Theo continued toward them, and was almost knocked down by the tall girl in the bright green jacket, who had been looking lost earlier. She didn't look lost now. She looked mad.

"That box need not be thrown!" She sounded mad, too.

Indeed, the tallest of the three from the ship was hoisting a small box as if he meant to toss it to the floor.

He glared, put the box down hard on the cart, off-handedly caught another bag tossed to him by the stubbier guy, dropped it to the floor, and picked up Theo's bag. He made a show out of reading the tag, and laughed too loud.

"I'll take that, thank you."

Startlement.

Theo flushed; her words had come out louder than she'd expected, and into a lull in the racket of the hall, turning heads and dropping conversation levels all around.

"Yours? It's got a pilot tag on it!" This from the ringleader who'd offered, several times and pointedly, to permit Theo to accompany him—or all of them—to his cabin on the Vestrin. The oversize pilot's wings glittered on his shirt collar, just as it had when he'd leaned toward her conspiratorially on the ship, as if his offer had been some kind of favor.

"My bag." Theo nodded, trying for Kamele's crispest, most efficient voice. "Thank you."

A flick of fingers from the stubby one; quick and with an accent she wasn't sure of, though she caught the sense: Throw me now run catch back toy's bag.

"Don't!" Theo snapped, accompanying that with a slashing STOP ALL! that brought a laugh from an onlooker and a too-loudly muttered, "Miss Purity strikes again!" from the ringleader.

"And I want my box," the girl in the green jacket said imperiously. "You make me late for lunch."

The guy holding Theo's bag sat on the box and looked down at her, ignoring the girl in the jacket.