He wiped it off, then removed his glove and ran the blade quickly across his palm. His green Tenebran blood oozed from the fresh cut. Andi followed suit, red weeping from her skin.

“I had hoped, in some way, that I would have been able to kill you,” Soyina said with a sigh as one of her galaxy tattoos snaked across her brow. “But this will be more fun, anyway. Think of all the time we’ll spend together now that I know you’re not silverbloods.” She stood, took the knife from Andi’s waiting hand and wiggled a finger over her shoulder at them. “Follow me, Baroness, Dextro. And for the love of the stars, do please try not to look so glum. I’ve saved you once again, ever your loyal heroine.”

She slipped behind the bar, where two droids were busy carving fresh mugs from a block of frozen ice. “Well?”

“Should we go?” Dex asked, looking helplessly at Andi.

“We don’t have much of a choice,” she said. “Where else are we going to go?”

Dex sighed. “I swear, if she handcuffs me to a toilet again...”

“You know,” Andi said, as she followed after Soyina. “I think I’d pay to see that.”

They moved past the droids to the entrance to the kitchen, past rows of more liquor bottles and frozen meat awaiting a fire. The entire pub staff, it seemed, was mechanical. Not a single human in sight; no one to look twice as Soyina approached the huge meat storage freezer, swinging open the thick metal door.

Cold, even colder than the pub itself, filtered out, along with thick clouds of chilly steam. Rows upon rows of frozen animal carcasses hung inside, some clearly roak-hunted on Solera and others imported from other warmer planets across Mirabel.

“Always around corpses, Soyina,” Dex commented.

She smiled over her shoulder. “I find them fascinating, and beautiful. The Baroness would likely agree.”

Andi shook her head silently at Dex and mouthed, “Nope.”

Soyina stopped at the back of the massive freezer, turning to face them again.

“Before we proceed...what’s in the bag?”

Dex shrugged, Havoc finally having gone silent inside. “The devil incarnate,” he said with a wink. “A Fellibrag from Adhira.”

Soyina seemed to accept that answer, sweeping aside a huge hunk of frozen meat.

Behind the carcass was a hole carved into the wall. And beyond that, a tunnel that led downward into the earth, into a seemingly endless darkness.

“After you, Baroness, Bounty Hunter.”

When neither Dex nor Andi moved, Soyina laughed softly, but the sound held a bit of chaos within. “What? You thought the Underground was just some kind of code name?” She waved a hand as she slipped inside. “Follow me. We shouldn’t keep Arachnid waiting.”

CHAPTER 14

ANDI

The darkness was not complete for long, for as soon as Andi pressed the button on her varillium cuffs, cool blue light bounded off the rock walls.