Page 5 of Cinder's Adventure: Get Me To the Wedding!

The next thing she knew, she was surrounded by a jungle of grass.

She checked her limbs, patting her sides and arms with her hands. Everything seemed intact, just… smaller. Even her cyborg parts had shrunk down, which didn’t seem possible, biologically speaking. She was now no taller than one of those Princess Selene action figures that had been all the rage after the Lunar Revolution.

Cinder had barely recovered from her shock when a beetle skittered past, as tall as her knee. She yelped and lunged out of its way, but it paid her no heed.

“Oh, good,” drawled a grumpy voice. “A visitor.”

Cinder spun to find herself peering at the top of a red-and-white-speckled mushroom. Sitting atop it, legs crossed, holding the mouthpiece of an amethyst-colored hookah pipe, sat Jacin.

“Jacin! You’re here too? And you’re”—she hesitated, confused—“miniature. Like me.”

He blew out an annoyed sigh. “I’m supposed to be a caterpillar,” he said, “but I’m not wearing that antennae thing. I refuse. She can’t make me.” He gestured at a discarded headband with two yellow puffballs attached to springs.

“She?”

“Iko. She can be very demanding.”

“Believe me, I’ve noticed.”

Jacin inhaled deeply from the hookah, then made a face and started coughing. Billows of purple smoke burst from his mouth. The first cloud was shaped like a cat with a huge smile. The second, a crown. The third looked like the Rampion, and it shot away from Jacin and up toward the sky. When his coughing finally stopped, he shoved the hookah off the mushroom and pushed back his blond hair. “All right. Let’s get this over with. Who are you?”

Cinder stared. “Who am I?”

“It’s not a trick question.”

Her frown deepened. “Um—”

“Actually,” Jacin interrupted before she could really think of how to answer, “it is a trick question. It is absolutely a trick question. There are only four possible answers, and spoiler alert, they are all the wrong answer, but there you go. It is what it is.” He spread his hands, gesturing toward the mushroom stalk beneath him. “Make your choice.”

“Make my…” Cinder paused. She hadn’t noticed it before, but she saw now that there was a door set into the mushroom stem. Well—more like a wrought-iron gate with a golden handle. Written into the ornate ironwork was the word:

MURDERER.

“Murderer?” Cinder barked, offended. “I’m not a murderer, I know that much!”

“Aren’t you?” said Jacin. “You didn’t kill Levana?”

“That’s not fair. That was self-defense!”

He shrugged. “Then make another choice.”

Cinder walked around the base of the mushroom. She counted three more entryways, each with a word scrawled into it.

MURDERERupon the iron gate.

MONARCHupon a heavy oak door with a Gothic arch.

MARTYRupon a heavy marble slab.

AndMADupon a gate crafted of willow branches and moss.

She considered the options. She didn’t think of herself as a murderer, but… shehadkilled. And she definitely didn’t think of herself as a martyr either, though she’d had to make plenty of sacrifices over the years. She used to be a monarch, and she would be again, assuming she got back in time to marry Kai and be crowned empress.

And mad?

Well, right now, she was definitely feeling a little ticked off. So there was that. But as soon as she thought it, a note popped up from her brain interface reminding her thatmadcould also be an old-fashioned term meaningmentally unwell.

Which was not particularly helpful.

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