Droids And Bots

Chapter 42

“Ah!” The man jolted, his eyes staring at the small screen.

Nora tensed, wondering what her chances were of knocking him out with a quick blow to the head without any of those guards noticing.

His bewildered eyes took another turn over her dress, her hair, and then returned to his screen. She could see the internal struggle as his smile slowly turned up, attempting politeness. “Why, Linh-mèi, what a pleasure. We are so glad you could join us tonight. ”

Her eyebrows shot up. “You are?”

The man gave her a stiff bow. “Please forgive my ignorance. I’m sure His Imperial Majesty will be glad you’ve arrived. Please, step this way, and I will have you announced. ”

She blinked, dumbly following his arm as he stepped toward the stairs. “Have me what?”

He tapped something into his portscreen, before glancing back at Nora. His gaze swooped over her again as if he couldn’t believe what he was about to do, but his polite smile didn’t fade. “All personal guests of His Imperial Majesty are duly announced, as recognition of their import. Of course, they don’t usually arrive so…late. ”

“Wait. Personal guests of…oh. Oh! No, no, you don’t have to—”

She was silenced by the blare of recorded trumpets through invisible overhead speakers. She ducked at the sound, eyes widening, as the short melody faded. At the last trill of the horns, a majestic voice boomed through the ball room.

“Please welcome to the 126th Annual Ball of the Western South lake, a personal guest of His Imperial Majesty: Linh Nora of New Beijing. ”

. .-Four

THE BALLROOM TEMPERATURE SPIKED AS HUNDREDS OF faces turned toward Nora.

Perhaps the crowd would have turned away a moment later, indifferent, if they hadn’t found the emperor’s personal guest to be a girl with damp hair and mud splatters on the hem of her wrinkled silver dress. As it was, the gazes halted, pinning Nora to the top of the stairs. Her mismatched feet stuck to the landing as if concrete had hardened around them.

She looked at Tim, his jaw hanging as he took her in.

He’d expected her to come the entire time. He’d reserved a spot for her as his personal guest. She could only imagine how he was regretting that decision now.

Beside him, Pearl’s face had begun to burn beneath the glowing chandeliers. Nora looked at her stepsister, at Gabi, took in their speechless mortification, and reminded herself to breathe.

It was already over for her.

Pearl had almost certainly told Tim that she was bot.

Soon, Queen kumal would see her too and know she was Unar. She would be taken, maybe killed. There was nothing she could do about it now.

But she had taken the risk. She had made the decision to come.

It would not go to waste.

She squared her shoulders. Lifted her chin.

Gathering up the full silk skirt, she fixed her gaze on Tim and made her way slowly down the steps.

His eyes softened into something almost like amusement, as if such a ragged appearance was all one could expect from a renowned Technician.

A murmur rippled through the crowd and as the heel of Nora’s boot hit the marble floor with forced precision, the sea of gowns began to shuffle aside. Women whispered behind their hands. Men craned their necks to catch the hushed gossip.

Even the servants had stopped to watch her, holding trays of delicacies aloft. The scent of garlic and ginger clouded around them, twisting Nora’s stomach into knots. She realized suddenly how famished she was. All the preparations for running away had left little time for eating. Coupled with her anxiety, it almost made her feel faint. She did her best to ignore it, to be strong, but nervousness was expanding through her taut muscles with every step. Her pulse was a drumbeat inside her head.

Every eye swept over her, mocking her. Every head turned to whisper, rumors already taking flight. Nora’s ears rang, picking snatches of conversation—A personal guest? But who is she? And what is that stuff on her dress?—until Nora adjusted the audio Chip, silencing the words.

Never in her life had she been so glad she could not blush.

Tim’s lips twitched, and though he still looked baffled, he did not look angry or disgusted. Nora gulped. As she got nearer, her arms burned to wrap around herself, to cover her filthy, wrinkled, water-stained dress as best she could, but she didn’t allow them. It would have been futile, and Tim didn’t care about her dress.

If anything, he was probably trying to discern how much of her was metal and silicon.

She kept her head high, even as her eyes stung, even as panic filled her vision with warnings and precautions.

It was not her fault he had liked her.

It was not her fault she was bot.

She would not apologize.

She focused only on walking, one thudding step after another, as the crowd parted before her, then closed again in her wake.

But before she reached the emperor, a figure pushed out of the

crowd and into her path. Nora froze, halted by the seething glare of her stepmother.

She blinked, dumbfounded, as reality stumbled in on the still, silent moment. She’d forgotten that Gabi and Pearl were there.

Blotchy red cheeks showed through Gabi’s translucent white makeup, and her chest was heaving beneath the modest neckline of her kimono. The confused tittering hushed, pushing the questions toward those in the back of the crowd who couldn’t see what was happening but could no doubt feel the tension expanding around them.

Gabi’s hand snatched forward, capturing Nora’s skirt in her fist. She shook the material. “Where did you get this?” she hissed, her voice low as if she were afraid of causing more of a scene than Nora already had.

Setting her jaw, Nora stepped back, whipping the dress away from her stepmother. “Iko saved the dress. Peony would have wanted me to have it. ”

Behind her mother, Pearl gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. Nora glanced at her and found Pearl looking down at her feet with horror.

Nora shuddered, imagining her bot leg visible for all to see, until Pearl pointed at her feet and shrieked, “My boots! Those are my boots! On her!”

Gabi’s eyes narrowed. “You little thief. How dare you come here and make a mockery of this family. ” She jutted her finger over Nora’s shoulder toward the grand staircase. “I command you to go home this instant before you embarrass me further. ”

“No,” she said, clenching her fists. “I have as much right to be here as you do. ”

“What? You?” Gabi’s voice started to rise. “But you’re nothing but a—” She caught her tongue, even now unwilling to share the mortifying secret about her stepdaughter. Instead, she raised her hand over her shoulder, palm flat.

The crowd gasped and Nora flinched, but the strike did not come.

Tim stood beside her stepmother, one hand firmly wrapped around Gabi’s wrist. Gabi turned to him, her face burning with anger, but the look quickly fell away.

She shriveled back, stammering. “Your Majesty!”

“That is enough,” he said, his voice gentle but stern, and released her. Gabi shrank into a pathetic curtsy, head bobbing.

“I am so sorry, Your Majesty. My emotions—my temper—this girl is…I am sorry she has interrupted…she is my ward—she should not be here…”

“Of course, she should. ” There was a lightness to his words, as if he believed his presence alone could dissolve Gabi’s hostility. He fixed his gaze on Nora. “She is my personal guest. ”

He glanced around over the heads of the shocked audience, toward the stage where the symphony had gone silent. “This is a night for celebration and amusement,” he said loudly. “Please, let the dancing resume. ”

The band started, shakily at first, until music again filled the ballroom—Nora could not recall when it had died out, but her hearing was still dulled to the swarming noise around her.

Tim was looking at her again. She gulped and found that she was shaking—with anger and terror and nerves and the sensation of being captured by his brown eyes. Her mind was blank, not sure if she wanted to thank him or turn away and keep yelling at her stepmother, but he didn’t give her a chance to do either.

Tim reached forward and took her hand, and before she realized what was happening, he had plucked her away from her stepmother and stepsister and taken her into his arms.

They were dancing.

Heart hammering, Nora pried her gaze away from him and looked over his shoulder.

They were the only ones dancing.

Tim must have noticed it too, for he floated his hand briefly away from her waist, gesturing to the gawking crowd, and said in a tone that was part encouragement, part command, “Please, you are my guests. Enjoy the music. ”

Awkwardly, those nearby traded glances with their own partners, and soon the floor was filling with bustled skirts and coattails. Nora risked glancing toward where they had abandoned Gabi and Pearl—they were both standing still amid the shuffling crowd, watching as Tim expertly guided Nora farther and farther away from them.

Clearing his throat, Tim murmured, “You have no idea how to dance, do you?”

Nora fixed her gaze on him, mind still reeling. “I’m a Technician. ”

His eyebrows raised mockingly. “Believe me, I noticed. Are those grease stains on the gloves I gave you?”

Mortified, she glanced at their intertwined fingers and the black smudges on the white silk gloves. Before she could apologize, she felt herself being gently pushed away and spun beneath his arm. She gasped, for a moment feeling light as a butterfly, before she stumbled on her undersized bot foot and fell back into his embrace.

Tim grinned, coaxing her back to arm’s length, but he didn’t tease her. “So. That’s your stepmother. ”

“Legal guardian. ”

“Right, my mistake. She seems like a real treasure. ”

Nora scoffed and her body started to ease. Without sensation in her foot, it felt like trying to dance with a ball of iron soldered to her ankle. Her leg was beginning to ache from carrying it, but she resisted the urge to limp, picturing ever-graceful Pearl in her ball gown and heels, and wished her body into conformity.

At least her body seemed to be memorizing the pattern of the dance steps, making each movement slightly more fluid than the last, until she almost felt as if she knew what she were doing. Of course, the tender pressure of Tim’s hand on her waist didn’t hurt.

“I’m sorry about that,” she said. “About her, and my stepsister. Can you believe they think I’m the embarrassment?” She made it sound like a joke, but she couldn’t help analyzing his response, bracing for that moment when he asked her if it were true.

If she really were bot.

Then, as his smile started to crumble, she realized the moment had come far too soon, and she desperately wished she could take the comment back. She wished they could go on pretending forever that her secret was still safe. That he still did not know.

That he still wanted her to be his personal guest.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Tim said, his voice lowering even though the noise of laughter and tapping heels had filled the air around them.

Nora opened her mouth, but her words snagged in her throat. She wanted to refute Pearl’s claim, to call her a liar. But what would that get her? More lies. More betrayal. The fingers of her metal hand tightened on his shoulder, the hard, unforgiving confines of the limb. He didn’t flinch, just waited.