“Isn’t he gorgeous?” said Peony. “Every night I tie a red string around my finger and say his name five times because this girl in my class told me that will tie our destinies together. I know he’s my soul mate.”
Cinder listed her head, still staring at the boy. Her optobionics were scanning him, finding the picture in some database in her head, and, this time, she expected the stream of text that began to filter through her brain. His ID number, his birth date, his full name and title. Prince Kaito, Crown Prince of the Eastern Commonwealth.
“His arms are too long for his body,” she said after a while, finally picking up on what didn’t feel right about the picture. “They’re not proportionate.”
“What are you talking about?” Peony snatched the port away and stared at it for a minute before tossing it onto her pillow. “Honestly, who cares about his arms?”
Cinder shrugged, unable to smother a slight grin. “I was only saying.”
Harrumphing, Peony swung her legs around and hopped off the bed. “Fine, whatever. Our hover is here. We’d better get going or we’ll be late for the ball, where I am going to dance with His Imperial Highness, and you can dance with whoever you would like to. Maybe another prince. We should make one up for you. Do you want Prince Kai to have a brother?”
“What are you two doing?”
Cinder spun around. Adri was looming in the doorway—again her footsteps had gone unnoticed and Cinder was beginning to wonder if Adri was really a ghost that floated through the hallways rather than walked.
“We’re going to the ball!” Peony said.
Adri’s face flushed as her gaze dropped down the silk kimono hanging off Cinder’s shoulders. “Take that off this instant!”
Shrinking back, Cinder instantly began undoing the knot that Peony had tied around her waist.
“Peony, what are you thinking? These garments are expensive and if she got snagged—if the lining—” Stepping forward, she grabbed the collar of the dress, peeling it off Cinder as soon as the sash was free.
“But you used to let Pearl and me—”
“Things are different now, and you are to leave my things alone. Both of you!”
Scowling, Peony started unwrapping her own dress. Cinder bit the inside of her cheek, feeling oddly vulnerable without the heavy silk draped around her and sick to her stomach with guilt, though she wasn’t sure what she had to be guilty about.
“Cinder.”
She dared to meet Adri’s gaze.
“I came to tell you that if you are to be a part of this household, I will expect you to take on some responsibilities. You’re old enough to help Pearl with her chores.”
She nodded, almost eager to have something to do with her time when Peony wasn’t around. “Of course. I don’t want to be any trouble.”
Adri’s mouth pursed into a thin line. “I won’t ask you to do any dusting until I can trust you to move with a bit of grace. Is that hand water resistant?”
Cinder held out her bionic hand, splaying out the fingers. “I…I think so. But it might rust…after a while…”
“Fine, no dishes or scrubbing, then. Can you at least cook?”
Cinder racked her brain, wondering if it could feed her recipes as easily as it fed her useless definitions. “I never have before, that I can remember. But I’m sure…”
Peony threw her arms into the air. “Why don’t we just get Iko fixed and then she can do all the housework like she’s supposed to?”
Adri’s eyes smoldered as she looked between her daughter and Cinder. “Well,” she said, finally, snatching up the two kimonos and draping them over her arm. “I’m sure we’ll be able to find some use for you. In the meantime, why don’t you leave my daughter alone so she can get some of her schoolwork accomplished?”
“What?” said Peony. “But we haven’t even gotten to the ball yet.”
Cinder didn’t wait to hear the argument she expected to follow. “Yes, stepmother,” she murmured, ducking her head. She slipped past Adri and made her way to her own room.
Her insides were writhing but she couldn’t pinpoint the overruling emotion. Hot anger, because it wasn’t her fault that her new leg was awkward and heavy, and how was she to know Adri wouldn’t want them playing in her things?
But also mortification because maybe she really was useless. She was eleven years old, but she didn’t know anything, other than the bits of data that seemed to serve no purpose other than to keep her from looking like a complete idiot. If she’d had any skills before, she had no idea what they had been. She’d lost them now.
Sighing, she shut her bedroom door and slumped against it.
The room hadn’t changed much in the almost two weeks since she’d come to call it home, other than the cast-off clothes that had been put into the dresser drawers, a pair of boots tossed into a corner, the blankets bundled up in a ball at the foot of her bed.
Her eyes landed on the box of android parts that hadn’t been moved from their spot behind the door. The dead sensor, the spindly arms.
There was a bar code printed on the back of the torso that she hadn’t noticed before. She barely noticed it then, except that her distracted brain was searching for the random numbers, downloading the android’s make and model information. Parts list. Estimated value. Maintenance and repair manual.
Something familiar stirred inside her, like she already knew this android. How its parts fit together, how its mechanics and programming all functioned as a whole. Or no, this wasn’t familiarity, but…a connectedness. Like she knew the android intimately. Like it was an extension of her.
She pushed herself off the door, her skin tingling.
Perhaps she had one useful skill after all.
It took three days, during which she emerged from her room only to sit for meals with her new family and, once, to play in the snow with Peony while Adri and Pearl were at the market. Her metal limbs had frosted over with cold by the time they were done, but coming inside to a pot of green tea and the flush of shared laughter had quickly warmed her back up.
Adri had not asked Cinder to take on any household chores again, and Cinder imagined it seemed a lost cause to her stepmother. She stayed hopeful though, as the jumble of android pieces gradually formed into something recognizable. A hollow plastic body atop wide treads, two skinny arms, a squat head with nothing but a cyclops sensor for a face. The sensor had given her the most trouble and she had to redo the wiring twice, triple-checking the diagram that had downloaded across her eyesight, before she felt confident she’d gotten it right.
If only it worked. If only she could show to Adri, and even Garan, that she wasn’t a useless addition to their family after all. That she was grateful they’d taken her in when no one else would. That she wanted to belong to them.
She was sitting cross-legged on her bed with the window open behind her, allowing in a chilled but pleasant breeze, when she inserted the final touch. The small personality chip clicked into place and Cinder held her breath, half-expecting the android to perk up and swivel around and start talking to her, until she remembered that she would need to be charged before she could function.
Feeling her excitement wane from the anticlimactic finale, Cinder released a slow breath and fell back onto her mattress, mentally exhausted.
A knock thunked against the door.
“Come in,” she called, not bothering to move as the door creaked open.
“I was just wondering if you wanted to come watch—” Peony fell silent and Cinder managed to lift her head to see the girl gaping wide-eyed at the android. “Is that…Iko?”
Grinning, Cinder braced herself on her elbows. “She still needs to be charged, but I think she’ll work.”
Jaw still hanging open, Peony crept into the room. Though only nine years old, she was already well over a foot taller than the squat robot. “How…how? How did you fix it?”
“I had to borrow some tools from your dad.” Cinder gestured to a pile of wrenches and screwdrivers in the corner. She didn’t bother to mention that he hadn’t been in his workshop behind the house when she’d gone to find them. It almost felt like theft and that thought terrified her, but it wasn’t theft. She wasn’t going to keep the tools, and she was sure Garan would be delighted when he saw she’d fixed the android.
“That’s not…” Peony shook her head and finally looked at Cinder. “You fixed her by yourself?”
Cinder shrugged, not sure whether she should feel proud or uncomfortable at the look Peony was giving her. “It wasn’t that hard,” she said. “I had…I can download…information. Instructions. Into my head. And I figured out how to get the android’s blueprint to go across my vision so I could…” She trailed off, realizing that what she’d been sure was a most useful skill was also one more strange eccentricity her body could claim. One more side effect of being cyborg.
But Peony’s eyes were twinkling. “You’re kidding,” she said, picking up one of Iko’s hands and waggling it around. Cinder had been sure to thoroughly grease it so the joints wouldn’t seize up. “What else can you do?”
“Um.” Cinder hunched her shoulders, considering. “I can…make stuff louder. I mean, not really, but I can adjust my hearing so it seems louder. Or quieter. I could probably mute my hearing if I wanted to.”
Peony laughed. “That’s brilliant! You’d never have to hear Mom when she’s yelling! Aw, I’m so jealous!” Beaming, she started to drag Iko toward the door. “Come on, there’s a charging station in the hallway!”
Cinder hopped off the bed and followed her to a docking station at the end of the hall. Peony plugged Iko in and, instantly, a faint blue light started to glow around the plug.
Peony had raised hopeful eyes to Cinder when the front door opened and Garan stumbled into the hallway, his hair dripping. He wasn’t wearing his coat.
He started when he saw the girls standing there. “Peony,” he said, short of breath. “Where’s your mother?”
She glanced over her shoulder. “In the kitchen, I thi—”
“Go fetch her. Quickly, please.”
Peony stalled, her face clouding with worry, before hurrying toward the kitchen.
Intertwining her fingers, Cinder slid in closer to the android. It was the first time she’d been alone with Garan since their long trip and she expected him to say something, to ask how she was getting along or if there was anything she needed—he’d certainly asked that plenty of times while they were traveling—but he hardly seemed to notice her standing there.
