It was stuffed full of people, all of them wearing the thick furs of Solera as they milled about. The dance floor was littered with giant icicles that resembled stalactites, and the bar itself was an entire wall of ice, holes carved out to fit bottles within. Drones strung with old, twinkling holiday lights soared around the ceiling, casting the entire pub in a flickering glow. In the corner, a fireplace from frozen blocks of ice boasted a purple fire within—some sort of chemical substance that looked pretty, but did nothing to chase the chill away. Patrons lounged before it, laughing as they enjoyed their drinks.

“Damn,” Dex muttered. A woman waltzed past, her hair piled on her head and braided in the shape of a snowflake. With a start, he noticed that her veins weren’t silver. Her skin was blessedly free of Nor’s stain, and as he looked around, Dex realized with glee that everyone else was free of the veins, too.

“I think we may have found the Underground,” Andi breathed. “What now?”

Despite his better judgment, Dex reached up and removed his helmet, gulping in the cold air. The whole place was thick with the smell of smoke and Griss. Someone shouted in the corner of the room, where two mini-droids were boxing in the center of a carved, frozen table. A large crowd surrounded it, throwing in Krevs and spilling their drinks as they clashed their ice mugs together, sealing bets.

“We look for another sign,” Dex said, scanning the pub. “A spider’s web, maybe painted somewhere, or on a bottle of Griss, or—”

“There,” Andi said, grabbing his shoulder tight. Her helmet was off now, too, and nobody looked twice at the two of them.

She nodded in the direction of the bar, where a woman sat with her back to them. Woven into her clothing, as if a spider had stitched the design right into the fabric, was an intricate black web.

“We question her slowly,” Dex said. “We feel her out first, just a gentle nudge, and if she gives any indication that she’s one of the Underground...”

“Godstars be damned,” Andi said, cutting him off.

The woman had turned, the side of her face visible now as a droid refilled her cup.

Dex almost couldn’t believe his eyes. It felt like he was having a very real case of déjà vu—or like he’d been thrown back into one of his worst nightmares.

For it was Soyina who sat at the bar, a finger lazily tracing the rim of her glass. Her tattoos swam around her skin like fish in a pool of water as she surveyed the room.

“What are the chances...?” Andi started.

“What the hell is she doing here?” Dex wondered aloud. The last time they’d seen Soyina, she’d put a bullet through them both and dumped their bodies—and Valen’s—on a Lunamere corpse ship.