Scarlet

they’ve mentioned you. I was terrified that they would go after you too, darling. I wish you hadn’t come. I should have been more prepared for this. I should have known this would happen.”
    “But what do they want?”
    Her grandma dragged her attention down to the dark stage. “They want information that I can’t give them, though I would in a heartbeat if I could. I would have weeks ago. Anything to come home to you. Anything to keep you safe.”
    “Information about what?”
    Her grandma took in a slow breath. “They want to know about Princess Selene.”
    Scarlet’s pulse skipped. “Is it true, then? Do you really know something about her?”
    Her grandma’s eyebrows jumped upward. “Have they told you why, then? Why they suspect me?”
    She nodded, feeling guilty for knowing the secret her grandma had so long harbored. “They told me about Logan Tanner. How they think he brought Selene to Earth, and how he may have sought out your help. They told me they think he’s my … my grandfather.”
    The wrinkles on her grandma’s forehead deepened and she cast a concerned look at the wall behind Scarlet, toward the other balcony, before drawing her attention back. “Scarlet. My love.” Her expression was gentle, but she didn’t continue.
    Scarlet gulped, wondering if, after all these years, her grandma couldn’t stand to dig up the past. The romance that had been so brief, but had been clinging to her for so long.
    Did she even know that Logan Tanner was dead?
    “Grand-mère, I remember the man that came to the house. The man from the Eastern Commonwealth.”
    Her grandma tilted her head up, patient.
    “I thought he was coming to take me away, but he wasn’t, was he? You two were talking about the princess.”
    “Very good, Scarlet, dear.”
    “Why don’t you just tell them his name? You must remember what it was, and then they could go to him. Won’t he know where the princess is?”
    “They no longer want to know about the princess.”
    She bit down on her lip. Frustration welled up inside her. She was shaking. “Then why don’t they let us go?”
    Her grandma squeezed Scarlet’s fingers. Years of pulling weeds and chopping vegetables had made them strong, despite their age. “They can’t control me, Scarlet.”
    She scrutinized her grandma’s lined face. “What do you mean?”
    “They’re Lunar. The thaumaturge—he has the Lunar gift. But it doesn’t work on me. That’s why they’re keeping me here. They want to know why.”
    Scarlet grasped for figments in her mind. All those bits and pieces she’d learned about Lunars—impossible ever to tell which were true and which were exaggerated tales. It was believed that their queen ruled through mind control, and that her thaumaturges were almost as strong as she was. That they could manipulate people’s thoughts and emotions. That they could even control people’s bodies if they chose, like puppets on strings.
    Scarlet gulped. “Are there a lot of people who can’t be … controlled?”
    “Very few. Some Lunars are born that way. They call them shells. But they’ve never known of an Earthen who could resist before. I’m the first.”
    “How? Is it genetic?” She hesitated. “Can I be controlled?”
    “Oh yes, dear. Whatever makes me like this, you do not have it. They’ll use that against us, mark my words. I imagine they’ll want to experiment on us both as they attempt to find out where this abnormality comes from. Whether or not they should be worried about other Earthens being able to resist them as well.” In the darkness, her grandmother’s jaw hardened. “It must not be hereditary. Your father was weak also.”
    Scarlet was lost in warm brown eyes that had always been soothing, and yet struck her as harsh now in the darkness of the theater. Something gnawed at the back of her thoughts. The faintest suspicion.
    Her father was weak. Weak for women. Weak for booze. A weak father, a weak man.
    But her grandmother had never suggested she could think the same of Scarlet. You’ll be fine, she always said, after a skinned knee, after a broken arm, after her first youthful heartbreak. You’ll be fine because you’re strong, like me.
    Heart thumping, Scarlet lowered her gaze to their intertwined fingers. Her grandmother’s very wrinkled, very frail, very soft hands.
    Her chest constricted.
    Lunars could manipulate people’s thoughts and emotions. Manipulate the way they experienced the very world around