She leaned her head against the bench and turned to look at the planet again while she mulled it over—coding and security hacks buzzing through her thoughts.
Stars, but the planet was beautiful. More breathtaking than she’d imagined it. The projected images from the holograph nodes didn’t begin to do it justice. How it sparkled and glowed and moved, always moving, the wisps of clouds always churning. It was as though the planet itself were a living organism.
She started to hum as she thought and dreamed and planned. She hummed a lot when she was working. It helped her channel her thoughts sometimes, but today her thoughts were too disjointed to be focused. How different her life looked from just this morning. How quickly everything had changed.
The journey passed in silence but for the quiet tap of Sybil’s fingers on the portscreen and Cress humming to herself. The pilot never spoke. It was almost as if he weren’t even there, but then, that’s how all the guards acted. Invisible. She didn’t blame them. Working for Mistress Sybil often made her wish she were invisible too.
Her gaze reattached to Earth. It reminded her of a lullaby one of the older girls had taught her years ago, one that Cress still loved to sing to the children at lights-out.
Sweet Crescent Moon, up in the sky,
Won’t you sing your song to Earth as she passes by?
Your sweetest silver melody, a rhythm and a rhyme,
A lullaby of pleasant dreams as you make your climb.
Send the forests off to bed, the mountains tuck in tight,
Rock the ocean gently, and the deserts kiss good night.
Sweet Crescent Moon, up in the sky,
You sing your song so sweetly after sunshine passes by.
Cress caught sight of the guard peering at her in the window’s reflection. She stiffened, realizing she’d been singing aloud. He quickly looked away, but Sybil was watching her now too.
Not just watching. Glowering.
Cress gulped. “Sorry.”
Sybil set her portscreen on her lap, fixing her attention more fully on Cress. “You probably don’t realize how old that song is. A lullaby that’s been sung on Luna perhaps as far back as colonization.”
“I did know that,” Cress said before she could stop herself. It was her favorite song. She’d researched it once.
Sybil’s eyes narrowed, almost imperceptibly. “Then you must know that the song was written at a time when Earth and Luna were allies. Some consider it to be a song symbolizing peace between the two planets. Some feel that it is unpatriotic today—that it suggests Earthen sympathizing.”
Heat rushed to Cress’s cheeks again and she sat straighter, shaking her head. “That’s not why I like it,” she said. “I just like … I mean, it has my name in it. Crescent Moon. Sometimes I think … I wonder if maybe my parents named me for the song.”
The thaumaturge gave an abrupt snort, startling Cress. “That is highly unlikely,” Sybil said, looking out the window. “From what I recall of your parents, they were not given to such flights of fancy.”
Cress stared at her. “You knew my parents?”
Sybil was quiet for a time. Expressionless but for a smug tilt of her mouth. Finally, she slid her attention back to Cress. “The only thing you need to know of your parents was that they willingly gave you up to be killed in the shell infanticide.” Her eyes glinted, pleased with her own cruelty. “Your mother herself put you into my arms. All she said was, ‘A shell. How mortifying.’”
The words struck Cress harder than they should have. Of course she’d known that her parents had given her up to be killed. That was the law—even though shells weren’t actually killed, just hidden away, but most civilians didn’t know that. Her parents would have believed she was dead, and Sybil never tired of reminding the shells how unwanted they were. That if it wasn’t for her saving them, they would all be dead, and no one would mourn them.
But Sybil had never told her that part before. Mortifying.
She sniffed and turned away before Sybil could see the tears building in her eyes.
Out the window, Cress saw that they were approaching something—another spaceship? She squinted and leaned forward. It was spherical, with three enormous winglike appendages tilted away from it.
“What’s that?”
Sybil barely turned her head. “It’s a satellite.”
Cress squeezed both fists around her hair. “We’re going to crash into it.”
A wisp of a smile flitted over Sybil’s mouth.
The podship began to slow. Cress watched, enraptured, as the satellite grew larger in the window until it was taking up her entire view. There was a clamp on one side, pre-extended. The guard latched onto it on his first attempt, and the podship shuddered around them. A cacophony of noises followed—thumps and rattles and whirring machinery and hisses and thuds. A hatch was extending from the satellite and suctioning against the side of the podship, creating a tunnel for them to exit into.
Cress furrowed her brow. Were they stopping to refuel? To pick up supplies? To outfit her with her new secret Earthen identity?
The podship door opened, and Sybil stepped out into the tunnel, beckoning for Cress to follow. The guard kept his distance behind her.
The hatch was narrow and smelled of metal and recirculating air. A second door was closed at the end of the corridor, but opened upon their approach.
Cress found herself in a small round room. A desk circled the space, and the walls above it were covered in invisi-screens, angled to be seen from anywhere in the room. Only one wall was empty—noticeably empty.
A sense of dread settled in Cress’s stomach, but she couldn’t tell what it meant. Sybil had stepped aside and was watching Cress, waiting, but Cress didn’t know what she was waiting for.
There was a second door identical to the one they had just entered through—perhaps another hatch for a second ship, she thought. And a third door led to …
She stepped forward uncertainly.
It was a bathroom. A sink. A toilet. A tiny shower.
She turned back. Goose bumps covered her skin.
“There is a recirculating water system,” said Sybil, speaking as if they’d been in the middle of a conversation. She opened a tall cabinet. “And enough nonperishable food to last for six to eight weeks, though I will replenish your supplies every two to three weeks, or as needed, as I come to check on your progress. Her Majesty is hopeful that you’ll be making great forward strides in our Earthen surveillance now that you’ve been so meticulously outfitted with the exact requirements you specified. If you find you need anything more for your work, I will obtain it for you.”
Cress’s stomach was knotting itself now, her breaths coming in shorter gasps as she took in the invisi-screens again. The holograph nodes. The processors and receivers and data boards.
State-of-the-art. All of it.
It was exactly what she needed to spy on Earth.
“I’m … to live here?” she squeaked. “Alone?”
“For a time, yes. You said you needed to be closer to Earth, Crescent. I’ve given you what you requested in order to serve Her Majesty. That is what you want, isn’t it?”
She started nodding without realizing it. Tears were gathering in her eyes, but she brushed them away with the palm of her hand. “But where will I sleep?”
Sybil paced to the too-empty wall and hit a switch. A bed lowered out of the wall. It was larger than the bunk Cress had in the dormitories, but that did little to cheer her.