CAUTION TAPE HAD BEEN STRUNG across the entrance to the Blackmire Way subway station, where Ingrid had blown a gaping hole into the wall the day the Anarchists had fled. Nova ducked beneath it and pressed one hand to the side of the stairwell as she made her way into the shadows. Her feet felt heavy; her body ached. But she had a singularity of purpose now. Something she should have done twenty-four hours ago, before she was distracted with plotting fake deaths and Renegade investigations and the all-encompassing hunt for Nightmare.
Nightmare, her alter ego.
Who had been officially declared dead, according to the accounts she’d picked up peering into apartment windows and staring at the news on their TV screens. Her death was headlining the news that night, though it was almost matched by reports of the casualties at Cosmopolis Park—so far, thirty-six casualties were confirmed, but no fatalities. Thunderbird was being heralded as a hero for rescuing the riders aboard the rollercoaster. Ironically, Insomnia was receiving praise, too, for having killed the Detonator before she could cause more destruction. The rest of the Renegade organization, however, was already being criticized for not having responded quickly enough to the threat.
Once it became too dark to see even the faint gleam of the metal rails, Nova pulled a micro-flare from her pocket, snapped it with her teeth, and tossed it over the edge to the platform below. It hit concrete and rolled for a bit before coming to a stop feet away from the ledge.
This had been Winston’s platform, but his tents were gone, carted away by the Renegades. Evidence of some sort.
Probably Nova would be expected to tag them for data and catalog them in the database one of these nights. She wondered whether they’d ever found Honey’s trunk of clothes or what they had decided to do with all the chemicals and poisons Leroy had left behind. Had they been confiscated, or destroyed? Perhaps they were all at headquarters. Probably, if she’d been doing her due diligence as an adequate spy, she would have known the answers to these questions by now.
Her boots hit the bottom of the steps, crunching on chunks of gravel and debris from the tunnel that had been collapsed by another of Ingrid’s bombs, while Renegades chased after them. Dust covered the space, so thick that it almost felt like entering a lost tomb.
Tomb.
The word stuck in her head and might have made her laugh at the irony if she wasn’t so drained. So ready to do what she had come here to do and start preparing for what would come next.
What would have to come next.
A new plan. A new strategy. A new focus going forward.
Her stomach had been in knots since she’d left Adrian. The day had wreaked havoc on her state of mind. There had been far too many moments when she’d been caught up in his spell. His charming smiles, that adorable wrinkle between his brows, his infuriating, impeccable goodness.
For a short time, she’d almost enjoyed being with him. And not just that … she’d enjoyed being a Renegade.
But the words uttered so casually by Evander Wade had brought reality crashing back down around her.
Not every prodigy deserves their powers. It’s because of villains like her that we need Agent N.
Agent N.
An antidote, he’d called it.
An antidote that had to do with Max. The Bandit. The kid who could steal powers … who had stolen Ace’s power.
And suddenly, she had known. She knew why they were running so many tests on Max. She knew what they were developing behind closed doors. The Renegades wanted a way to rid prodigies of their powers. A way to punish any prodigy who didn’t join them.
The very idea of it made her blood run cold. Because, yes, maybe someone like Ingrid Thompson caused more harm than good, especially after a night like tonight. But where would that line be drawn? When someone refused to join the Renegades or attend the trials? Or when a prodigy disobeyed a law enforced by the Council, though the people had yet to receive any sort of vote or representation? Or maybe they would decide to remove powers based on the potential for violence or damage or even disloyalty?
She did not know where the line would be drawn, and she did not trust the Renegades to draw it.
Especially knowing that the Anarchists would be the first to be targeted.
She couldn’t allow it to happen. Ace had fought to save prodigies from oppression, and here the Renegades wanted to force them into a new type of harassment. A new form of persecution.
Nova had long believed that the world would be better off if there were no prodigies at all. Superpowers would always lead to conflict—the weak versus the strong. And so long as the people relied on superheroes to take care of them, they would never learn to stand on their own again. It was a downward spiral she feared they would never get out of.
And maybe, just maybe, this all would have been fine, except the Renegades hadn’t held up their end of the bargain. They promised to protect people, but crimes still happened every day. People were still hurt. People were still killed. And yes, the Renegades must shoulder the responsibility for this, but the people didn’t even seem to understand that their own despondency was as much at fault. They saw the Renegades as heroes, the Anarchists as villains. They saw prodigies themselves as only good or only evil, leaving the rest of humanity somewhere in the realm of neutral.
There was the potential for evil everywhere, and the only way to combat it was if more people chose goodness. If more people chose heroism.
Not laziness. Not apathy. Not indifference.
But nothing would change so long as the Council was in charge. This, she knew. They would go on getting stronger. The people would go on getting weaker. And no one else would recognize how flawed this system was until it was too late.
During her time with the Renegades, Nova had started to lose herself.
But not anymore.
Years ago, there had been a little girl who believed the Renegades would come. How had she strayed so far from the betrayed hopes of that little girl? How had she forgotten the dreams and intentions of Ace Anarchy, who had saved her, who had dreamed of a society in which all people were free of tyranny?
He had failed.
But so had the Renegades. They had failed her family. They had failed her.
And they would go on failing until someone stopped them.
Nova made her way back through the tunnels as these thoughts crowded and tangled inside her head, occasionally lighting a new flare to guide her way. She had just reached her old train car when the darkness began to converge before her. Rivulets of inky blackness seeped down the curved concrete walls, dripping into the languid shape of a long cloak, a hood, a scythe.
Nova paused. She had seen little of Phobia since they had fled from the tunnels, and at times she wondered if he had chosen to return to the one place he felt most at home once the Renegades had given up their search.
Though she could not see his eyes beneath the overhang of the hood, she could feel him studying her, his breaths making the fabric of the hood flutter ominously.
“You have always feared failure,” he said, and his voice seemed even raspier than normal, “but it is an especially strong fear tonight.”
“Not really interested in the psychoanalysis,” she said, moving to pass him.
He shifted the scythe, hooking her with the blade.
Nova scowled.
“And also a fear that all will be for naught…”
Nova rolled her eyes and waited for him to finish.
“The Detonator is dead.” His voice quieted. “You fear that you will come to regret this.”
“You just let me know when you’re done.”
Phobia brought the tip of the blade up to Nova’s cheek and used it to turn her face toward him. “These doubts … these insecurities … they will come to serve you well, Nightmare.” He listed his head toward her. “After all, one cannot be brave who has no fear.”
She stared into the shadows where a face should have been. Utter nothingness stared back.
Leroy had once told her that Phobia did not need a body, because he was the embodiment of fear. She still wasn’t sure what that meant.
“Yeah,” she said, taking hold of the scythe handle and pushing it away. “You’ve said that before.”
She walked past her train car, and when she dared to give a cursory glance back, Phobia had dissolved back into shadows.
Nova turned her back on the car that had been her home for so many years and paused to gather herself. Her hands had begun to shake, but she wasn’t sure why. She wasn’t afraid. At least, she didn’t think so. Surely Phobia would have deigned to tell her if she was.
Nervousness, perhaps. Or even dread, to have to confess all the ways she had failed up until now.
Phobia was right about that, at least. She had always been afraid to fail.
Which is why she wasn’t going to let it happen.
Sucking in a deep breath, she approached the old graffitied poster and angled it away from the wall. She slipped into the tunnel. This time she did not bother to turn on any flares. There was only one path here—she could find her way just fine by the feel of rough stone scraping against her elbows.
The journey through this narrow, damp passageway had seemed to take eons when she was a fearful little girl fleeing from the cathedral, but in the years since, the journey seemed to get shorter every time she made it. Perhaps knowing that it wouldn’t go on forever, that there was indeed an end to this cramped, filthy passage made all the difference.
She knew she was getting close when the air stopped smelling of stagnant water and rats, and started to smell like death and slow decay instead.
She reached the end of the tunnel and pressed her hand against the simple wooden crate that served as a makeshift door, shoving it aside just enough for her to slip into the cathedral’s tombs. Inside the door, a tray had been set with a meal for one. A goblet of red wine and a cloth napkin, a china plate holding a triangle of hard white cheese, a sprig of grapes, a hunk of bread. A white taper candle was burning in a silver candlestick. She could taste the sulfuric tang of a recently lit match, and the candle was tall enough still that Nova could guess the meal had not been left there for long. She wondered if Phobia had delivered it, or if one of the others had been making pilgrimages too.
She felt guilty that this was the first time she’d come since they had abandoned the tunnels.
Stepping over the tray, she passed the familiar stacks of old stone sarcophagi, their inscriptions so covered with cobwebs and dust they were impossible to read. She passed beneath an arched doorway that had words from a dead language carved into the top, past the wall of rubble and broken stones where Ingrid had long ago closed these tombs off from the cathedral above.
She arrived at the bones, stacked so thick and deep they made a wall from floor to ceiling. Mostly skulls, but there were other things too. Femurs and ribs and even the tiny little finger bones that, for whatever reason, had scared Nova the most when she was young.
Nova looked into the empty eye sockets of those countless skulls of saints and clergymen and warriors, or whoever all these people were. She found herself wondering, as she had countless times before, if any of them had been prodigies. If so, had they dared to use their powers, or had they kept them secret? In their time, had their gifts been seen as miracles, or did even the devout feel the need to disguise who and what they truly were?
That was one thing that everyone had to agree on when it came to Ace Anarchy. Because of him, prodigies no longer had to hide.
At least, most prodigies no longer had to hide.
Nova settled down onto the floor, folding her legs beneath her. She stared into the faces of death and felt death peering back at her.
She took in a shaky breath and said the words that seemed impossibly simple for all that they meant.
“The helmet isn’t destroyed.”
The words echoed in the chamber and though it was an almost imperceptible change, she could have sworn that some of the skulls turned to look at her with increased interest.
“The Renegades have it. They keep it locked up because … because it’s still intact, and they’re worried that someone will try to use it again. But I think…” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I think I can get it back.”
The wall of bones began to tremble. Softly at first, enough to dislodge bits of dust. To send a couple of those tiny digits rolling across the floor toward Nova’s knees.
As one, the bones pulled back, like the curtains framing the stage of a grand production. They moved quietly, languidly.
The chamber beyond had little in it, but what it did have was luxurious. A four-poster bed draped in velvet. A writing desk stocked with linen paper and the finest pens. And books. So many books, the Librarian would have wept with joy to have seen them.
Though Ace had loved the cathedral, he had always felt happiest when he was down here. It was not so macabre as people liked to believe, he said. He liked the peace of it. The solitude and the quiet. He had told her once, his eyes twinkling, that being here kept him grounded.
And so, it was with some irony that Nova looked into the small chamber and saw Uncle Ace levitating three feet in the air, legs crossed and face serene. He reminded her of a monk in the middle of a meditation, except that his eyes were open, gazing at her with the same softness and warmth that had always served to remind her of her father.
“I knew you would do well,” he said, his lips curling into a smile, “my little nightmare.”