Page 73 of Cinder
“Well, you have the pigeons.” Emma shouted slightly to reach him down the hall, and it felt like each echoing word was imprinting into the foundations of the house. “And you’re so quiet, and you hate it when anyone is mistreated.”
By the end of her explanation, Cin had made it back to the parlor, his heartbeat only a little out of time with the rest of him. She had known, all this time—and kept his secret, so thoroughly that even he hadn’t realized. He didn’t know why that should come as a shock.
Of course she would know, and still love him, and still protect him. She was his Emma.
“I can’t deny any of that,” Cin said, kneeling in front of her. He took one of her bloody feet, sliding it into the water. “Why didn’t you tell someone?”
Emma’s brow tightened. “Because the palace wants to lock you away,” she replied, as though maybe Cin had forgotten. She flinched as Cin began to scrub gently at her wounds. Then things seemed to sink in a little more fully. “If the guards are after you now, where are you going to hide?”
“I’m not hiding.” Cin switched to her other foot. “I’m leaving.”
“For how long?” She sounded miserable at the thought, but like she was trying to hold herself together for his sake.
He couldn’t bear to look up at her as he replied. “Forever, Emma. I’m going to Falchovari, or beyond. To start a new life.”
It didn’t sound like him. Not his future. Not yet.
Emma, at least, looked like she could see it.
Her eyes welled and she sniffled as she brushed at them. “You’re leaving me?”
Cin took a breath, drawing Emma’s second, cleaned foot from the water to dry it off, and forced himself to look up. “You can come, too, if you’d like that.”
“Oh,” Emma said. A fresh set of tears followed, larger and uglier than the last. “And we couldn’t take Mother? Or Floy orManfred? Or Father, even?” She seemed impossibly, stupidly hopeful.
“No, Emma.” Cin had to swallow down the lump that left in the back of his throat. He began wrapping Emma’s feet in careful, tight folds of bandage. “They haven’t been good to you. Or to me.”
“I know, but…” Emma gave a tiny sob. “I still love them.”
Cin had thought his heart could break no further after the night he’d left behind—the prince he’d left with it—but he could feel whatever remained shatter afresh. “I know,” Cin whispered. He had too, once.
He turned his head to wipe at the moisture gathering at the edge of his eye, and his gaze slid to the front windows. Out across the yard, the darkness of the night sky was giving way to the deep blue of impending morning. Below it came the silhouettes of a dozen riders.
Cin’s heart launched into his throat, and he scrambled up so fast that he nearly stumbled over Emma’s bandaged feet.
She twisted around to look. Her face paled. “I forgot to watch!”
“It’s fine,” Cin lied. He grabbed her shoulders. “Pretend— No, don’t bother. Tell them I was here, and I fled. I’ll come back for you in a month or two, when things are safer, okay?”
“Yes. Okay.” Emma nodded, looking nervous, but determined.
Through the front windows, Cin could see the approaching soldiers dismounting, setting towards the house at a jog. He ran for the back.
As he reached the kitchen, though, the knob of the back door rattled. Someone cursed and banged against it. Someone who sounded an awful lot like Floy.
Cin’s fingers twitched toward the knife at his back. Floy was no less malevolent than any of the bastards he’d killed before, noless willing to hurt their own family if there was something in it for them. But as he tried to grab for the hilt, his hand shook. His breath shuddered. He turned away.
If they were at the back, and the front—
He could hear the door to the entry hall opening. Emma shouted “I don’t know, I don’t know!” at whatever question was hurled her way, and Cin took the only course he could think of. He dove for the giant kitchen hearth.
It was dark and cold, and he slipped over the piled wood as quietly as he could, lifting the edge of his cloak to his mouth as he wedged himself up and into the chimney, grateful for his remaining magic shoe. He barely fit, his shoulders crammed on both sides. The soot from fires past swirled around his face, clumps of it dropping each time he moved. Somewhere above, he could hear the coo of pigeons.
He couldn’t risk trying to reach them, though, as footsteps and the guards’ voices resounded through the kitchen. With each breath, he feared he was dislodging too much soot already. Lantern light flickered across the logs.
“I don’t know,” Emma repeated, sobbing again. “I think he went out the back?”
“Useless idiot,” Floy snapped. They sounded too close for comfort.
