Gyre spun out from behind the claw-thing, running down the aisle long enough to catch the centarch’s attention, then hopping over a table full of loose coins. He judged the jump wrong and scraped half of them to the floor, where they pinged on the flagstones and rolled away.

That definitely got her attention, at least. He heard footsteps and caught a glimpse of the flaming sword getting closer. He pulled a stunner from his belt pouch, judged the distance carefully, and hurled it over the row of junk, squeezing his eye closed and looking away. It went off with a whump and a brilliant light, and almost simultaneously a crack of blaster fire came from overhead.

“Not going to surrender,” the centarch said. She sounded younger than he was. “Okay, then.”

Gyre was already moving. Behind him, a pile of bricks blew apart in a wave of flames, and the girl stepped through the wreckage after him. He turned long enough to hurl another alchemical, but a pinpoint blast of fire caught and incinerated it in midair.

“I have some questions for you,” she said. “So just stop before someone gets hurt.”

Her haken snapped up in time to intercept a blaster bolt, the blinding energy vanishing into the sword. The centarch turned and spotted Kit’s dark figure hurrying along the catwalk.

“That’s getting really irritating,” she said, and raised one hand.

A blast of flame scythed out, and Kit threw herself flat. The burst was aimed not at her but at the catwalk behind her, and a chunk of the wood-and-iron walkway was blown into flaming splinters. As Kit bounded back to her feet, the whole structure started to twist, brackets popping away from the support pillar. Kit rode the still-burning catwalk down, pieces falling away and crashing among the gathered artifacts, raising clouds of dust and smoke.

“Kit!” Gyre shouted as he lost sight of her. He started in that direction, then pulled up short as the blazing haken interposed itself, eye-wateringly bright.

“I said I have some questions for you,” the centarch said. Her hair had gotten loose, blowing in the rising heat of the flames, red as blood. “Drop your weapons.”

No! Gyre squeezed his good eye shut. No no no. For a moment he was eight years old again, watching as Va’aht Thousandcuts casually destroyed his family, took his eye, showed him the truth about the Dawn Republic and the Twilight Order. Republicans might sneer at the subjects of the Splinter Kings, call them slaves under the heels of vicious despots, but as long as the centarchs existed, the people of the Republic were something worse. Ants, to be crushed or brushed aside.

Under his mask, pain lanced through his scar.

No. He let out a breath, heart pounding, and opened his eye. Then he moved, with all the speed and ferocity he’d spent twelve years learning.