Cinder spends time in her workshop, avoiding Adri, after returning home from the research lab. She focuses her time and work on repairing the gasoline-powered and planning her and Iko’s escape on the night of the ball. She recounts her refusal to attend the ball with Prince Kai, knowing that in her world and time, any knowledge linking Prince Kai to a cyborg means embarrassment for the soon-to-be emperor.

Looking at a damaged netscreen makes Cinder question aspects of being Lunar. Lunars avoid reflective surfaces, but while looking at her image in the netscreen, she ponders the avoidance: ”She couldn’t understand what Levana and her kind, their kind, found so disturbing about it. Her mechanical parts were the only disturbing thing in Cinder’s reflection […]” (190).

Cinder starts to work on fixing Kai’s android. She notices no obvious problems. Meanwhile, Iko “draped a strand of Adri’s pearls around her bulbous head and smeared cherry lipstick beneath her sensor in a horrible imitation of lips” (192-93). They discuss their visions of attending the ball and dancing with the prince. Cinder keeps her knowledge of being Lunar to herself, along with the guilt of the kept secret.