Scarlet

Cinder is ordered to “not make any sudden movements” (354) and come quietly. Cinder tries to use her glamour to convince the officers to let them go, but suddenly a man in the tavern starts to change and adopts a “crazed, bloodthirsty expression” (356). He attacks and kills one of the officers, and everyone in the tavern scrambles to escape. The man approaches Cinder and says that “[his] queen has been looking for [her]” (356). He lunges for Cinder, who panics and uses her glamour to force a female officer to jump between her and the man. He kills her, then rounds on another officer.

Cinder realizes that she is responsible for the woman’s death. When the crazed man attacks her again, Thorne “heave[s] a chair upward, breaking it over the man’s back” (359). The man bites Thorne, but Cinder stops the attacker by firing a tranquilizer dart from her cyborg hand. The man collapses, but as Cinder and Thorne escape from the tavern, they see another man attacking officers and civilians. The man howls, and the sound is “picked up by another and another, half a dozen unearthly calls being sent up in every direction to greet the rising moon” (360).

Cinder and Thorne make their way back to the podship, and the streets of Rieux devolve into chaos. Cinder and Thorne make their way back into the Rampion, and Cinder realizes that the police were able to track her through Peony’s ID chip, so she “[throws] it out into the field” (364). Cinder hurriedly installs the new power cell, and the ship takes off, leaving Rieux behind. Cinder cleans Thorne’s wound, and he says that it feels “like [he] was bit by a feral dog” (366). Cinder admits that she used the female officer as a human shield, but she “didn’t mean to” (366) and is wracked with guilt. Thorne reminds her that she is still learning how to use her gift, and it was an accident, so they should “try to put some of the blame where it belongs” (367). Iko interrupts to report that the netscreens are showing footage of people being “attacked by men who [fight] like starved wild animals” (368). The attacks are happening worldwide, and no one knows why.

In the basement of the opera house, Scarlet hears the cries of the Lunar attack. She discovers that the building is deserted, and no one comes when she calls. Scarlet suddenly hears someone calling her name in the darkness, and she uses the ID chip Wolf gave her to escape from the cell. She finds her real grandmother in another cell, and she is covered in “lumps of bandages” and “something damp and sticky” (372). Grand-mère is too weak to move and almost too weak to talk or breathe. She urges Scarlet to run away and leave her, but Scarlet refuses. Grand-mère tells Scarlet that “Princess Selene is alive” and that Scarlet “must find her” (374). She says Princess Selene is a cyborg now and goes by the name Cinder. Scarlet remembers the cyborg girl from the news coverage of the ball, and she realizes that “Levana had already found the girl” (375). Suddenly, Scarlet hears footsteps coming down the corridor.

Grand-mère orders Scarlet to run and save herself, but Scarlet refuses again. Ran appears, and Grand-mere calls him “nothing but a puppet for that thaumaturge” (379). She says that the thaumaturges have “taken away [his] gift and turned [them] all into monsters” (379). Grand-mere continues to taunt Ran, and Scarlet realizes that her grandmother is trying to provoke Ran into killing her so Scarlet will escape. The plan works, and Ran attacks and kills Grand-mere. Scarlet runs, and Ran pursues her through the opera house. Just when he has her cornered, Scarlet hears “a battle cry,” and she sees “two forms tangled with each other” (385). The other man throws Ran to the side, and Scarlet realizes that Wolf has come to her rescue.

Wolf orders Ran to “return to [his] post” (387), but Ran refuses to allow Wolf to “embarrass [their] family” with his “newfound sympathy” (387) for the Earthens. Wolf declares that Scarlet is his, and their fight continues. Wolf kills Ran by biting his throat, and Scarlet runs out of the opera house and into the streets of Paris. She finds a horrifying scene of terror as pack members chase down innocent civilians and kill them all around her. Wolf chases her down, and when he is about to attack Scarlet, she tells him that she “know[s] [he’s] different from them” and that he “[doesn’t] want to hurt [her]” (392). Slowly, Wolf comes to his senses, explaining that Jael is “in his head” (393) controlling him. Suddenly, something hits Wolf in the neck, and he collapses on top of Scarlet.