Lynx had no answer for that. She pointed at the sconce. "So what does the ice crystal in this do?"
"It, um-" He sucked his lips. "Takes pictures, like paintings, but not really, because they move." At her dumbfounded expression, he added lamely, "It also listens and plays back what people are saying."
"And what makes it work? Body heat?"
"No, of course not. These use electricity. The palace has its own coal-driven power station, similar to the technology on a steam train, only this one generates electricity. We would like to use ice crystal, but supplies are scarce-hence the war in Treven. They have the biggest ice crystal deposits in the world."
Lynx folded her arms. "I always believed I was vaguely intelligent, but this is all beyond me."
Axel looked stumped for a moment, and then he fumbled in his pocket. "Maybe this will help." He pulled out a large, black button. "We call these informas. They come in any shape or size but always something commonplace, something that wouldn't be questioned on a desk or in a pocket."
Shoulder to shoulder next to her on her cushion, Axel held the button in front of them. A burst of light shot from the top. Unbelievably, he clasped one corner of the beam and pulled it up as if it were a silk scarf. As it opened, a static image of Lynx, her uncle, and Axel, sharpening his weapons in the dining car on the train, blossomed before her.
Lynx gasped, then buried her face in his arm. Breathing deeply, she anchored herself in his clean smell of grass, wind, and wild places-normality-while waiting for her heart to stop pounding. Finally, she looked up, putting a tentative finger forward to touch the picture. It passed straight through.
"It's just light, Lynxie, projected onto the air molecules."
Lynx didn't pretend to understand what that meant. "You said it moved."
He nodded. "Now you're ready."
A finger flick, and the image danced, showing Lynx in secret conversation with Uncle Bear. What was worse-or more amazing, Lynx couldn't decide-was the clarity with which she heard her doppelganger whisper, "I recently killed a guardsman and prized the jasper out of his face, but it told me nothing."
If that wasn't damning enough, her uncle replied, "It's that kind of stomach which makes you so ideal for this job. You will need to be more subtle in Cian, though. Even admitting to killing guardsmen will earn you a swift execution. So, I will help you spy. Together, we will unravel this secret."
"Someone I trust translated it for me," Axel said. "Bear was agreeing to help you spy on us to find out about the gemstones, right? You also admitted to killing a guardsman."
Lynx made a gagging sound and covered her face with her hands. There had been no more private communication with her uncle since then, but would that matter? She doubted it. At last, she whispered from behind her fingers. "A translator? Who else has seen that?"
"Stefan and I edited it out of the sequence sent to my father."
She had no idea what that meant.
He pried her hands away from her face. "No one knows, except Stefan, me, and my translator friend, and we intend to keep it that way."
Lynx closed her eyes, still not wanting to see the reality of this life-threatening gaffe for both her and her uncle. "Why? Why would you do that?"
Axel slid his arm around her shoulder. "We-I-like you."
She should have shrugged his arm off, but she didn't have the energy. "Enough to sit back and watch me and my son destroy all that power you were telling me about while we were dancing?"
Axel's fingers tapped out a rhythm on her upper arm. "That's never going to happen, Lynx."
Lynx pulled out of his embrace. "Are you saying you don't believe in the Dmitri Curse? Or is that you don't believe I could be the one?"
"Oh, I believe, have no doubt about that."
She wasn't sure just what he was admitting to.
Before she could ask, he said, "We all do. Or why else would we have created an army of soldiers who experience no fear when placed in harm's way?" He touched his ruby. "That's what the jasper ice crystal does. It interferes with normal brain waves, programming loyalty to the crown and immunity to fear. Moving faster and shooting straight are just side benefits. We even control the high-born. Their green and blue ice crystals show up on a reader in my father's lair. It tells him the location of every high-born in the palace, at any time, day or night."
Lynx's body tensed, and her eyes narrowed, as they always did when calculating how best to take down an enemy. "How do you plan to stop me from passing this information on to my father? Is this when you slit my throat?"
"What?" Axel spluttered. "You think I've shown you all this so I can hurt you?"
Lynx wished she believed him, but she wasn't taking any chances. Her fingers felt for the heavy brass candlestick next to her. But would she have time to get in a killing blow if Axel was enhanced to move faster?
And then what? Stuck in the Avanov palace in the middle of the Heartland, there was no escape. How would she ever explain Axel's demise to the emperor?
She had her answers to the gemstones, but what good were they? Whichever way she looked, death seemed to stare back at her.
"Answer me, Lynx." Axel sounded aggrieved. "Do you think I'm going to hurt you?"
"Then how do you intend to stop me from using this information to destroy your empire?"
"You're very confident you're the chosen one."
Lynx shrugged, unwilling to admit he echoed her doubts. "You haven't answered my question."
Axel's face softened. "The answer is straightforward, Lynx. I've already told you-you're wasted on Lukan."
Lynx clicked her tongue. "What's that even supposed to mean?"
"It means I want you, and I suspect you want me, too." He looked at her hand resting on the candlestick. "That is, when you're not scheming to beat my brains out."
She didn't move her hand away. In fact, the urge to hit him was stronger than ever. "And how does your girlfriend feel about that?"
Axel sat back with a start. "My girlfriend?" The wicked smile invaded his face. "You find me conveniently between lovers."
"Are you saying you don't have a girlfriend?"
"That's exactly what I'm saying."
"Then who was the girl with the dark hair?" Lynx snapped, angry with herself for even caring.
Axel's hand trailed to his tussled hair. "Could you be more specific? Last time I looked, just about everyone in Chenaya had hair in different shades of dark."
"The one you were dancing with," Lynx snapped.
Understanding dawned in Axel's eyes, and he smiled. "Now, about that friend you're looking for. I have the perfect candidate. Her name is Malika, and she'd make you a great friend."
Lynx narrowed her eyes, blasting him with her coldest expression-the one Clay always joked would stop the wind blowing.
Axel brushed her face with his hand. "Oh, lighten up, Princess. Malika's my sister, and she wants to help you settle in here."
"Your sister?" Lynx swallowed a gulp of humiliation. "Come on, Axel. I've two brothers whom I love, but I don't spend the night dancing with them at parties."
Lynx's stomach knotted with longing for Clay and Wolf. Clay would be doing his final preparations for his egg raid. What did that matter now if Mott killed them all?
"It wasn't the whole night. It was only part of it. The rest I spent watching you." When she looked unconvinced, Axel added, "My sister has just come out of a nasty relationship. I'm now steering her in the direction of Stefan. I'd appreciate it if you also brought your influence to bear. Malika will listen to you."
The conversation had gone a long way from plotting to kill Axel. Bemused, Lynx asked, "Why would she listen to me? I'm the enemy."
"Not everyone divides the world into friend and foe, Lynx. Some of us just judge as we find. My sister thinks you have amazing taste in clothing." He brushed her bare knee, sending a shiver of want through her. "And I told her you're special. To me." He paused, his face devoid of his usual jeer. "I'd like us to become lovers."
A cloud of butterflies swooped through her stomach. She quelled them with a glare, partly for him for suggesting something so radical-when he knew her parents' lives were at stake-and partly for herself for craving him so much.
Still, that didn't stop her from releasing the candlestick and putting her hand in her lap. "We haven't solved the basic problem here, Axel."