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be some satisfaction, however bitter, in trading one more time with her father.
    "I gave you my word," she said. "You don't need to bind me."
    "Princess, if you aren't restrained, my men will start to think," he said. "And since they don't have very powerful brains, what easy conclusion do you think they will come to? And do you believe they will wait to consider other options before acting?"
    They'd think the princess promised him pax, and lots of it, for her safe, untouched return. They'd think that they'd been cut out of both the payout and the fun. Then they'd cut him out—literally—and do as they pleased with her.
    Her eyes flashed with scathing repulsion. But she held out her hands, cheeks flushed with color. "Fine. You're an idiot, but fine."
    He'd just drawn the knot tight around her wrists when the door to the Way burst open. Jace strode inside, waving his slicer gun in the air. Alcohol steamed from his pores. "Found you!"
    Brilliant man. It was the only structure within range.
    "Gods be damned, how long does it take to switch out the plasma?" Simon bellowed back, hauling Mica up by her bound wrists. "I've been waiting all night for your drunk ass to show up."
    "I think you bided your time jusssss fine," Jace returned.
    "I want pax," Simon said, curt. "Not a hanging. No pussy is worth my neck."
    "Charming," Mica mumbled.
    "Oiii!" Jace raised his arms and thrust his pelvis rhythmically into the air. "I could make her say yes."
    "No," Mica said coldly.
    Simon leaned in to her ear. "Not a lot of men to choose from who are exiled from the city, and yet still manage to live."
    Let her stew on that. Exiled, that's right. Left to die was more like it. His companions weren't miners, so they didn't know about Simon's own trouble. Jace was a merc for hire who got stranded on Sol and couldn't afford the pax to get off. Otis was a native, and a man of all work. Swore he hadn't meant to kill his last employer. And Simon had just wanted it all. Almost had it, too. And he would have helped any who'd wanted the same.
    A question glinted in her gold-flecked eyes and her jaw got tighter, but she followed where he led. Boarded her own ship, which Simon knew had to have been clean before Jace and Otis had found the alcohol. Food trash and what had to be Mica's personal articles—underwear, text-heavy papers, a heeled shoe—littered the neck of the dragon. But the corridor walls were fashioned out of some variety of Earth wood, warm in tone, with darker veins running irregularly through the pieces. Luxury stuff. Even the air felt expensive. He ran his hand along the side—the closest a mining grunt like him had ever been to anything of the mother world.
    He pushed Mica ahead into the neuro. Otis lounged in the pilot's seat, which was upholstered in a strangely smooth creamy tan fabric splattered with bloody-pink paint. A drizzle of the pink lacquer ran across the main console as well. It took a minute for Simon to register that Otis was wearing a black dress with a plunging neckline. The material was shot through with the occasional sparkle and was stretched to near transparency across his belly. Narrow straps ran over his shoulders to disappear down his back.
    Mica in a skimpy black dress. Simon searched his memory. No, he'd never seen her in anything like that.
    "Princess—" O stood and flourished a bow, a strappy heel hanging off his ankle "—I thank you for your excellent hospitality."
    She cocked her head to the side and stretched O a dry smile. "What's mine is yours."
    Simon couldn't confine her to her stateroom—not with Jace and O determined to live to the fullest—so he settled her on the floor of the neuro, her back resting against the wall, for the flight to the city. Getting inside the grid would be easy—Simon had a friend in the halo and a few more in labor. At one time, he'd had a lot of friends.
    What to do with their hostage was more difficult, but not impossible.
    "We hide her in the mines," Simon said once