An explosion reverberated through the cool midday air.

Tila stumbled and went down on one knee, her hand outstretched for balance against the smooth stone of the building she'd been walking past.

Above her, the thin bridge that joined one soaring high-rise to another--part of the City Run--trembled and hummed in the aftershock.

Tila rose back to her feet. She turned and saw the tall mirror building right in the heart of the Hub had a massive hole in its side.

The building was usually invisible, reflecting the city back at itself, so the hole in it appeared as if by magic, hovering mid-air--a crumpled mess of beams and jagged glass, and the inside of what looked like a very ordinary office space.

Up ahead, she saw officers of the City Watch race to assist in their brightly-colored EM vehicles, and then the hum of hovers took her gaze skyward as the Protection Unit flew in from above.

“That's the second explosion in four days.”

She turned in surprise, found her colleague, Sarta, standing behind her, her gaze fixed on the damage.

“I wonder if whoever is behind this will finally claim responsibility.” Sarta's gaze flicked briefly to her, and then back to the smoking debris.

“Who would want to take responsibility or try to justify that?” Tila gestured at the destruction.

“They'll have some reason. Think of the Faldine War.” Sarta pushed her thick, dark hair behind an ear. “I better get going. There'll be no EMs allowed through for hours after this.” She didn't move, though. She stood beside Tila and kept looking despite the fact that Tila knew she was right, the electromagnetic vehicles that provided transportation through the city would be banned from coming in or out of the Hub.

She realized her breath was short, that every muscle in her body was tense.

Life could change in the blink of an eye.

She forced her gaze upward, to the Mother and Child, the two moons that orbited Parn almost in complete sync with one another, the Child half the size of the Mother, and always in front, sheltered between the Mother and Parn.

She'd seen them up close and personal fifteen years ago, from the smuggler ship that had brought her to Parn with the idea of extorting a ransom for her and her fellow passengers.

“You get this look on your face when you stare up at the moons,” Sarta said. “I've noticed you doing it before. Do they have some special meaning for you?”

Tila froze, surprised that she'd been watched so closely without knowing it. She used to feel the touch of curious, avid eyes like a scrape against her skin when she was younger, when the wrongs and wounds of the Halatian Incident were still raw, but things must have eased off without her realizing it. She'd become used to being like everyone else.

The idea was both shocking, and freeing.

She dragged her gaze away from the sky and turned to Sarta. “When I was brought here, the smugglers would circle around Parn every now and then, to show everyone they were still there, that they weren't going until they were paid, but a lot of the time, they hid in the canyons on the Mother.”

The moons were a symbol of her arrival in the place she now considered home.

“If the moons remind you of your ordeal, you can never escape your memories,” Sarta said, her voice hushed. “They are always right in front of you.”

Tila turned back to the damaged building. “Even if the Mother and Child weren't there, I'd have the memories,” she said honestly. “The moons don't remind me only of the bad. They're like a talisman of survival to me. An obstacle overcome. Sometimes, miracles happen.”

She was living proof.

* * *

Two dead.

Nick stared down at the bodies with pity and a growing anger at the waste of it all.

He crouched beside a woman in her late thirties, her face unmarked except for a fine spray of blood on one cheek, and shared a look with Cris, who knelt opposite him beside the body of a man in his fifties, hair a steel gray.

With a touch of his wand to analyze DNA, Nick had the details of the woman up on the screen that was integrated into the sleeve of his Protection Unit uniform, from inner wrist to halfway to his elbow.

He sent the details to his commander, and then rose as the medical team approached, moving back so they could do their work.

“Four with the last one, two this time.” Cris's face was tight and her fists clenched. “I don't understand what whoever is doing this is trying to achieve.”

Nick didn't either, but there was obviously something here they weren't seeing. There was no connection between the companies that had been hit that they could find so far. And no discernible pattern in how the bombers were choosing their targets.

Not yet, anyway.

Nick was grimly aware that the more buildings targeted, the more likely a pattern would emerge.

He'd rather they didn't have to rely on more explosions for data.

“To me.” The bark of the order from his commander had him turning toward the entrance to the building, and he and the seven other members of his team made their way to Drake, who was standing tall and grim in what had once been a nice reception area.

“It's confirmed,” Drake told them as they gathered around him. “Same explosive device as last time, which means it's the same perpetrators.” He looked around the group. “Hope none of you made plans, because it's going to be a late one.”