Toni, seeing the consternation, burst into tears, crying in a loud “Waaaayaaaa.”

“What a baby.” Felicity grimaced as she wiped at the spots of algae that had splashed onto her face. She touched her tongue to where a glob had landed on her lips, cried, “Uuuck!” And scrubbed at her face with her already-smeared hands.

Felix grabbed the jar from Sheena, ordering, “You got him crying. You gotta make him stop.”

Sheena rolled her eyes, bent down, and lifted Toni from the floor, struggling to perch him on the cushions. “Hey, there! It’s okay. Here, let’s play spaceship and dock.” She made a fist, swinging it around in circles over Toni’s head as she made shushing spaceship sounds with her mouth.

Toni fixed on her, his eyes clearing as he looked up. Grinning he followed her fist in the ever-lowering circles over his head. “Spaaaziiip!” he cried.

“And it’s going to land!” Sheena whipped it down, play-grinding it into his tummy. Then she tickled him until he was laughing and squirming.

“Blessed ions,” Tomaya said with overemphasized relief. “I thought he was going to cry all afternoon.”

“We’ve got to clean this up,” Felix said, looking at the splotches of algae on the floor.

They all bent down, trying to wipe up the slippery stuff with their hands, which only spread it wider.

“Use your sleeve,” Breez suggested.

That seemed to work a little better, but not much.

“What about Toni?” Tomaya asked, sitting up. “It’s all over his jumper and hands.”

“It’s all over all of us,” Felicity snapped as she kept wiping at her face.

“Not anymore,” Felix told her.

Toni, eyes fixed on the waves he could see through the transparency, was sucking absently on his algae-covered fingers. Most of the blue-green slime was gone.

That just left the spots on his jumper, and Felix wasn’t too worried about that. Little kids got stuff on them all the time. Yosh and Mikoru would hardly know the difference.

24

“I want to kill something!” Talina managed to growl through gritted teeth as she perched on her barstool in Inga’s. She knotted her fists, struggled to still the rampaging hormones, quiet the anger and frustration that raged inside her.

When the fuck had she felt this chaotic inside? Demon vibrated with laughter down in her belly.

The tavern thundered with sound. The nightly crowd—along with the latest rotation from Corporate Mine—had packed into the subterranean dome. Talina sat reversed on her stool, her elbows on the bar behind her so she could look out into the big room. She’d often sat thus in order to keep a watchful eye on her people. After the stormy departure from Dek Taglioni’s burning embrace . . . well, okay, her burning embrace, too, it felt reassuring, something comfortable and normal.