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Thorne shook the scalpel at her "Good thinking Of course she wouldn’t have had her ohen she caestured at the tank "What about all that?"
Cinder gripped the tank’s edges to steady her hands "Her burns would have been severe, even life threatening Their priority would have been keeping her alive, and also keeping her hidden Suspended anier on the glass "These transmitters would have been used to sti She couldn’t receive life experience or learn like a nor Fake experiences"
She bit her lip, silencing herself before she mentioned the netlink they’d planted in the princess’s brain that made for an efficient way to learn when she was finally awake, without being any the wiser that she should have known these things anyway
It was easy to talk about the princess as if she were so that she was soirl who had slept in this tank was so that had woken up in it
It occurred to Cinder with a jolt that this hy she had no ed her brain while inserting her control panel, but because she had never been awake to ht back, could she grasp so fro drea off her skin, and realized it ht table brightened at Thorne’s coraph of a torso fro in the air Cinder’s heart jolted, thinking it was her, until she took in the second screen
PATIENT: MICHELLE BENOIT
OPERATION: SPINAL AND NERVOUS SYSTEM BIOELECTRICITY SECURITY BLOCK, PROTOTYPE 46
STATUS: COMPLETE
Cinder approached the holograph The shoulders were slender and fe could be seen above the line of her jaw
"What’s a bioelectricity security block?"
Cinder pointed at the holograph as it spun away from her and a dark square spot appeared on the spine, just beneath her skull "This I had one iift when I was growing up In an Earthen, it makes it so you can’t be brainwashed by Lunars If Michelle Benoit did have information about Princess Selene, she would have had to protect herself, in case she ever fell into Lunar hands"
"If we have the technology to nullify the Lunar’s craziness, why doesn’t everyone have one of these?"
A wave of sadness washed over her Her stepfather, Linh Garan, had invented the bioelectricity block, but he’d died of the plague before seeing it past the prototype stage Though she’d barely known hi that his life had been cut far too short How different things could have been if he’d survived--not only for Pearl and Peony, but for Cinder too
She sighed, tired of thinking, and said sirunted "Well, this proves it, doesn’t it? The princess really was here"
Cinder scanned the roo on the table ofThorne either hadn’t noticed theured out what they would have been used for The confession settled on the tip of her tongue Maybe he should know If she was going to be stuck with hi with The true danger she’d put him in
But before she could speak, he said, "Screen, show Princess Selene"
Cinder spun back around, pulse rushing, but it was not an eleven-year-old version of herself that greeted her What she saas hardly recognizable as hu a hand to his mouth "What the--"
Cinder’s sto the revulsion She sed hard and dared to look at the screen again
It was the photo of a child
What was left of a child
She rapped in bandages froht ared bloody red in spots, bright pink and glossy in others She had no hair and the burn marks continued up her neck and across her cheek The left side of her face ollen and disfigured, only the slit of her eye could be seen, and a line of stitches ran along her earlobe before cutting across to her lips
Cinder raised tre then of these wounds Only soh and wrist, where the prostheses had been attached
How had they fixed her? How could they possibly fix this?
But it was Thorne who asked the true question
"Who would do this to a child?"
Goose bumps covered Cinder’s skin There was nothose burns must have caused her She couldn’t connect the child with herself
But Thorne’s question lingered, haunting the cold room
Queen Levana had done this
To a child, barely more than a baby
To her own niece