Ruby’s whole face brightened. “Actually, my brothers came up with it. It was kind of an inside joke. We used to pretend we were superheroes when we were kids—like everyone does, right?”
Nova didn’t answer.
“So they made up names for all of us. Jade was the Green Machine, Sterling was the Silver Snake, and I became Red Assassin.”
Nova looked at the stone dangling from Ruby’s wrist. She could still distinctly recall the feel of her ruby dagger pressed against her throat. “So … you’ve never…?”
“What? Killed someone?” Ruby guffawed. “Not so far.” Then she grew suddenly serious. “I mean, I would kill someone. If I had to.”
“But it’s always a last resort,” added Adrian.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” said Nova, knowing she wasn’t, “but didn’t Renegades used to kill people all the time? Back during the Age of Anarchy, there were always stories about them taking out members of the villain gangs.”
“New rules,” said Adrian, “new regulations. We’re always supposed to bring them in to custody as peacefully as we can, and avoid unnecessary violence whenever possible.”
Nova gaped at him. It felt so … so silly, in comparison to what she had been taught all her life. The strong over the weak. An eye for an eye. If someone wronged you or yours, then you did what you had to do to ensure it didn’t happen again.
Which often meant killing the one who had wronged you.
Every one of the Anarchists had countless deaths on their hands. She could remember nights when they sat around talking about their most brutal kills. Bragging about them. Laughing about them. When they’d developed the plan for Nova to take out Captain Chromium, Leroy had joked about throwing her a party afterward, to commemorate her first kill.
Her first.
Because they all assumed there would be more to follow. Even Nova had assumed it.
So why did the thought suddenly make her uneasy? Because she’d failed the mission? Or was it something else?
“Hey, guys,” said Oscar, pressing a hand against the window. “The back door’s open.”
They all sprang to their feet—even Nova, and for a moment she forgot that the last thing she wanted them to witness was suspicious activity happening in that alleyway. But when they’d all clustered around Oscar, they saw that it was only a girl taking out a garbage sack and throwing it onto a pile beside the nearest dumpster.
Nova recognized Narcissa, Gene Cronin’s granddaughter, but none of the others seemed to know who she was.
Narcissa let the dumpster lid slam shut and brushed her hands off on her pants before retreating back into the library.
Oscar grumbled. “False alarm.”
“Should we go through their garbage?” said Ruby. “Do you think they’re throwing away any incriminating evidence?”
Adrian frowned thoughtfully. “Maybe, but let’s see what tonight turns up first.”
Nova peered at him from the corner of her eye. Is that where he would place the false evidence?
“My turn,” said Ruby, nudging Oscar on the shoulder while Nova and Adrian returned to the blanket. “I’m bored.”
“Oh yeah, because this is exciting stuff,” he said, but relinquished his place at the window without argument. Lying down, he stretched out onto the pillows.
“How about you?” said Nova, turning to Adrian. “Were you challenged at the trials?”
“Nope.”
“Adrian didn’t have to try out,” said Oscar, kicking Adrian in the shin. “Cheater.”
“Oh right,” said Nova. “Because of…” She hesitated over the right words. His family? His dads? His adoptive relations, who just happened to be the most influential prodigies in the city, perhaps the whole world?
“It’s not like they bent any rules for me or anything,” said Adrian. At some point he had pulled out his fine-tip marker and he was fidgeting with it now, twisting the cap back and forth. “But I was hanging out around headquarters since they first started renovations. By the time someone thought to start hosting trials to bring in new talent, I was already … you know. A part of the team. Obviously, I would have tried out, if anyone had asked me to.”
He scowled at Oscar, and something about his defensiveness made Nova relax.
“I know you would have,” said Oscar. “And you would have kicked ass.”
“Thank you,” said Adrian, scratching his temple with the pen. “I mean, I could have drawn a hand grenade. Come on.”
“No one’s doubting you,” Oscar insisted.
“And what’s your origin story?” said Nova. “I’m guessing that marker doesn’t contain magical ink?”
Adrian’s quiet smile returned as he glanced down at the marker. “No magic. Sadly, no thrilling near-death experiences or villainous jewelry heists, either.” He sighed heavily, as though he’d been dreading this moment, though a hint of a smile remained. “Like twenty-eight percent of today’s prodigies, I was born with my power. At least, I think I was. It manifested pretty much the first time I was handed a crayon.”
“Manifested how?” said Nova.
He shrugged. “I started to scribble, and those scribbles started to come to life and squiggle around the apartment like little primary-colored worms that my mom was always trying to sweep up. Now, things got really interesting when I was … maybe two or three? My power works by intention more than anything, so back then, I was still just scribbling random lines, but in my head I was drawing dinosaurs and aliens. So then the house became overrun with tiny little squiggle lines that believed they were dinosaurs and aliens and were always trying to chomp down on people’s toes when they were walking around. Which is about the time Mom thought it would be a good idea to hire an ex–art teacher who lived a couple streets away to start giving me drawing lessons.”
Oscar snorted loudly. “Notice how he complained about the lack of excitement in his story, but then it turns out there were actual meat-eating dinosaurs in it? You’re such a one-upper, Sketch.”
“It was a harrowing tale,” agreed Nova. She was grinning, though her thoughts were roiling in the back of her head. Adrian had mentioned his mom, and now she found herself comparing his face to pictures she’d seen of Lady Indomitable—the sixth and final of the original Renegades. The resemblance was clear. Nova could picture her effervescent smile easily, a smile that rivaled the Captain’s in brightness and charm, and one Adrian had clearly inherited.
His mother had been a Renegade, too. Would probably be on the Council today, if she were—
Nova’s heart squeezed.
If she were still alive.
She racked her brain, trying to recall what had happened to the superhero, but all she knew was that she had died a long time ago. Nova had never really cared that much. One less Renegade to worry about. But now she found herself succumbing to curiosity, wanting to know what had happened to her, but not knowing how to ask.
“No more stalling, Insomnia,” said Adrian, yanking her attention back. “It’s your turn.”
“Oh.” Shaking her head, Nova flipped her hand through the air, like the story was so dull it was hardly worth mentioning. In fact, she had been born with her power—what she thought of as her real power, the ability to put people to sleep. She had a vague memory of her mom once joking about how hard it had been to breastfeed Nova as a baby because she kept dozing off every time Nova nursed.
But the power they knew about, the fact that Nova never slept … that had come later. When, for weeks, every time she shut her eyes, gunshots rang in her ears.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
“It happened when I was six,” she said, picking at bits of fuzz on the blanket. “I just … stopped sleeping.”
“But you could sleep before then?” said Ruby, her gaze on the library.
“Sure. Not as much as most kids. But … some.”
“Could you still, though? If you wanted to?” said Oscar. “Or is it impossible for you to sleep
anymore?”
Nova shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s been a long time since I wanted to.”
“What happened when you were six?” asked Adrian.
She met his gaze, and the memory was right there. The dark closet. Evie’s crying. The man’s remorseless stare.
“I had a dream,” she said. “I dreamed there were these tiny little squiggly dinosaurs that kept trying to bite my toes and when I woke up, I thought, that’s it. Never again.”
Oscar and Ruby laughed, but Adrian’s gaze only softened. “What a nightmare.”
She shivered.
“Your parents must be saints,” said Oscar, pulling her attention toward him. “To put up with a kid that never slept? I hope you were good at entertaining yourself.”
His words struck her in the chest. She flinched, and Oscar blanched, his eyes widening in horror. “I’m sorry. I forgot.”
The unexpected apology caught Nova off guard, and the sting of his words was quickly replaced with suspicion. Did they know? How did they know?
“Your papers mentioned, um…” Oscar rubbed the back of his neck.
Adrian cleared his throat. “You live with your uncle now, right?”
Nova’s gut clenched again, even though she knew Adrian’s question had been well intentioned. An attempt to draw all their thoughts away from the single explanatory line they must have read when they reviewed her fake papers. Both parents were killed by an unknown villain gang during the Age of Anarchy. Currently resides with Peter McLain, paternal uncle.
“Uh, yeah,” she stammered. “He took me in after…” She swallowed. “They died a long time ago.”
“How old were you?” Ruby asked, her voice soft, though her attempts to be calming only made Nova’s hackles rise.
She fixed her gaze on Ruby. “Six.”
From the corner of her eye she saw Adrian tilt his head curiously.
Six when her parents died. Six when she stopped sleeping.
How had this edged so treacherously close to the truth?
Without looking at him, Nova pulled herself to her feet. “I’m going to go scout out the roof. We might have a better view of the alley from up there.”
Ruby and Oscar traded looks and she could tell they wanted to stop her. Or maybe apologize, though the words didn’t come, and Nova was glad for it.
She didn’t want an apology, or pity, or sympathy, or even kindness. She didn’t need those things from anyone, least of all a bunch of Renegades.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
NOVA STAYED ON THE ROOF for more than an hour, longer than she’d meant to, but when she realized she was expecting one of the Renegades—no, expecting Adrian—to come check on her, it sparked a sense of stubbornness that refused to ebb long after she knew she should have gone back down to their makeshift surveillance room.
She wasn’t waiting for him. Why would she?
Even as she stood on the roof, watching the silent stone facade of the library, the stillness of its black windows, the occasional car that breezed past on the street, she could feel the words heavy on her tongue, waiting for their chance to come out.
Why did you stop sleeping? he would ask.
And against every ounce of logic inside her, she would answer.
I fell asleep—the very last time I ever slept. And when I woke up, there was a man with a gun. He killed them both. He killed my sister. He tried to kill me. And the Renegades didn’t come …
After that, every time I tried to sleep I would hear it happening all over again, until, eventually, I stopped trying.
That was her origin story. The whole of it.
And it was none of Adrian’s business, or anyone else’s for that matter.
She couldn’t understand why talking about it had made her so defensive or given her such a strong compulsion to tell them the truth of her power and where it had come from. She’d never told anyone, not in so many words, though she thought Ace understood the gist of it, and of course all the Anarchists had figured out that she wasn’t one for sleeping not long after she’d moved into the cathedral. But she’d never had any cause to actually tell someone the story. She’d never really wanted to.
Why would she now?
Instead, she paced. Back and forth across the rooftop, enjoying the fresh air on her skin. Though she’d worn leggings and a simple T-shirt, civilian clothing, as instructed, she’d opted to wear the uniform boots she’d picked up at headquarters earlier that day. She figured she might as well use this reconnaissance mission to start breaking them in, though now she could tell it wasn’t necessary. They were, in fact, ridiculously comfortable, and a part of her hated the Renegades for winning even at this.
Finally, when she felt sure that any compulsion to give out unnecessary information was gone, Nova made her way back down to the fourth floor.
Ruby and Oscar had fallen asleep. Oscar had not moved from his spot on the pillows, and Ruby was now lying with her head beside his, but her body perpendicular, so they made a kind of right angle on the floor with nothing but their heads nearly touching. It seemed almost as though Ruby had gone out of her way to place herself in a position that wouldn’t suggest anything beyond the fact that she was tired and Oscar was hogging the pillows.
Though she could have moved her pillow to the other side of the blanket. If she’d wanted to.
Stepping over Ruby’s legs, Nova approached Adrian. He had pulled the desk in front of the window and now sat with his feet dangling over the side, with a sketchpad on his lap. He was drawing the library with quick, hasty lines, focusing mostly on the dark shadows that spilled from the alley.
Nova climbed up onto the desk and sat beside him, her toes tapping against the glass.
“You all right?” Adrian asked, without looking up.
“Fine,” said Nova. “The view from the roof looks pretty much the same as the view from here.”
“I know. I scouted it out yesterday morning.”
Her lip twitched and again she wasn’t sure what was more annoying—that he hadn’t followed her to ask about her parents, or that she still sort of wished he had.
“So, other than squiggly dinosaurs and bracelet clasps”—she glanced at the sketchpad—“what sort of things do you like to draw?”
He hummed in thought, sketching in a blur of shrubbery around the library’s foundation. “I draw a lot of tools and weaponry for the Renegades. Armor pieces. Handcuffs. Things that might come in handy when we’re out patrolling. Not just for our team, but for everyone. It’s really made a big difference in the things we can accomplish.”
“I bet it has,” said Nova, trying to keep any resentment out of her tone.
“But when I’m left to my own devices,” said Adrian, “I like to draw the city.”
“The city?”
He set down the pen and turned back the pages of his notebook. A number of them were blank and she wondered if there had been drawings there before—drawings that had since been brought into reality—until he arrived at a series of dark, detailed images. Unlike all the marker drawings she’d seen, these were done in charcoal. He handed Nova the sketchbook and she took it delicately, feeling her breath hitch.
The first image was of the beach at Harrow Bay, shadowed by the monumental Sentry Bridge. A couple was seated on the rocky shore, sharing a newspaper as they huddled beneath a single raincoat.
She turned the page and saw Ashing Hill—a neighborhood of cobbled-together shacks and ruddy houses that had been a hot spot for drugs and crime during the Age of Anarchy. Probably still was, for all Nova knew, but in this picture Adrian had captured three children harvesting bouquets of dandelions and clovers from the edges of the overgrown sidewalk.
She flipped on, seeing a street musician strumming a guitar on the corner of Broad Street, two huge dogs curled around his ankles. Then a sketch of the ticket booth outside the old Sedgwick Theater, most of the lightbulbs burned out on the sign and the posters on the wall still promoting a musical act from years ago.
Then a view of the crowded flea market on North Oldham Road, where people came from all over the city to sell everything from hand-crocheted baby mittens to broken clocks to garden-grown zucchini.
Nova turned another page and paused.
She was staring at a scene of a shadowed glen surrounded by a low stone wall and thick, crowded trees. In the center of the glen stood a single statue, half covered in moss. It was an elegant figure, covered head to toe in a long cloak, with a hood that fell so far forward as to completely cover its face. All that could be seen of the person within the cloak was their hands, which were held just slightly apart in front of the figure’s stomach, as if they were holding an invisible gift.
Nova exhaled and flipped past the drawing. She reached the end of the notebook and started to turn back through the pages again. “These are extraordinary.”
“Thank you,” Adrian murmured, and though he must have known they were extraordinary, she still detected a hint of self-consciousness in his voice.
“Could you bring these to life?” she asked. “If you wanted to?”
He shook his head. “I have to intend to bring it to life as I’m drawing it. Otherwise it’s just a drawing. Besides, even if I could, they wouldn’t be any bigger than the page they’re on. It would be sort of like making a super-ornate pop-up book.” He paused, and added, “Though someday I would like to try making a life-size mural—a landscape that I could make real. It’s been something I’ve been thinking about for a while.”
Nova flipped back to the drawing of the statue. She traced her thumb beside the hooded figure, careful to keep it hovering above the page so she wouldn’t smudge the lines. “This is at City Park, isn’t it?”
“You’ve been there?”
“My parents used to take me to the playground when I was little. One time I wandered off without them realizing it, and I ended up here.” She tapped her finger against the page, where the hooded figure stood serene but imposing. “My parents were in such a panic when they finally found me, but … I loved it. I felt like I’d just stumbled onto something no one else knew about. I even remember…” She hesitated as filaments of memories spun through her thoughts. She frowned and glanced down at the drawing, then shook her head. “You’re really good.”