Marissa Meyer's Blog, page 5

It’s finally here! INSTANT KARMA releases today! I truly had so much fun writing this book and hope you love it. If you haven’t already ordered your copy, gets yours from your local independent bookshop, order from our online affiliate at Bookshop.org, or find your favorite store here.

Audio is also available! The amazing Rebecca Soler is back as narrator.

There’s a sweepstakes to win one of 25 copies of the audio book (U.S. only) – click here for info and to enter. 

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And finally, don’t forget to sign up for the huge online release party – this Friday, November 6 at 8pm EST. It’s free and open to everyone but you must register. 

Want to get your hands on INSTANT KARMA goodies? Want to have a virtual meet and greet with me? 

The INSTANT KARMA Tour will be virtual, but there will still be chances to have an online meet and greet with me. Check out the special events page to get your tickets (tickets include a copy of INSTANT KARMA, a signed bookplate and a quick one-on-one meet and greet with me in the virtual signing line). Note: for international fans, Oblong Books & Music and Katy Budget Books are able to ship internationally. Please check with each store for more details. 

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If you can’t make it to one of the meet and greet events, you can still get swag! Preorder from one of the independent bookstores below to get your INSTANT KARMA tote bag.

Anderson’s Bookshop
Antarctica Books, LLC
Appalachian State University
Bards Alley, LLC
Best of Books
Bethany Beach Books
Book & Game Company
Book Loft
Book Seller
Books & Books Warehouse
Books of Wonder
Books of Wonder UWS
Boulder Bookstore
Briar Patch
Browseabout Books
Brunner News Agency
Cavalier House Books
Classic Bookshop
Flyleaf Books
Gathering Volumes
Gibson’s Bookstore
Global Concepts
Hicklebees
Indie Books, LLC
Innisfree Bookshop
Ivory Bill Enterprises, LLC
Jay & Mary’s Book Center
Kew & Willow Books
Liberty Bay Books
Little Shop of Stories
Mainstreet Bookstore
Mystic Books Inc
Nonesuch Books & More
Northshire Information, Inc
Northshire Saratoga
Novel, LLC
Octavia Books
Old Town Books
Page & Palette
Parnassus Books
Queen Anne Book Company
Rediscovered Bookshop
Retail Redux, LLC
Rivendell Bookstore
River Ben Bookshop, LLC
Riverstone Books LLC
Savoy Bookshop & Café
Schuler Books & Music
Scrawl books
Second Star to the Right
Seminary Coop Bookstore Inc
Snowbound Book, Inc
The Bookloft, LLC
The Mitten Word Bookshop, LLC
The Next Page, Inc
The Well-Read Moose
Tombolo Books
Vintage Books
Watermark Books
Words Matter, LLC
Wordsmith Bookshoppe
Writer’s Block Bookstore, LLC

Supplies are limited so be sure to call to confirm availability.

They’re finally here! Now you can get the rest of the paperback redesigns of Fairest, Stars Above, and the entire Lunar Chronicles boxed set – perfect for gift-giving!

[image error] Mirror, mirror, on the wall.

Who is the Fairest of them all?

Pure evil has a name, hides behind a mask of deceit, and uses her “glamour” to gain power. But who is Queen Levana? Long before she crossed paths with Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress in The Lunar Chronicles, Levana lived a very different story—a story that has never been told . . . until now.

New York Times–bestselling author Marissa Meyer reveals the story behind her fascinating villain in Fairest, an unforgettable tale about love and war, deceit and death.

[image error] The enchantment continues . . .

The universe of the Lunar Chronicles holds stories—and secrets—that are wondrous, vicious, and romantic. How did Cinder first arrive in New Beijing? How did the brooding soldier Wolf transform from young man to killer? When did Princess Winter and the palace guard Jacin realize their destinies?

With nine stories—five of which have never before been published—Stars Above is essential for fans of the bestselling and beloved Lunar Chronicles.

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Follow Marissa Meyer’s The Lunar Chronicles from the beginning with Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, Fairest: Levana’s Story, Stars Above (a collection of stories set in the Lunar Chronicles universe), and the epic conclusion, Winter.

Find more information and buy links at the Universe of Marissa Meyer Site.

My tour is going virtual this year! Things might be tipsy-turvy right now, but I’m still so excited to celebrate INSTANT KARMA with you! We’ll be doing just that with one big virtual launch event on 11/6, plus a series of online meet & greets, including one-on-one time!

[image error]For a limited time, the ebook of Heartless is on sale. It’s a great time to add it to your ereader as you wait for Instant Karma to release.

Catherine may be one of the most desired girls in Wonderland, and a favorite of the yet-unmarried King of Hearts, but her interests lie elsewhere. A talented baker, all she wants is to open a shop with her best friend and supply the Kingdom of Hearts with delectable pastries and confections. But according to her mother, such a goal is unthinkable for the young woman who could be the next Queen.

At a royal ball where Cath is expected to receive the king’s marriage proposal, she meets Jest, the handsome and mysterious court joker. For the first time, she feels the pull of true attraction. At the risk of offending the King and infuriating her parents, she and Jest enter into an intense, secret courtship.

Cath is determined to define her own destiny and fall in love on her terms. But in a land thriving with magic, madness, and monsters, fate has other plans.

Click through for buy links and to read a teaser. 

From The Keeper: 

Michelle slid her fingertip across the portscreen, flipping through the album of photos her granddaughter had sent that morning. Luc had taken Scarlet to see the ruins of the Musée du Louvre, and Scarlet had taken dozens of pictures of the crumbling statues and still-standing wreckage. There was even a photo of Luc and Scarlet together, huddled in enormous wool coats beside a statue with one missing arm. The stone woman looked like a third member of their party. Michelle kept coming back to this picture, the only one of the album that had both Luc and Scarlet in it. Though Luc wore his usual detached expression—always trying so hard to look sophisticated—Scarlet’s grin was effervescent. Her eyes sparkling, one of her front teeth missing, her curly red hair half tucked into the collar of her jacket. She seemed happy. For once, Luc was trying, and that warmed Michelle to her core. It was a welcome change from the usual comms she received from her granddaughter. Home life had been difficult for the child since her mother had left . . . no, Michelle knew it had been difficult long before that. Though she loved her son, she had known from the beginning that he was ill-suited to parenthood. Too vain and selfish, and his young wife had been every bit as bad. Their relationship had been passionate and dramatic and doomed from the start. They’d practically been arguing since the moment they’d started dating—big arguments, with screaming and smashed dishes and law enforcement called by the neighbors more than once. When the pregnancy had been announced, Michelle had struggled to feign joy for them. The disastrous end to their marriage had been inevitable and she’d known that the poor child would be the victim of it. Usually she was forced to read between the lines of Scarlet’s comms, as Luc certainly never told her anything. “I’m bored and waiting for Papa to get home” translated to “Luc is out at the bars again and his six-year-old daughter is home alone.” Or, “Thank you for the birthday gift. Papa said he’s going to take me to a theme park to celebrate once the weather is better,”translated to “Luc forgot his daughter’s birthday again and hopes she’ll forget all about his promise by the time spring rolls around.” Or, “The neighbor brought ratatouille for dinner again—the third this week. She uses too much eggplant and I HATE eggplant, but Papa said I was being rude and sent me to my room,” translated to “Luc gambled away their food budget this week, but at least this kindly neighbor is paying attention—unless she’s been charmed by Luc’s smile and hasn’t yet figured out that he’s a spineless rascal.” Michelle sighed. She loved her son, but she had lost respect for him a long while ago. She knew she had to accept part of the blame herself, though. She had raised him, after all. Maybe she had spoiled him too much, or maybe not enough. Maybe he’d needed a father in his life to guide him. Maybe— A knock startled her. She lifted her gaze away from the portscreen where she’d been staring into the shadowed face of the son she hadn’t spoken more than a dozen sentences to this year. Probably one of the neighbor kids hosting a fundraiser, or someone from town wanting a few eggs from her hens. Setting the port on the table beside her favorite reading chair, she pulled herself to her feet and ducked out of her bedroom, down the narrow stairs that creaked familiarly every time, into the small foyer of the farmhouse. She didn’t bother to look, just opened the door on its ancient hinges. Her heart stalled. The entire world seemed to hesitate. Michelle took half a step back, bracing herself on the door. “Logan.” His name struck her with the full force of an asteroid collision, stealing the air from her lungs. Logan stared back at her. Logan. Her Logan. His eyes searched her, every bit as rich and fathomless as she remembered, though they were lined with wrinkles that hadn’t been there before. More than thirty years before. “Hello, Michelle.” His voice was a wearier version of the one she had adored all those years ago, but it still filled her with memories and loneliness and warmth. “I am so sorry to intrude on you like this,” he said, “but I am in desperate need of your help.” * She had been both proud and terrified when she’d been invited to attend the Earthen diplomats on a visit to Luna—the first in generations. She was one of four pilots for the mission, and the youngest by nearly ten years. It had been an honor, even though most of the people she’d mentioned the mission to prior to departure gawked at her like she was crazy for even considering it. “Luna?” they would ask in disbelief. “You’re going to Luna . . . willingly? But . . . they’ll murder you. They’ll brainwash you and turn you into an Earthen slave. You’ll never come back!” She laughed and ignored their warnings, confident that the horror stories surrounding Lunars were based on superstitious nonsense more than solid facts. Just like Earthens, she believed there would be good Lunars and bad Lunars. Surely, they couldn’t all be monsters. Besides, she was only a pilot. She wouldn’t be involved in any of the political discussions or important meetings. She didn’t even know what the mission was meant to accomplish. She would spend the month-long visit enjoying the famed luxuries of Artemisia and she would return home with plenty of stories to tell. She wasn’t about to let some absurd urban legends keep her from being part of such a historic event. She was given leave almost as soon as they reached Artemisia, and she soon discovered that the white city was everything she expected it to be and more. Lush gardens and courtyards filled the spaces between white-stone buildings. Trees towered over sprawling mansions—some reaching nearly to the domed enclosure that covered the city. Music poured out of every alleyway and no glass was left empty of wine and everyone she met was carefree and full of laughter. Somehow they all knew she was Earthen without her having to say so, and it seemed that every wealthy merchant and aristocrat in the city made it their personal obligation to show her the grandest time she could imagine. It was only the fourth day since her arrival and she was in the central square of the city, dancing around an enormous sundial with a strikingly handsome man, when she stepped too close to the edge and tumbled off. She cried out in pain, knowing instantly that her ankle was sprained. Her dancing partner called for a magnetic levitating contraption—similar to a gurney—and taken her to the nearest med-clinic. That was where she met Logan. He was a doctor, a few years older than she was, and Michelle had known instantly that he was different from the other Lunars she’d met. He was more serious. His eyes more thoughtful. But more than that, he was . . .imperfect. She studied him while he studied her ankle. Average build. Light brown, untidy hair. There was a mole on his cheek and his mouth drooped on one side, even when he smiled. He was still good-looking, at least by Earthen standards, but on Luna . . . Only when it occurred to her that he was not using a glamour did she realize that everyone else she’d met had been. He offered to let her rest in a suspension tank, but she shook her head. “It will heal quicker,” he said, confused by her refusal. “I don’t like being confined to small spaces,” she replied. “Then you must hate being trapped under the biodome here.” He didn’t press her as he began to wrap her ankle the old-fashioned way. For years to come, when she thought of Logan, she would remember his gentle hands and how deftly they had worked. “It’s so beautiful here,” she said. “I hardly feel trapped at all.” “Oh yes. It’s a very pretty prison we’ve built.” It was the first unpleasant comment she’d heard about Luna, from a Lunar. “You think of your home as a prison?” His gaze had flickered up, clashing with hers. He was silent for a long, long time. Instead of answering her question, he finally asked in a hushed whisper, “Is it true that the sky on Earth is the color of a blue jay’s wings?” After that day, Michelle had no longer had eyes for the aristocrats and their flashy clothes (especially once Logan told her that the man she’d been dancing with on the sundial was in fact old enough to be her grandfather). She and Logan spent every possible moment together during her stay on Luna. They both knew it was a temporary affair. There was a ticking clock for when she would return to Earth, and she never entertained hope that he might be able to return with her. The rules against Lunar emigration were strict—Luna didn’t like its citizens leaving, and Earth didn’t want them coming. Perhaps their romance was more intense for its brevity. They talked about everything—politics and peace and Earth and Luna and constellations and history and mythology and childhood rhymes. He told her horrifying rumors about how the Lunar crown treated the impoverished citizens of the outer sectors, forever ruining the glittering allure that Artemisia had first cast over her. She told him about her dream to someday retire from the military and buy a small farm. He showed her the best place in the city to see the Milky Way, and there was a meteor shower on the night they first made love. When it was time for her to leave, there were no parting gifts. No tears and no goodbyes. He had kissed her one last time and she had boarded the ship to return to Earth and that was the last she had ever seen of Dr. Logan Tanner. When she’d discovered her pregnancy nearly two months later, it had not even occurred to her to try and find a way to inform him of his child. She was sure that it would not have mattered anyway. * “We were told of her death months ago,” Michelle said, pressing her palm flat against the glass lid of the suspended animation tank that had been hidden beneath a pile of old horse blankets in the back of a rented hover. She was trying to keep from heaving. She was not easily disturbed, but never had she been so close to something so sad and horrific. Judging from the size of the body, the child could not have been more than three or four years old. She looked more like a corpse—disfigured and covered in burn marks. It was unbelievable that she was alive at all. “There have been rumors . . . conspiracy theorists have speculated that she may have survived and Levana is trying to cover it up. But I didn’t believe them.” “Good,” said Logan. “We want people to believe she’s dead, especially the queen. It’s the only way she’ll be safe.” “Princess Selene,” Michelle whispered. It didn’t seem real. None of this seemed real. Logan was on Earth. Princess Selene was alive. He’d brought her here.

Purchase & Retail Links: Barnes and Noble, IndieBound, Indigo (Canada), iBooks

In this fourth book in the bestselling Lunar Chronicles series!

Winter despises her stepmother, and knows Levana won’t approve of her feelings for her childhood friend–the handsome palace guard, Jacin. But Winter isn’t as weak as Levana believes her to be and she’s been undermining her stepmother’s wishes for years.

Together with the cyborg mechanic, Cinder, and her allies, Winter might even have the power to launch a revolution and win a war that’s been raging for far too long. Can Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, and Winter defeat Levana and find their happily ever afters?

Purchase & Retail Links: Barnes and Noble, IndieBound, Indigo (Canada), iBooks

In this third book in the bestselling Lunar Chronicles series, Cinder and Captain Thorne are fugitives on the run, with Scarlet and Wolf in tow.

Together, they’re plotting to overthrow Queen Levana and prevent her army from invading Earth. Their best hope lies with Cress, who has been trapped on a satellite since childhood with only her netscreens as company. All that screen time has made Cress an excellent hacker – unfortunately, she’s being forced to work for Queen Levana, and she’s just received orders to track down Cinder and her handsome accomplice.

When a daring rescue goes awry, the group is splintered. Cress finally has her freedom, but it comes at a higher price than she’d ever expected. Meanwhile, Queen Levana will let nothing prevent her marriage to Emperor Kai, especially the cyborg mechanic. Cress, Scarlet, and Cinder may not have signed up to save the world, but they may be the only hope the world has.

You can read the first chapter of Cress by clicking this link.

CHAPTER ONE

HER SATELLITE MADE ONE FULL ORBIT AROUND PLANET EARTH every sixteen hours. It was a prison that came with an endlessly breathtaking view— vast blue oceans and swirling clouds and sunrises that set half the world on fire.   When she was first imprisoned, she had loved nothing more than to stack her pillows on top of the desk that was built into the walls and drape her bed linens over the screens, making a small alcove for herself. She would pretend that she was not on a satellite at all, but in a podship en route to the blue planet. Soon she would land and step out onto real dirt, feel real sunshine, smell real oxygen.   She would stare at the continents for hours and hours, imagining what that must be like.   Her view of Luna, however, was always to be avoided. Some days her satellite passed so close that the moon took up the entire view and she could make out the enormous glinting domes on its surface and the sparkling cities where the Lunars lived. Where she, too, had lived. Years ago. Before she’d been banished.   As a child, Cress had hidden from the moon during those achingly long hours. Sometimes she would escape to the small washroom and distract herself by twisting elaborate braids into her hair. Or she would scramble beneath her desk and sing lullabies until she fell asleep. Or she would dream up a mother and a father, and imagine how they would play make- believe with her and read her adventure stories and brush her hair lovingly off her brow, until finally— finally—the moon would sink again behind the protective Earth, and she was safe.   Even now, Cress used those hours to crawl beneath her bed and nap or read or write songs in her head or work out complicated coding. She still did not like to look at the cities of Luna; she harbored a secret paranoia that if she could see the Lunars, surely they could look up beyond their artificial skies and see her. For more than seven years, this had been her nightmare.   But now the silver horizon of Luna was creeping into the corner of her window, and Cress paid no attention. This time, her wall of invisi- screens was showing her a brand- new nightmare. Brutal words were splattered across the newsfeeds, photos and videos blurring in her vision as she scrolled from one feed to the next. She couldn’t read fast enough.   1 4 C I T I E S A T T A C K E D W O R L D W I D E 2- H O U R M U R D E R S P R E E R E S U L T S I N 1 6 , 0 0 0 E A R T H E N D E A T H S L A R G E S T M A S S A C R E I N T H I R D E R A   The net was littered with horrors. Victims dead in the streets with shredded abdomens and blood leaking into the gutters. Feral men- creatures with gore on their chins and beneath their fingernails and staining the fronts of their shirts. She scrolled through them all with one hand pressed over her mouth. Breathing became increasingly difficult as the truth of it all sank in.   This was her fault.   For months she had been cloaking those Lunar ships from Earthen detection, doing Mistress Sybil’s bidding without question, like the well- trained lackey she was.   Now she knew just what kind of monsters had been aboard those ships. Only now did she understand what Her Majesty had been planning all along, and it was far too late.   1 6 , 0 0 0 E A R T H E N D E A T H S   Earth had been taken unaware, and all because she hadn’t been brave enough to say no to Mistress’s demands. She had done her job and then turned a blind eye to it all.   She averted her gaze from the pictures of death and carnage, focusing on another news story that suggested more horrors to come.   Emperor Kaito of the Eastern Commonwealth had put an end to the attacks by agreeing to marry Lunar Queen Levana. Queen Levana was to become the Commonwealth’s new empress.   The shocked journalists of Earth were scrambling to determine their stance on this diplomatic yet controversial arrangement. Some were in outrage, proclaiming that the Commonwealth and the rest of the Earthen Union should be preparing for war, not a wedding. But others were hastily trying to justify the alliance. With a swirl of her fingers on the thin, transparent screen, Cress raised the audio of a man who was going on about the potential benefits. No more attacks or speculations on when an attack might come. Earth would come to understand the Lunar culture better. They would share technological advances. They would be allies.   And besides, Queen Levana only wanted to rule the Eastern Commonwealth. Surely she would leave the rest of the Earthen Union alone.   But Cress knew they would be fools to believe it. Queen Levana was going to become empress, then she would have Emperor Kaito murdered, claim the country for her own, and use it as a launching pad to assemble her army before invading the rest of the Union. She would not stop until the entire planet was under her control. This small attack, these sixteen thousand deaths . . . they were only the beginning.   Silencing the broadcast, Cress set her elbows on her desk and dug both hands into her hive of blonde hair. She was suddenly cold, despite the consistently maintained temperature inside the satellite. One of the screens behind her was reading aloud in a child’s voice that had been programmed during four months of insanity- inducing boredom when she was ten years old. The voice was too chipper for the material it quoted: a medical blog from the American Republic announcing the results of an autopsy performed on one of the Lunar soldiers.   The bones had been reinforced with calcium- rich biotissue, while the cartilage in major joints was infused with a saline solution for added fl exibility and pliability. Orthodontic implants replaced the canine and incisor teeth with those mimicking the teeth of a wolf, and we see the same bone reinforcement around the jaw to allow for the strength to crush material such as bone and other tissue. Remapping of the central ner vous system and extensive psychological tampering were responsible for the subject’s unyielding aggression and wolf- like tendencies. Dr. Edelstein has theorized that an advanced manipulation technique of the brain’s bioelectric waves may also have played a role in—   “Mute feed.”   The sweet ten- year- old’s voice was silenced, leaving the satellite humming with the sounds that had long ago been relegated to the back of Cress’s consciousness. The whirring of fans. The thrumming of the life support system. The gurgling of the water recycling tank.   Cress gathered the thick locks of hair at the nape of her neck and pulled the tail over her shoulder— it had a tendency to get caught up in the wheels of her chair when she wasn’t careful. The screens before her fl ickered and scrolled as more and more information came in from the Earthen feeds. News was coming out from Luna too, on their “brave soldiers” and “hard- fought victory”—crown- sanctioned drivel, naturally. Cress had stopped paying attention to Lunar news when she was twelve. She mindlessly wrapped her ponytail around her left arm, spiraling it from elbow to wrist, unaware of the tangles clumping in her lap.   “Oh, Cress,” she murmured. “What are we going to do?”   Her ten- year- old self piped back, “Please clarify your instructions, Big Sister.”   Cress shut her eyes against the screen’s glare. “I understand that Emperor Kai is only trying to stop a war, but he must know this won’t stop Her Majesty. She’s going to kill him if he goes through with this, and then where will Earth be?” A headache pounded at her temples. “I thought for certain Linh Cinder had told him at the ball, but what if I’m wrong? What if he still has no idea of the danger he’s in?”   Spinning in her chair, she swiped her fingers across a muted newsfeed, punched in a code, and called up the hidden window that she checked a hundred times a day. The D-COMM window opened like a black hole, abandoned and silent, on top of her desk. Linh Cinder still had not tried to contact her. Perhaps her chip had been confiscated or destroyed. Perhaps Linh Cinder didn’t even have it anymore.   Huffing, Cress dismissed the link and, with a few hasty taps of her fingertips, cascaded a dozen different windows in its place. They were linked to a spider alert ser vice that was constantly patrolling the net for any information related to the Lunar cyborg who had been taken into custody a week earlier. Linh Cinder. The girl who had escaped from New Beijing Prison. The girl who had been Cress’s only chance of telling Emperor Kaito the truth about Queen Levana’s intentions should he agree to the marriage alliance.   The major feed hadn’t been updated in eleven hours. In the hysteria of the Lunar invasion, Earth seemed to have forgotten about their most- wanted fugitive.   “Big Sister?”   Pulse hiccupping, Cress grasped the arms of her chair. “Yes,   Little Cress?”   “Mistress’s ship detected. Expected arrival in twenty- two seconds.”   Cress catapulted from her chair at the word mistress, spoken even all those years ago with a tinge of dread.   Her movements were a precisely choreographed dance, one she had mastered after years of practice. In her mind, she became a second- era ballerina, skimming across a shadowy stage as Little Cress counted down the seconds.   00:21. Cress pressed her palm onto the mattress- deploy button.   00:20. She swiveled back to the screen, sending all feeds of Linh Cinder beneath a layer of Lunar crown propaganda.   00:19. The mattress landed with a thunk on the fl oor, the pillows and blankets wadded up just as she’d left them.   00:18. 17. 16. Her fingers danced across the screens, hiding Earthen newsfeeds and netgroups.   00:15. A turn, a quick search for two corners of her blanket.   00:14. A fl ick of her wrists, casting the blanket up like a windcaught sail.   00:13. 12. 11. She smoothed and tugged her way to the opposite side of the bed, pivoting toward the screens on the other side of her living quarters.   00:10. 9. Earthen dramas, music recordings, second- era literature, all dismissed.   00:08. A swivel back toward the bed. A graceful turning down of the blanket.   00:07. Two pillows symmetrically stacked against the headboard. A fl ourish of her arm to pull out the hair that had gotten caught beneath the blanket.   00:06. 5. A glissade across the fl oor, dipping and spinning, gathering up every discarded sock and hair tie and sending them into the renewal chute.   00:04. 3. A sweep of the desks, collecting her only bowl, her only spoon, her only glass, and a handful of stylus pens, and depositing them into the pantry cabinet.   00:02. A final pirouette to scan her work.   00:01. A pleased exhalation, culminating in a graceful bow.   “Mistress has arrived,” said Little Cress. “She is requesting an extension of the docking clamp.”   The stage, the shadows, the music, all fell away from Cress’s thoughts, though a practiced smile remained on her lips. “Of course,” she chirped, swanning toward the main boarding ramp. There were two ramps on her satellite, but only one had ever been used. She wasn’t even sure if the opposite entrance functioned. Each wide metal door opened up to a docking hatch and, beyond that, space.   Except for when there was a podship anchored there. Mistress’s podship.   Cress tapped in the command. A diagram on the screen showed the clamp extending, and she heard the thump as the ship attached. The walls jolted around her.   She had the next moments memorized, could have counted the heartbeats between each familiar sound. The whir of the small spacecraft’s engines powering down. The clang of the hatch attaching and sealing around the podship. The vacuum as oxygen was pushed into the space. The beep confirming that travel between the two modules was safe. The opening of the spacecraft. Steps echoing on the walkway. The whoosh of the sate llite entrance.   There had been a time when Cress had hoped for warmth and kindness from her mistress. That perhaps Sybil would look at her and say, “My dear, sweet Crescent, you have earned the trust and respect of Her Majesty, the Queen. You are welcome to return with me to Luna and be accepted as one of us.”   That time had long since passed, but Cress’s practiced smile held firm even in the face of Mistress Sybil’s coldness. “Good day, Mistress.”   Sybil sniffed. The embroidered sleeves of her white jacket fluttered around the large case she carried, filled with her usual provisions: food and fresh water for Cress’s confinement and, of course, the medical kit. “So you’ve found her, have you?”   Cress winced around her frozen grin. “Found her, Mistress?”   “If it is a good day, then you must have finally completed the simple task I’ve given you. Is that it, Crescent? Have you found the cyborg?”   Cress lowered her gaze and dug her fingernails into her palms. “No, Mistress. I haven’t found her.”   “I see. So it isn’t a good day after all, is it?”   “I only meant . . . Your company is always . . .” She trailed off.   Forcing her hands to unclench, she dared to meet Mistress Sybil’s glare. “I was just reading the news, Mistress. I thought perhaps we were pleased about Her Majesty’s engagement.”   Sybil dropped the case onto the crisply made bed. “We will be satisfied once Earth is under Lunar control. Until then, there is work to be done, and you should not be wasting your time reading news and gossip.”   Sybil neared the monitor that held the secret window with the D-COMM feed and the evidence of Cress’s betrayal to the Lunar crown, and Cress stiffened. But Sybil reached past it to a screen displaying a vid of Emperor Kaito speaking in front of the Eastern Commonwealth fl ag. With a touch, the screen cleared, revealing the metal wall and a tangle of heating tubes behind it.   Cress slowly released her breath.   “I certainly hope you’ve found something.”   She stood taller. “Linh Cinder was spotted in the European Federation, in a small town in southern France, at approximately 18:00 local ti—”   “I’m well aware of all that. And then she went to Paris and killed a thaumaturge and some useless special operatives. Anything else, Crescent?”   Cress swallowed and began winding her hair around both wrists in a looping figure eight. “At 17:48, in Rieux, France, the clerk of a ship- and- vehicle parts store updated the store inventory, removing one power cell that would be compatible with a 214 Rampion, Class 11.3, but not notating any sort of payment. I thought perhaps Linh Cinder stole . . . or maybe glamoured . . .” She hesitated. Sybil liked to keep up the pretense that the cyborg was a shell, even though they both knew it wasn’t true. Unlike Cress, who was a true shell, Linh Cinder had the Lunar gift. It may have been buried or hidden somehow, but it had certainly made itself known at the Commonwealth’s annual ball.   “A power cell?” Sybil said, passing over Cress’s hesitation.   “It converts compressed hydrogen into energy in order to propel—”   “I know what it is,” Sybil snapped. “You’re telling me that the only progress you’ve made is finding evidence that she’s making repairs to her ship? That it’s going to become even more difficult to track her down, a task that you couldn’t even manage when they were on Earth?”   “I’m sorry, Mistress. I’m trying. It’s just—”   “I’m not interested in your excuses. All these years I’ve persuaded Her Majesty to let you live, under the premise that you had something valuable to offer, something even more valuable than blood. Was I wrong to protect you, Crescent?”   She bit her lip, withholding a reminder of all she’d done for Her Majesty during her imprisonment. Designing countless spy systems for keeping watch on Earth’s leaders, hacking the communi cation links between diplomats, and jamming satellite signals to allow the queen’s soldiers to invade Earth undetected, so that now the blood of sixteen thousand Earthens was on her hands. It made no difference. Sybil cared only about Cress’s failures, and not finding Linh Cinder was Cress’s biggest failure to date.   “I’m sorry, Mistress. I’ll try harder.”   Sybil’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll be very displeased if you don’t find me that girl, and soon.”   Held by Sybil’s gaze, she felt like a moth pinned to an examination board. “Yes, Mistress.”   “Good.” Reaching forward, Sybil petted her cheek. It felt almost like a mother’s approval, but not quite. Then she turned away and released the locking mechanisms on the case. “Now then,” she said, retrieving a hypodermic needle from the medical kit. “Your arm.”

CHAPTER ONE

She did not know that the wolf was a wicked sort of animal, and she was not afraid of him.

 Chapter One  Scarlet was descending toward the alley behind the Rieux Tavern when her portscreen chimed from the passenger seat, followed by an automated voice: “Comm received for Mademoiselle Scarlet Benoit from the Toulouse Law Enforcement Department of Missing Persons.” Heart jumping, she swerved just in time to keep the ship’s starboard side from skidding against the stone wall, and threw down the brakes before reaching a complete stop. Scarlet killed the engine, already grabbing for the discarded portscreen. Its pale blue light glinted off the cockpit’s controls. They’d found something. The Toulouse police must have found something. “Accept!” she yelled, practically choking the port in her fingers. She expected a vidlink from the detective assigned to her grandmother’s case, but all she got was a stream of unembellished text.   28 Aug 126 T.E. Re: Case ID #AIG00155819, filed on 11 Aug 126 T.E. This communication is to inform SCARLET BENOIT of Rieux, France, EF, that as of 15:42 on 28 Aug 126 the case of missing person(s) MICHELLE BENOIT of Rieux, France, EF, has been dismissed due to lack of sufficient evidence of violence or nonspecific foul play. Conjecture: Person(s) left of own free will and/or suicide. CASE CLOSED. We thank you for your patronage of our detective services.   The comm was followed by a video ad from the police, reminding all delivery ship pilots to be safe and wear their harnesses while engines were running. Scarlet stared at the small screen until the words turned into a screaming blur of white and black and the ground seemed to drop out from beneath the ship. The plastic panel on the back of the screen crunched in her tightening grip. “Idiots,” she hissed to the empty ship. The words CASE CLOSED laughed back up at her. She released a guttural scream and slammed the port down on the ship’s control panel, hoping to shatter it into pieces of plastic and metal and wire. After three solid whaps, the screen only flickered in mild irritation. “You idiots!” She threw the port at the floorboards in front of the passenger seat and slumped back, stringing her curly hair through her fingers. Her harness cut into her chest, suddenly strangling, and she released the buckle and kicked open her door at the same time, half falling into the alley’s shadows. The grease and whiskey scent from the tavern nearly choked her as she swallowed her breaths, trying to rationalize her way out of the anger. She would go to the police station. It was too late to go now—tomorrow, then. First thing in the morning. She would be calm and logical and she would explain to them why their assumptions were wrong. She would make them reopen the case. Scarlet swiped her wrist over the scanner beside the ship’s hatch and yanked it up harder than the hydraulics wanted to let it go. She would tell the detective that he had to keep searching. She would make him listen. She would make him understand that her grandma hadn’t left of her own free will, and that she most certainly had not killed herself. Half a dozen plastic crates filled with garden vegetables were crammed into the back of the ship, but Scarlet hardly saw them. She was miles away, in Toulouse, planning the conversation in her head. Calling on every last persuasion, every ounce of reasoning power she had. Something had happened to her grandmother. Something was wrong and if the police didn’t keep looking, Scarlet was going to take it to court and see that every one of their turnip-head detectives was disbarred and would never work again and— She snatched a gleaming red tomato in each fist, spun on her heels, and pummeled the stone wall with them. The tomatoes splattered, juice and seeds spraying across the piles of garbage that were waiting to go into the compactor. It felt good. Scarlet grabbed another, imagining the detective’s doubt when she’d tried to explain to him that up and disappearing was not normal behavior for her grandma. She pictured the tomatoes bursting all over his smug little— A door swung open just as a fourth tomato was obliterated. Scarlet froze, already reaching for another, as the tavern’s owner draped himself against the door frame. Gilles’s narrow face was glistening as he took in the slushy orange mess Scarlet had made on the side of his building. “Those better not be my tomatoes.” She withdrew her hand from the bin and wiped it down on her dirt-stained jeans. She could feel heat emanating from her face, the erratic thumping of her pulse. Gilles wiped the sweat off his almost-bald head and glared, his default expression. “Well?” “They weren’t yours,” she muttered. Which was true—they were technically hers until he paid her for them. He grunted. “Then I’ll only dock three univs for having to clean off the mess. Now, if you’re done with target practice, maybe you could deign to bring some of that in here. I’ve been serving wilted lettuce for two days.” He popped back into the restaurant, leaving the door open. The noise of dishes and laughter spilled out into the alley, bizarre in its normality. Scarlet’s world was crashing down around her and nobody noticed. Her grandmother was missing and nobody cared. She turned back to the hatch and gripped the edges of the tomato crate, waiting for her heart to stop hammering behind her sternum. The words from the comm still bombarded her thoughts, but they were beginning to clear. The first wave of aggression was left to rot with the smashed tomatoes. When she could take in a breath without her lungs convulsing, she stacked the crate on top of the russet potatoes and heaved them out of the ship. The line cooks ignored Scarlet as she dodged their spitting skillets, making her way to the cool storage room. She shoved the bins onto the shelves that had been labeled in marker, scratched out, and labeled again a dozen times over the years. “Bonjour, Scarling!” Scarlet turned around, pulling her hair off her clammy neck. Émilie was beaming in the doorway, eyes sparkling with a secret, but she pulled back when she saw Scarlet’s expression. “What—” “I don’t want to talk about it.” Slipping past the waitress, she headed back through the kitchen, but Émilie made a dismissive noise in the back of her throat and trotted after her. “Then don’t talk. I’m just glad you’re here,” she said, latching on to Scarlet’s elbow as they ducked back into the alleyway. “Because he’s back.” Despite the angelic blonde curls that surrounded Émilie’s face, her grin suggested very devilish thoughts. Scarlet pulled away and grabbed a bin of parsnips and radishes, passing them to the waitress. She didn’t respond, incapable of caring who he was and why it mattered that he was back. “That’s great,” she said, loading a basket with papery red onions. “You don’t remember, do you? Come now, Scar, the street fighter I was telling you about the other . . . oh, maybe that was Sophia.” “The street fighter?” Scarlet squeezed her eyes shut as a headache started to throb against her forehead. “Really, Ém?” “Don’t be like that. He’s sweet! And he’s been here almost every day this week and he keeps sitting in my section, which definitely means something, don’t you think?” When Scarlet said nothing, the waitress set the bin down and fished a pack of gum from her apron pocket. “He’s always really quiet, not like Roland and his crowd. I think he’s shy . . . and lonely.” She popped a stick into her mouth and offered another to Scarlet. “A street fighter who seems shy?” Scarlet waved the gum away. “Are you listening to yourself?” “You have to see him to understand. He has these eyes that just . . .” Émilie fanned her fingers against her brow, feigning heatstroke. “Émilie!” Gilles appeared at the door again. “Stop flapping those lips and get in here. Table four wants you.” He cast a glare at Scarlet, a silent warning that he’d be docking more univs from her fee if she didn’t stop distracting his employees, then pulled back inside without waiting for a response. Émilie stuck her tongue out after him. Settling the basket of onions against her hip, Scarlet shut the hatch and brushed past the waitress. “Is table four him?” “No, he’s at nine,” Émilie grumbled, scooping up the load of root vegetables. As they passed back through the steamy kitchen, Émilie gasped. “Oh, I’m so daft! I’ve been meaning to comm and ask about your grand-mère all week. Have you heard anything new?” Scarlet clenched her jaw, the words of the comm buzzing like hornets in her head. Case closed. “Nothing new,” she said, then let their conversation get lost in the chaos of the cooks screaming at each other across the line. Émilie followed her as far as the storeroom and dropped off her load. Scarlet busied herself rearranging the baskets before the waitress could say something optimistic. Émilie attempted the requisite “Try not to worry, Scar. She’ll be back” before backing away into the tavern. Scarlet’s jaw was starting to ache from gnashing her teeth. Everyone talked about her grandma’s disappearance as if she were a stray cat who would meander back home when she got hungry. Don’t worry. She’ll be back. But she’d been gone for over two weeks. Just disappeared without sending a comm, without a good-bye, without any warning. She’d even missed Scarlet’s eighteenth birthday, though she’d bought the ingredients for Scarlet’s favorite lemon cake the week before. None of the farmhands had seen her go. None of the worker androids had recorded anything suspicious. Her portscreen had been left behind, though it offered no clues in its stored comms, calendar, or net history. Her leaving without it was suspicious enough. No one went anywhere without their ports. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Not the abandoned portscreen or the unmade cake. Scarlet had also found her grandmother’s ID chip. Her ID chip. Wrapped in cheesecloth spotted red from her blood and left like a tiny package on the kitchen counter. The detective said that’s what people did when they ran away and didn’t want to be found—they cut out their ID chips. He’d said it like he’d just solved the mystery, but Scarlet figured most kidnappers probably knew that trick too.

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