her head in Scarlet’s direction. A spiral of black hair fell across her cheek, obstructing her scars.
“What did you bring me today?” Scarlet asked. “Delusional mutterings with a side of crazy? Or is this one of your good days?”
The princess grinned and sat down in front of Scarlet’s cage, uncaring that the path of tumbled black rock and ground covers would soil her dress. “This is one of my best days,” she said, settling the basket on her lap, “for I have brought you a treat, with a side of news.”
“Oh, oh, don’t tell me. They’re moving me to a bigger cage? Oh, please tell me this one comes with real plumbing. And maybe one of those fancy self-feeders the birds get?”
Though Scarlet’s words were laced with sarcasm, in truth, a larger cage with real plumbing would have been a vast improvement. Without being able to stand up, her muscles were becoming weaker by the day, and it would be heaven if she didn’t have to rely on the guards to lead her into the next enclosure, twice a day, where she was graciously escorted to a trough to do her business.
A trough.
Winter, immune as ever to the bite in Scarlet’s tone, leaned forward with a secretive smile. “Jacin has returned.”
Scarlet’s brow twitched, her emotions at this statement pulling in a dozen directions. She knew Winter had a schoolgirl’s crush on this Jacin guy, but Scarlet’s one interaction with him had been when he was working for a thaumaturge, attacking her and her friends.
She’d convinced herself that he was dead, because the alternative was that he killed Wolf and Cinder, and that was unacceptable.
“And?” she prodded.
Winter’s eyes sparkled. There were times when Scarlet felt like she’d hardened her heart to the girl’s impeccable beauty—her thick hair and warm brown skin, her gold-tinged eyes and rosy lips. But then the princess would give her a look like that and Scarlet’s heart would skip and she would once again wonder how it was possible this wasn’t a glamour.
Winter’s voice turned to a conspiratorial whisper. “Your friends are alive.”
The simple statement sent the world spinning. Scarlet spent a moment in limbo, distrusting, unwilling to hope. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. He said that even the captain and the satellite girl were all right.”
Like a marionette released, she drooped over her knees. “Oh, thank the stars.”
They were alive. After nearly a month of subsisting on dogged stubbornness, finally Scarlet had a reason to hope. It was so sudden, so unexpected, she felt dizzy with euphoria.
“He also said to tell you,” Winter continued, “that Wolf misses you very much. Well, Jacin’s words were that he drove everyone rocket-mad with his pathetic whining about you. That’s sweet, don’t you think?”
Something cracked inside Scarlet. She hadn’t cried once since she’d come to Luna—aside from tears of pain and delirium when she was tortured, mentally and physically. But now all the fear and all the panic and all the horror welled up inside her and she couldn’t hold it back, couldn’t even think beyond the onslaught of sobs and messy tears.
They were alive. They were all alive.
She knew Cinder was still out there—word had spread even to the menagerie that she had infiltrated New Beijing Palace and kidnapped the emperor. Scarlet had felt smug for days when the gossip reached her, even if she didn’t have anything to do with the heist.
But no one mentioned accomplices. No one said anything about Wolf or Thorne or the satellite girl they’d been trying to rescue.
She swiped at her nose and pushed her greasy hair off her face. Winter was watching Scarlet’s show of emotion like one might watch a butterfly shucking its cocoon.
“Thank you,” said Scarlet, hiccuping back another sob. “Thank you for telling me.”
“Of course. You’re my friend.”
Scarlet rubbed her palm across her eyes and, for the first time, didn’t argue.
“And now for your treat.”
“I’m not hungry.” It was a lie, but she’d come to despise how much she relied on Winter’s charity.
“But it’s a sour apple petite. A Lunar delicacy that is—”
“One of your favorites, yeah, I know. But I’m not—”
“I think you should eat it.” The princess’s expression was innocent and meaningful all at once, in that peculiar way she had. “I think it will make you feel better,” she continued, pushing a box through the bars. She waited until Scarlet had taken it from her, then stood and made her way across the path to Ryu. She crouched to give the wolf a loving scratch behind his ears, then leaned over the rail and started gathering up his pile of sticks.
Scarlet lifted the lid of the box, revealing the red marble-like candy in its bed of spun sugar. Winter had brought her many treats since her imprisonment, most of them laced with painkillers. Though the pain from Scarlet’s finger, which had been chopped off during her interrogation with the queen, had faded to a distant memory, the candies still helped with the aches and pains of life in such cramped quarters.