Nova stepped around the reception desk, noting the framed photos showing a handsome, gray-haired man with his arm around Prism, the prodigy who had taken them up to Council Hall after the library incident. She passed through the large doorway into a circular lobby with glossy white floors, an elaborate blown-glass chandelier, and vast windows that overlooked the sweeping views of the city and ocean beyond. A calming fountain burbled in the center, and artwork and glass display cases lined the walls. Five corridors sprouted from the lobby like spokes from a wheel, each with a decorative plaque hung above its entry, engraved with the aliases of the Council. Tsunami. Blacklight. Thunderbird. Dread Warden. Captain Chromium.
Nova paused to listen again. When still only silence greeted her, she started picking her way past the memorabilia on display. One case held a single green stone nestled into a bed of satin, and Nova didn’t need the descriptive tag beneath it to recognize the Stone of Clairvoyance, which was credited with giving a prodigy named Fortuna the ability to describe for anyone the happiest and the saddest moments of their lives—even if they hadn’t yet come to pass. Next was the golden fan that Whirlwind could use to cut an enemy up to fifty feet away. Then a collection of large fish bones, neatly laid out on a wooden plate. It was the skeleton of a razor fish, whose spirit was said to have haunted Sandprowler and imbued him with the ability to burrow quickly into almost any type of ground.
Nova paused when she came to a wall unencumbered by display cases, and instead hung with a large painting. Her stomach squeezed as she took in an artistic rendition of the Battle for Gatlon. She recognized the steps of the cathedral in the background, though the ground was littered with destruction and debris, bodies and blood. In the foreground, atop a mountain of rubble, stood Captain Chromium. He was gripping his chromium pike, with Ace’s helmet speared at the tip.
At the bottom of the pile lay Ace Anarchy himself, his body broken over one of the shattered balustrades from the cathedral, his blood spilled across the dirt.
Nova’s mouth ran dry. The artist had captured Ace’s features perfectly—that horrible devastation, even in death. Dark eyes open to the sky, lips parted in disbelief.
It was not based on reality, she knew. This moment, caught in time, was nothing more than an artistic interpretation of what might have happened. Perhaps, in their mind, what should have happened. But in truth, there had been nothing left of Ace’s body for them to lord their victory over.
That did not make the image any less disgusting, and in that moment Nova swore that, when she brought down the Renegades, she would find this painting again and she would destroy it.
Releasing a weakened breath, she forced herself to turn away. Her boots clipped against the hard floor as she passed the next corridor, but then she paused, her heart stuttering.
She stepped back, aligning herself with the entrance of the corridor—the Captain’s corridor—and peered down its length.
Her jaw fell. Her skin tingled.
There, on a pedestal at the end of the hall, glowing copper-gold beneath a pale spotlight, was the helmet.
Ace’s helmet.
Nova had barely taken a step forward when the communicator at her wrist hummed. She froze, sure in that moment the Renegades had discovered who she was and what she was planning, even though she wasn’t entirely sure she was planning anything. She only knew that guilt and paranoia had flooded her system the moment the communicator went off.
Then she lifted her wrist, looked at the glowing text on the band, and released a long sigh. It was only Adrian—not accusing her of anything, just worried that she wasn’t in the medical wing.
She allowed her racing pulse to calm before reading the full message.
Insomnia, just because you never sleep doesn’t mean you can get out of bed without the healers’ permission! (Kidding. Sort of.) I just got to med wing and the nurse says you went home. Healers seem concerned—they say there could be side effects from being so close to Max that we don’t know about yet. Can you come back to HQ? Or if you’re passed out in a ditch somewhere, let me know so I can come find you, okay? (Kidding again. Not really.)
—Sketch
Nova read through the message three times. The first time her thoughts were still tripping around the discovery of Ace’s helmet and the majority of the message lost all meaning in the mad chaos inside her head. The second time she picked up only that there could be side effects and the healers were trying to order her around, and they were using Adrian to do it, which she found remarkably annoying.
The third time, though, she could see the message not just as glowing blue text, but she could also hear it in Adrian’s voice, and by the time she got to the end she found that her irritation was gone, replaced with something almost like warm-hearted amusement. Because even if she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself and didn’t need Adrian or the healers to watch out for her, there was something in his halfhearted attempts to disguise his concern that she couldn’t help but find charming.
Then she looked up again, and all sense of charm and amusement vanished, like a fire doused in ice water.
Leaving the message unanswered, Nova lowered her wrist, took in a breath, and made her way down the length of the corridor.
Spot lighting was installed in a track on the ceiling, and the glint of light off the helmet’s surface shifted as she came closer. She could see hints of her own reflection in the panels that curved around the face. The sharpness of the light snagged on the broken cranium where the Captain’s pike had long ago broken through, leaving a gaping hole and deep cracks emanating outward. The helmet was set on a thin dowel, so that from certain angles it appeared suspended in air, the open slit where Ace’s eyes had once peered through now nothing but a black hole. Unlike the artifacts in the main lobby, it was not protected by glass, but left out in the open. As if there were no fear of it ever being taken. As if no one worried that it might someday fall again into the hands of a villain.
And why should they fear it? That hole through the top was proof enough that it was destroyed. Whatever power it had once contained, whatever strength her father had worked into the fabric of this energy-turned-metal was long gone.
Nova stopped when she was an arm’s length away from the helmet, overcome with memories.
Uncle Ace standing over the sleeping form of a murderer, looking at Nova with both sadness and awe.