Of course, letting ourselves get arrested wasn’t a great choice either.

Mia cursed and threw her arms around both of us, catching me off guard. She wasn’t exactly the affectionate type. She shimmered and vanished . . .

And so did we.

I blinked at the spot where Alexei had stood a moment ago. A glance at my own arm revealed nothing, although when I tensed my muscles, everything felt normal. I didn’t dare move more than that, for fear of disrupting Mia’s concentration.

We stayed frozen and silent as the bounty hunters rounded the stall. Our eyes locked, and for a second I was sure they saw us. Then the woman threw her hands up. “They’ve got to be here somewhere.”

The man shrugged, holstering his weapon. “It’s a closed station, Priya. They can’t get off without clearance. Obsidian’s cooperating. We’ll run ’em down. Let’s go find the others.”

The woman, Priya, hesitated, staring right at me. My heart seized in my chest. She couldn’t see me, I knew she couldn’t see me, but it felt like she was about to step forward and shove that gun in my face.

After a moment, though, she tucked it into her holster and followed her partner into the crowd.

Mia’s and Alexei’s arms relaxed under my hands. A moment later, all three of us flickered into view, Alexei’s face a mirror of my own astonishment. “So that’s three,” he said. “Exactly how powerful are you now?”

Mia shrugged, averting her gaze. “I guess we’ll find out when we need to.”

Great, another thing to worry about, on top of the bounty hunters chasing us, the aliens possibly coming to kill everyone for venting their friends into space, the weird guy who lived in the vents tracking my comms . . . the list went on and on. You’d think that after escaping a station full of murderous aliens, things would get easier, not the other way around.

Then again, if your life is easy, you’re probably not running from space monsters. So there was that. Fall down seven times, get up eight, I reminded myself. Except I thought I’d probably stumbled at least a dozen. “Okay,” I said, my mind racing, searching for something to grab on to. “I take your point about Rune needing us more than Cage, but he might be in the marketplace right now.” And so is the Silver Oni. Even though I knew I should avoid him at all costs, something drew me toward that mask. Longing for my past life, maybe, but it felt like something more. Shouldn’t we at least look for him? “Where is Rune, anyway?”

“Probably in the docking ring,” said Alexei. “Kenzie, you can contact Jasper, can’t you?”

“Not unless it’s an absolute emergency. Liam figures my dad is watching for my signal to activate. If he’s in touch with those hunters, they’ll know our exact location if I use my comm.”