What did you bring me today? Delusional mutterings with a side of crazy?

Emperor, right." she retacked the curtain "That's weird to say, after eighteen years of listening to celebrity gossip feeds go on and on about 'Earth's favorite prince'". She claimed one of the lumpy sofa cushions, curling her legs beneath her. "I had a picture of him taped to my wall when I was fifteen. Grand-mere cut it off a cereal box."

Wolf scowled.

"Of course, half the girls in the world probably have had that same picture from that same cereal box."

Wolf scrunched his shoulders against his neck, and Scarlet grinned, teasing. "Oh, no. You're not going to have to fight him for pack dominance now are you? Come here."

She beckoned him with a wave of her hand and he was at her side in half a second, the glower softening as he pulled her against his chest.

But was the woman's death the tragedy, or her life?

My point is that I am going to figure this out, like I always do. First, we’re going to find a way to get into Artemisia. We’re going to find Cress and rescue Cinder and Wolf. We’re going to overthrow Levana, and by the stars above, we are going to make Cinder a queen so she can pay us a lot of money from her royal coffers and we can all retire very rich and very alive, got it?"

Winter started to clap. "Brilliant speech. Such gumption and bravado."

"And yet strangely lacking in any sort of actual strategy," said Scarlet.

"Oh, good, I'm glad you noticed that too," said Iko. "I was worried my processor might be glitching.

I would have killed everyone of them to get to you. I would have done anything to get you back. Knowing that we were coming here was the only thing that kept me sane.” His brow creased. “Though there were a couple times when I went a little insane anyway.

It’s just like the one Scarlet had.” He flipped the gun in his palms, running his thumbs along the barrel. “She shot me in the arm once.”

This confession was said with as much tenderness as if Scarlet had given him a bouquet of wildflowers rather than a bullet wound.

Cress and the others traded sorrowful looks.