Nova rolled her eyes. “And again. How do you know her?”
Leroy grinned and jerked the wheel to one side. Nova stiffened and glanced out the window, but couldn’t see whatever it was he was swerving around. A second later, he had righted the car in his lane. “She was a member of the Ghouls,” he said, citing one of the villain gangs who had risen to power during the Age of Anarchy, one that had formed an alliance of sorts with the Anarchists. “I used to trade her disappearing inks for false documentation. Still do, when it’s needed.”
“She’s a prodigy, then.”
Leroy hummed his confirmation.
“Any powers I should know about?” Even when meeting a supposed ally, Nova liked to be prepared.
“Psychometry. Nothing dangerous.”
Psychometry. The ability to see into an object’s past.
“Well,” Leroy added with a chuckle, “nothing dangerous so long as you don’t get crushed beneath all her stuff. You’ll see when we get there. She told me once that it’s difficult to give things up, once you know what they’ve been through.”
“I’m not afraid of stuff,” said Nova, “as long as we can trust her.”
“Oh, I didn’t say that,” said Leroy. “But outside of family, she’s as close to trustworthy as we’re going to get. And”—he sighed—“I don’t believe we have any other choice.”
Nova settled deeper into the seat, staring at the weathered boathouses that blurred past.
Her mind settled on that one ephemeral word.
Family.
She had had a family once. Mom. Papà. Evie. When they were taken from her, she believed she’d lost everything. So much of her childhood was lost in a haze of pain and loss, mourning and anger, betrayal and a sadness so raw there were entire days in which she couldn’t summon the energy to eat, or even cry. Entire nights in which shadows terrorized her, becoming murderers and monsters.
There had been but one source of light in those first months. The only real family she had left.
Uncle Ace.
He had held her close so she couldn’t see the bodies of her family as he took her away from the apartment, stopping only to grab the unfinished bracelet her father had been working on. He hadn’t let her go until they arrived at the cathedral, what he and the Anarchists had called home in those days. It was the largest church in the city, which Ace had claimed long before Nova was born. At first, she found it haunting and eerie, with the lofted ceilings that echoed every footstep, the bell tower that had long ago fallen to silence and cobwebs, the paintings of dead saints that watched her pass with condemning eyes.
But Ace had done his best to make it feel like a home to her. She did not recall him talking very much, but he always seemed to be near when she needed a stable presence. Sometimes he held her hand or rubbed her back while she sobbed into his shoulder. Sometimes he would use his powers to distract her from her sorrow, making playful puppets out of the figures and statues that lined the sanctuary and chapel walls. And when her curiosity overcame her misery, he showed her every hidden alcove of the cathedral. The tombs beneath its foundation, full of bones and history. The massive organ where she was free to pound at the keys to her heart’s content, filling the vast space with chilling chords that perfectly fit her mood. He had taken her to the belfry and let her tug on the ropes to make the smaller bells chime, then showed her how he could move the massive central bell with his thoughts. Their music had pealed across the rooftops of the surrounding city blocks.
The pain did not go away, but when Ace was there, it seemed to lessen, little by little.
Then, one day, he told her the truth of what had happened to her family.
Nova had been inspecting some reliquaries she’d found in one of the smaller chapels when Ace found her and sat her down on a worn wooden bench. He told her that one of the villain gangs—the Roaches—had demanded that her father craft them a collection of weapons using his gift. They had threatened David’s wife and daughters if he didn’t meet their expectations.
When her papà began to fall behind on their requests, he went to the Renegades and begged for protection. Captain Chromium himself had promised that no harm would come to him or his family, but only so long as he stopped making weapons for their enemies.
And so her dad did stop. And the Roaches, in retaliation, sent a hitman after him and his family.
Only, the Renegades hadn’t kept their word. Captain Chromium hadn’t kept his word. They were not there to protect David’s family when they needed their protection the most.
When Ace finished telling this story, he handed Nova a cup of cold milk and two vanilla wafer cookies taken from plastic packaging that crinkled deafeningly loud. Nova, six years old and so small her feet didn’t touch the stone floor as she sat on the bench, ate the cookies and drank the milk without comment. She remembered not crying. She remembered that in that moment, she had not felt sad.
She had felt only anger.
Blinding, breathless rage.
As he stood up to leave so she could come to terms with the truth of her family’s deaths, Ace had said simply, practically—“The Roaches were forty-seven members strong. Last night, I killed them all.”
That was the one and only time they spoke of her family’s deaths. What was done was done. The gang had killed Nova’s family. Ace had killed the gang. Justice was served.
Except for the Renegades, who had failed to keep their promise.
Two months after that, Nova’s life was overturned again.