Page 22 of Cinder's Adventure: Get Me To the Wedding!

Sketch offered his hand with a bright smile. “Whoever you are, welcome to the Renegades.”

The end.

Chapter 22

Cinder ran after Magpie. Cars slammed on their brakes and tires screeched as she barreled across the street. A symphony of honks and shouts followed her, but she ignored them. In the distance, she watched Magpie ducking in and out of the crowd, moving with ease along the busy sidewalk.

The girl turned into a small city park. A festival of some sort was underway. Street musicians and performers were scattered among food trucks and tents selling everything from blown glass art to bird feeders.

Cinder had nearly reached her. “Stop! Thief!” she yelled, fists clenched.

When, ahead of her, the girldidstop.

With a wicked smirk on her lips, Magpie spun around to face Cinder. Before she sucked in a breath and screamed.

Literally, screamed, like the hounds of hell were upon her.

Cinder froze, baffled.

As did everyone around them.

“Villain!” Magpie yelled, pointing a finger at Cinder. “Anarchist! She’s chasing me! She’s trying to kill me!”

“Wha—kill you? That’s a bit melodramatic,” Cinder muttered.

But no one else seemed to see it that way.

It didn’t take long for the crowd to surround her. It was a mob of angry faces, and as Cinder scanned their scowls and crossed arms, she began to suspect that this was not a normal weekend festival.

That this might not be a normal city.

Because everyone around her—everyone—was doing something that made her wonder if chasing after the girl might have been a mistake. From the woman with molten rock dripping from her open eyes to the man with a halo of crackling electricity over his head, to the little girl with vicious reptilian claws growing from her fingernails, to the boy with raven-black wings unfurling behind his back.

Cinder swallowed. “What kind of cityisthis?”

At the back of the crowd, Magpie cocked her head to one side and tossed Cinder’s ring up into the air, catching it like a coin flip. The action—so careless with a ring that had been passed through generations of the Commonwealth royal family—set Cinder’s teeth to grinding. “It’s the kind of city where everyone is either a hero or a villain,” she said. Her voice darkened. “Guess which one you are.”

Cinder’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve met plenty of both,” she said. “And believe me, I know exactly which one I am.”

The girl laughed, just as a voice barked, “You’re under arrest!”

Cinder started to turn around, but then her arms were being grabbed and yanked behind her.

“For disturbing the peace,” added the voice.

She glanced over her shoulder, just as a good-looking Black boy with thick-framed glasses uncapped a marker with his teeth and started todrawon her wrists?

Cinder was about to ask what he thought he was doing, when he stopped drawing, and the next thing she knew, there were very real handcuffs around her wrist.

“What?” she said. “I didn’t do anything!”

“Magpie, you’re coming with us, too.”

Magpie flushed. “What? Why? Adrian—I mean,Sketch. She was chasing me!”

The boy shot her a warning look. “I wonder why,” he drawled. “We’ll get it sorted out down at the courthouse. No need to start a scene here. Come on, both of you.”

If Cinder should use her Lunar gift to get away, go to Chapter 23.

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