“We tried to run. No one gets far in The Corporation. Father was furious. So much so that he bought her contract from the Eros guild. Made me sign the transfer order that shipped her off to Okeus 1-7 out in the Van Oort Cloud.”

“Okeus? Series of survey and mining bases, right?” Talina asked. “Number 1-7, that would have been one of the stations waaaay out there.”

“Yeah. The farthest one from Transluna.” Dek studied his thumbnail. “Three years transit time just to get there, and her contract was for twenty years. Assuming she’s still alive.”

Talina cocked her head, considering. “Guess there’s worse things in the universe than quetzals and TriNA.”

“The part that still haunts me is that when my father told me to sign the order, I didn’t even argue. Didn’t try to bargain. I just signed the damn thing without so much as a peep.”

“You were fifteen.”

“I was a Taglioni.”

32

Felix jerked awake in the dark room, pulled rudely from the peculiar dream when his leg began to spasm so hard it shook his whole body. Just as he started to slip off to sleep, his leg jumped again. Hard. Like he was kicking something. And whatever it was, he sure hadn’t ordered his leg to do it.

Anything but. He’d been in open turquoise water, bobbing and riding the waves while sunlight filtered down around him. Not only that, he’d been listening to music—an eerie singing sound of rising and falling melodies unlike anything he’d heard the adults play from their pads or recorders. Remarkable sound had filled the water, a high symphonic humming augmented by thumps, low booms, and something that might have been called squealing mixed with a yodel.

Outside of the magic of it, he was slightly frustrated because he knew it was telling him something. That understanding was so close, just barely out of his grasp. Like the times when adults were talking, using words that sounded sort of like words he knew.

His leg continued to quiver like it had a mind of its own.

He glanced around in the darkness, aware that Kim Yee snored softly where he slept with Mother in the big bed. They always slept better after sex. The faint hiss of the air conditioning was reassuring. The room still felt strange after Ashanti. But Felix had to admit he so enjoyed having his own bed on the other side of the room.

Like tonight, it was easier to ignore Mother and Yee. After the lights were out, they’d whispered just soft enough that Felix couldn’t make out the words but could still hear the concern. Only when they thought Felix was asleep had Yee hushed mother and shifted his body onto hers.