“Yeah, but we’re going to have to do it quiet. That, I can do.” She smiled grimly. “You two wait here.” The air shimmered, and Mia disappeared.

I swore internally. Once again, my training failed me. Seventeen damn years of training camps and sweating and studying and never having friends and all for what? I didn’t know how to do anything but parrot company propaganda and dodge semi-incapacitated prisoners. “What’s she doing?” I demanded, leaning around the booth and trying to spot evidence of Mia’s passage. She might be invisible, but she still existed.

“Mia’s a thief from long ago. She’ll be fine.”

I glanced at Alexei. “How’d you spot the bounty hunters, anyway?”

“It was fairly simple once they captured us.”

I blinked. “They . . . captured you? How?”

“By sticking a gun in our backs and dragging us into a control room. Then they stuck more guns in our faces and demanded to know where you were.”

“How’d you escape?”

He grinned. “I set the control room on fire.”

Yup. That would do it. I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of Alexei using his pyrokinetics in an enclosed environment like a space station, but there wasn’t much to say now that it was done. Obsidian was still here. I’d call that a win. “I don’t suppose Mia got to keep her gun?” Never thought I’d be rooting for that.

“Unfortunately, no. It is now the proud possession of some bounty hunter with an ugly mask.” Suddenly, Alexei’s face paled. He caught my elbow and jerked me back. “That ugly mask.”

I shrugged free of him to lean around the corner, more carefully this time. A sleek figure in black strode through the market, the crowds parting as he passed. Something about his presence made even the burliest criminals dart aside. As he drew closer, I realized he wore a silvery mask drawn over his face, reminding me of a villain from Robo Mecha Dream Girl 5.

I looked closer. “Son of a bitch,” I said out loud. It was a villain from Robo Mecha Dream Girl 5. A perfect reproduction of the mask worn by the Silver Oni, and not a cheap Halloween copy, either. “Where did he get it?”

“What?” Alexei stared at me like I’d lost my mind.

“Alexei, that mask is a freaking collector’s item. I wanted one last year and they were selling for five thousand credits on—”

“Are you kidding right now?” he demanded, incredulity lacing his voice.

I swallowed my annoyance. Somehow seeing that mask, the mask that should have been mine, on a bounty hunter’s face was simply the last straw. We had to do something. I stalked him with my gaze, ignoring Alexei tugging at my elbow. There was a familiarity to his movements, like a panther prowling his territory. Robo Mecha Dream Girl 5 had been the place I retreated for so long that seeing the Silver Oni stomping around like he owned the place rattled me more than I cared to admit.