Scarlet

In the New Beijing palace, Emperor Kai sits in his office and tries to distract himself with work. However, he cannot think about anything except Linh Cinder, the “pretty young mechanic” (64) he invited to the ball. Kai believes that Cinder “lied to him about everything” (65), and although he doesn’t care that she is a cyborg, he is horrified that Cinder is Lunar and might have used her glamour on him. Kai is confused about his feelings for Cinder, and as his thoughts swirl, he is interrupted by the arrival of his royal advisor Konn Torin and the Chairman of National Security Huy Deshal. They alert Kai that there has been “a jailbreak from New Beijing Prison,” and “one of the escapees is Linh Cinder” (68). Torin encourages Kai to deploy the military because “any hesitation would be seen as a sign of weakness” and might even suggest that Kai “assisted with the escape” (69), which would enrage Queen Levana. Kai has refused to form a marriage alliance with the Lunar Queen, and Levana is looking for any excuse to wage war on Earth. Reluctantly, Kai agrees to deploy the military but finds himself “wish[ing] that wherever Cinder ha[s] gone, they [will] never find her” (70).

Scarlet goes to the old Morel farm and finds an underground street-fighting ring. She confronts Wolf, demanding to know where her grandmother is. Wolf tries to deny his involvement in her grandmother’s disappearance, and he insists that “[he’s] been at the Rieux Tavern every day for weeks” (75) and at the fights every night. When Scarlet mentions what her father said about the tattoo on his captor’s arm, Wolf says that it must have been “someone with a tattoo like [his]” (75). Wolf leaves her to partake in a fight. As Scarlet watches as Wolf brutally beats his competitor, she is sickened to think that “this man—this monster—ha[s] her grandmother” (81). Scarlet is seized with revulsion and anger as she thinks about what Wolf has done to her father and grandmother. However, right before Wolf delivers the deadly blow to his opponent, he stops when he sees Scarlet watching him. Suddenly, the police appear, and the crowd scatters. Wolf disappears, and as Scarlet tries to follow him, she hears “a sickening howl” (83) of a wolf in the night.

Cinder and Thorne make their way through the sewers of New Beijing, heading toward Thorne’s hidden spaceship on the outskirts of town. They resurface in the “old warehouse district” (88), and Thorne leads them to a building owned by a man named Alak, who has been keeping Thorne’s ship hidden during his time in prison. However, when Thorne asks for his ship, Alak refuses, saying that he can’t help “a convicted felon” and “one of them” (91), referring to Cinder. Cinder’s face is on every netscreen, declaring her an “ESCAPED CONVICT” who is “ARMED AND DANGEROUS” (90), and Alak warns them that he “[won’t] blink twice before sending [Cinder] off to rot” (92). Cinder uses her glamour on Alak to render him unconscious, and she and Thorne enter the warehouse. Thorne notices the netscreens, which declare “LUNAR ESCAPES FROM NEW BEIJING PRISON” (93), and he realizes that Cinder is the Lunar convict. They find Thorne’s ship, the Rampion, and as they try to start it up, they are discovered by soldiers. Cinder rushes to the ship’s engine room and connects her wiring to the ship’s motherboard to diagnose the problem.

As Thorne struggles to get the Rampion started before the soldiers reach them, Cinder’s voice floats through the ship and tells him that “the auto-control system has a bug” and Thorne will need to “take off without computer assistance” (100). Reluctantly, he follows her instructions and brings the ship into orbit before the soldiers can breach it. Thorne celebrates their narrow escape, but when Cinder doesn’t answer his calls, he looks for her and finds her passed out on the engine room floor. Thorne unplugs Cinder from the ship’s motherboard, and despite his squeamishness, he plugs her in to power up. Cinder revives, realizing that the ship’s “auto-control defaults” must have “drained [her] power system” (106). She is mortified that Thorne went digging through the wires in the back of her head, but she admits that this was “pretty fast thinking” (107) on his part. As they begin to orbit the earth, Thorne relishes the “perfect sensation of freedom” (107).