9 DAYS. 10 HOURS. 32 MINUTES.
The ginger cake had indeed been the best I’d had in recent memory, but I hadn’t really enjoyed it with the endless swirling of questions in my head: Why would he not tell me the real answer? Could Seren be a real entity? No one alive today had ever claimed to have seen Him, but the ladies in white claim their ancestors had. Had Dad been wrong? Or did Gabriel just not want anyone knowing the technology to transfer a consciousness into a machine existed?
“Come on, El. Let it go. Sometimes you are not going to have all the answers. Isn’t it enough that we’re both alive and well?” Meena twirled under the flickering lamplight of the garage.
Everything was where I had left it. My rickety shelves were still overflowing with knickknacks and ideas, a layer of dust still sat over the corners and desks and piles I had neglected over the years, and my tools still hung from the wall and sat in boxes on the left, ready for use. Everything was just the same as it always had been, but I had changed.
And IoN wasn’t whizzing around, causing havoc and correcting me whenever he got the chance. Maybe there had been some of Dad in him after all.
Sometimes I had felt so alone it was suffocating, hard to breathe without someone else in my atmosphere, but after a while I had gotten used to the feeling of not quite being able to breathe; until someone stepped into my life and reminded me of what it felt like to inhale without struggle, and then the pang of loneliness stung harder, the lows from the happiness highs swung lower, and I had to sacrifice emotional stability for happiness.
Meena grabbed my hand and squeezed, not saying a word. She had this amazing ability to always sense when I was sad, when I was thinking of IoN and my mother and father, wondering what it would be like today if everyone I had lost was still around.
“I have some good news,” Meena said. “I got you into the fast track program at Palon University on level eighteen. You start next month.”
“You . . . what?”
“It’s your payment for the job of fixing my lifeclock. Remember? It’s what you asked for.” She looked at me with gorgeous green eyes and glowing skin from her time in the desert sun. “It feels like underpayment if you ask me, but it’s all you wanted.”
“It’s all I’ve ever needed.”
She leaned up to me, brushing a wayward strand of blonde hair behind my ear, and placed a gentle kiss on my lips. Her lips were soft, like normal, but insistent, and soon she barged her tongue past my lips and we stumbled into a nearby wall. “I have to go,” she whispered between fervent kisses. “My parents are expecting me. But here.” She held out one of the envelopes she had picked up at the post office in Vakt Port and handed it to me.
I ripped open the handwritten letter addressed to me, surprised to find an invitation tucked inside. You are cordially invited to Princess Jemeena’s twenty-first birthday ball.
“Come with me?”
“Like, as a date?”
“Yes, as a date. I want to show you off, Cinderella. Twirl you around the glittering ballroom and make everyone jealous that you’re mine and no one else’s.”
“I...’’ I was about to think up some excuse as to why I couldn’t possibly attend a royal ball, but after everything that had happened in Prago City and the Temple of Seren, nothing seemed a good enough reason to say no. “Of course I’ll come.” Besides, she was celebrating her twenty-first birthday—an age she never thought she’d reach. If she wanted me there, then I’d be there.
“Great!” She bounced on her feet, her heels clacking on the floor, and spun around. “I love you,” she said as she ran out the door, leaving me alone in the garage.
I suspected she left on purpose, giving me space to unpack my adventure and find out where I now fit into my life. Of course, I could ask Meena for anything I really needed, but I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to earn it. The tuition at Palon University was technically a payment for a job well done—or a job done to some degree of wellness.
I clicked the lock on the garage door shut and yanked the shutters closed, ensuring no one could see into the building, then pulled the glass vials out of my toolbelt pocket and stared at the green liquid. Herbilore. The power to give life to another by taking it.
Would I ever get that desperate?
I hoped not.
I wanted to smash them, pour the liquid down the drain and be done with it all—but I couldn’t. Something wouldn’t let me pull the stopper off. My hand stilled, hovering over the vial like it held my chance at life in its fingertips.
Fine. Frustration bubbled over into grief, and tears ran down my cheeks. “Why?” Why would Dad do this to me? Why would he force me to lose him twice? I just wanted IoN back. I never told him how important he was to me, how much I viewed him as a person and not a steambot, how I would have flown off the island to save him and Meena both if I’d had the time.
But I hadn’t had the time.
I couldn’t have saved them both. I was not responsible for IoN’s choices. He was.
Taking a deep breath, I settled myself and wiped my face clean. Instead of wallowing, I locked the vials of herbilore into a box only I had the key to, which I tucked into my toolbelt.
8 DAYS. 17 HOURS. 22 MINUTES.
Home was chaos the moment I walked through the dusty front door. Phyllis met me with glares and daggers and looked as cold as ice, while the twins shouted at each other from the bedroom in ever-increasing pitches.
“You can’t just not go,” Lazuli said. “I don’t want to go alone.”
“I can’t hold your hand through every social event, Lazuli. One of these days, you’re going to have to woman up and marry or educate yourself.”
“Ah! How can you be so selfish?” she shrieked. “You’re just going to leave and never come back?”
I looked at Phyllis for an answer, but noticed the puffy rings under her bloodshot eyes from a night of crying that I missed before behind all the anger. She was not happy about this choice of Lapis’s either. But I guessed it was a good sign that she wasn’t trying to control her or scream at her.
Our shared bedroom was a heap of thrown cushions and dress piles and torn rags, the single desk strewn with papers and pencils, as though someone had angrily swiped their hand through the usually organized materials. Lazuli stood over Lapis, who sat huddled in the corner of the bed, screaming at her sister. I had told her to tell her the truth and not wait like this.
One look thrown my way told me that she now understood what I was talking about. That I was right. She should have told her sister sooner.
“Cinderella,” Lazuli snarled. “What do you want?”
Ignoring her, I walked over to Lapis. “Do you need help?” I held out my hand, offering her a way out of this mess, and maybe I could offer her the sofa in the garage to sleep on if she needed somewhere else to be.
“Thank you, but I think I should see this through. I should have told them both sooner, and it’s my fault they’re hurt now. I should fix it.”
“You knew?” Phyllis asked, her voice hurt. “You knew she was courting someone and you didn’t tell me?”
I turned on the spot and met her eyes, trying to force myself to be as relaxed as possible. “Yes.”
“I asked her not to say anything,” Lapis said. “I just needed somewhere to meet him where you wouldn’t see us. He’s from here, on level two. I knew you wouldn’t approve. I knew you wanted me to marry higher and make a life for myself, but there was something about him. He made me feel seen, he used to walk me through the streets of two in total silence just to let me talk his ear off about utter nonsense. But six months ago, he got a fellowship to work with a carpenter in Prago City up on level ten. He didn’t want to go originally—he wanted to stay for me.” She turned to face her mother, a fierce look in her eyes. “He was willing to remain in poverty for me. How could I let him make that choice? I told him to go and to keep writing to me.”
“I met with him when I was in Prago City with the princess,” I added. “He has a nice-sized house on ten not far from the workshop. The sun shines there—you can see it from anywhere on that level.” I also turned to face Phyllis. “It’s a fantastic city, he seems like a wonderful and kind gentleman, and it’s a big step up for Lapis. I...I think it’s the right choice.”
“But what about me?” Lazuli asked.
Lapis grabbed her hands and squeezed. “You are not half of a person. You are not the other side of my coin. You are you. And you deserve to find the same happiness one day. Besides, he promised me there’s a spare bedroom in our house, so you’re more than welcome to spend your summers with us.” She grabbed Phyllis’s hand and yanked her to them. “Both of you.”
The three of them hugged, and without the screaming, the hurt and pain Lapis’s departure was going to cause was obvious. Rather than stay an intruder, I turned to leave.
“Hey, El?” Lapis said. “How did your trip go?”
I turned back around to face them, but I didn’t know what to say. It went great: I saved the princess’s life, I got my educational reward, I saw the entire continent. It went horribly: I watched the princess almost die, IoN died, I lost Dad all over again, and Palatina is one of the worst places on this damn island to live. “It went okay. I start school next month as payment for my services.”
Phyllis opened her mouth, her lips downturned, but I interrupted her before she could get a word out. “Don’t worry. It’s on a fast track so I’ll be done in a year. And it’s the big one on eighteen, just like Dad. This will help all of us, I promise.”
Phyllis went to say something else, but I shook my head.
“No, I didn’t ask for money or a house on a higher level or anything else I didn’t think I deserved. I want the chance to build my life for myself, and despite the fact that you’re impossible, Dad asked me to take care of you, so I’ll continue doing that as best I can. And when I have earned enough to move us up the levels, I will.”
I didn’t mention IoN, and I hoped I would never have to, but the lack of my best friend was like an exposed wound. They’d notice eventually.
“In the meantime, here.” I gave her a copy of the invitations Meena gave me. “She invited everyone.”
Phyllis ripped open the envelope and grinned with large teeth. “This is perfect! Well done, Cinderella. Lazuli, come along. We have to get you fitted for a gown worthy of a royal ball. And maybe we might find you a suitor tomorrow night.”
I guessed that Lapis and I had to fend for ourselves, but it didn’t look like she minded, as she immediately started tidying up the gowns on the floor and placing them back into their meticulously organized structure inside the wardrobe. Then she pulled a few out and held them up to the mirror, trying to decide which one to wear.
“Did you want to borrow one?”
They wouldn’t fit me, so I shook my head. But she brought up a great question: How was I supposed to attend a ball I had no attire for?