Max’s cheeks twitched with a stifled laugh. “Sure. The vigilante who’s been embarrassing the Renegades for months and defying the Code Authority every few minutes turns out to be none other than Adrian Everhart himself.” He nodded sagely. “That will hardly cause a stir.”

“Thanks for the encouragement.”

Max’s crooked grin returned, for real this time. “On the bright side … at least no one thinks your girlfriend happens to be one of the world’s most wanted villains anymore.”

Adrian’s pulse skipped to hear Max referring to Nova as his girlfriend. Coming from someone else made it sound so … official. “True,” he said. “That does make things easier.”

Thinking of Nova made him even more determined to fix whatever he had ruined when he hadn’t believed in her innocence. The way she’d kissed him on the pier seemed to suggest that she’d already forgiven him, but he didn’t want to take any chances. He never wanted to lose her again.

His thoughts were interrupted by a tiny, shrill screech. Adrian started, but Max, used to the noise, lifted his palm and examined Turbo. “About time you woke up, little dude. Are you hungry?”

The velociraptor unhinged its jaws in what might have been a yawn, then untucked its back legs. It took a few awkward attempts to climb to its feet. Max sighed. “Yeah, you don’t feel so great. I know. I’m sorry.”

Turbo stood, watching Max with its black eyes. It made another sound—this one a pathetic mewl—and slowly reached forward one little claw, stretching the tiny needle-like talon forward until it barely tapped the end of Max’s nose.

Then, like watching a wind-up toy as it finally wound down, the little dinosaur grew still.

Neither Max nor Adrian spoke for a long time. Adrian wanted to say something to comfort Max as he stared at the creature, now as motionless as one of the plastic figurines, but he didn’t know what to say.

Finally, Max let out a long, slow exhale. “I’m glad you made him. He was a fierce little dude.”

“Yes, he was.”

A small, impish smile sparked over Max’s face. He set the dinosaur, frozen in its final stance, in the middle of the battlefield. “And he is going to make one hell of a supervillain.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

“I DON’T KNOW if I can travel through a magic mirror.”

Nova considered Narcissa with disbelief. “That might have been good information to have yesterday.”

Narcissa shot her an exasperated look of her own. “Well, maybe you should have told me what you were planning! I know you Anarchists are all ‘every man for himself,’ but I would have thought spending so much time with the Renegades would have made you more of a team player.”

Nova opened her mouth to rebuke the idea that she could learn anything useful from the Renegades, but she stopped herself. In truth, Narcissa might have had a point. Exhaling, she asked instead, “Do you really think it won’t work?”

Narcissa screwed her lips to one side, pondering the question. “I mean, it probably will? But I guess it depends on what sort of … enchantment, or whatever, it has on it.” She shrugged. “Do we have any other options?”

Nova blew a lock of her bangs out of her face. “Not really, so let’s assume for now it’s going to work. I stashed the mirror here, in a pile of construction equipment.” She drew an X on the blueprint that showed the floor layout for the headquarters’ ground and mezzanine floors, including early plans for the laboratories near the quarantine. “Once you’re in, you’ll go down this corridor, then left through these doors, and the storerooms are on your right. I don’t know which storeroom, so you might have to check them all. And I also don’t know who they have on night duty these days, but you can bet they’ll be watching this floor closely, so you have to be quick once you’re in.”

Narcissa appeared thoroughly unimpressed. “And here I was hoping to get some quality reading time while I was there.”

Ignoring her, Nova added, “And don’t forget to bring the mirror with you in case you need a quick exit.”

“You can stop with the obvious. I’ve been doing this my whole life.”

“Fine.”

“What if the storerooms are locked?”

“They will be.” Nova reached for the pile of folders beside them and shuffled through until she emerged with a white ID card—the same she’d once nicked off an unconscious administrator outside the Renegade security room. “This should get you access.”

“Should?” Narcissa said dryly, pocketing the card. “What if it doesn’t?”

“How good are you at picking locks?”

Narcissa’s eyebrows rose in dismay.

“Kidding. If this doesn’t work, then just get out of there and come back here. We’ll switch to plan B.”

“What’s plan B?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

“Comforting,” Narcissa deadpanned.

“You’re the one who got me out of jail. You wanted me to help with strategy, so that’s what I’m doing.”

“Yeah, but I figured we’d be plotting the ultimate downfall of the Renegades, something that would take months, maybe even years. I didn’t think we’d give ourselves less than a week to rescue the most infamous supervillain of all time.”

“I like to aim high.”

Narcissa laughed, but there wasn’t much humor in it.

“I’ll talk to Cyanide and check on how the decoy is coming. Be ready to move on this tonight—headquarters tends to be emptiest between three and four a.m.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be ready,” said Narcissa. “But look, I need to be honest with you. I think trying to stop the execution and rescue Ace Anarchy is a terrible idea and I know a lot of the Rejects think so, too. Maybe you can persuade some of them to join you in this crusade, but I won’t be one of them, and I’m not going to push anyone else into it, either.”

“What are you talking about? You just said—!” Nova pointed at the blueprint.

“Yeah, I’ll do this,” said Narcissa. “But not for you and not for Ace Anarchy. I’m doing it for all the prodigies who have been oppressed by the Renegades. This will be a huge blow to them and their dominance, and I’m all for that. This is what my grandfather would have wanted me to do. But I’m not going to the arena with you, and I don’t know how many of the others will go voluntarily, either. We’re doing this so we can live better lives, lives with peace and freedom. But people are going to die if you do this, and that’s not a risk we’re all willing to take. Not for Ace Anarchy, at least.”

Nova crossed her arms. “So much for teamwork. Don’t you realize how much Ace Anarchy has done for us? For all of us?”

“Yeah, I do realize what he did. But he also drove everyone into a war! And I know you care about him, but … I’m not sure I agree that we need him to take down the Renegades. We can do this without him. And if you and the Anarchists don’t make it back … then we’ll do it without you, too. You are handing us a pretty awesome weapon here.”

Nova glared at the blueprint. It felt like a betrayal, but she’d known Narcissa for such a short time, she wasn’t sure why it surprised her.

“Fine.” Nova started to roll up the blueprint. “You wouldn’t be much use at the arena, anyway, but I do need to know who’s with us so I can work it into my strategy. And make sure you don’t leave any Agent N behind when you’re leaving that storeroom.”

“Of course.”

One of the Harbingers appeared in the hall, his gold robes rustling around his legs. “Cyanide asked me to tell you the substance decoy is just about … ow!” He clapped a hand to his arm and spun around.

Nova jumped to her feet, already tensed for an attack. But it was only Leroy standing behind the boy, a small needle in his hand. He grinned sheepishly. “Apologies. I only had to be sure—”

Before he could finish, the Harbinger boy let out a groan and collapsed against the wall.

“So very sorry,” Leroy said again.

Honey appeared, coming to see what had caused the yelp. She seemed mildly intrigued as she took in the unconscious boy. “What’s wrong with him?”

“He’ll be fine. Should wear off in ten minutes. Twenty at the most.” Leroy held up the needle, showing Nova. “Good news. The paralysis poison is ready. I’m going to call it Agent P.”

Nova grimaced. “For the sake of fostering good will, let’s try to find willing volunteers next time you need to test something, all right? But … nice work.”

“Thank you.”

“That still doesn’t solve the problem of how we’re going to simultaneously inject hundreds of Renegades with it,” continued Nova. This dilemma had been cause for much discussion since she first broached the possibility of rescuing Ace. Originally they planned to dose the Renegades with a gaseous anesthesia pumped in through the venting system, except, thanks to Nightmare’s Agent N bombs, most of the Renegades would now be outfitted with gas masks.

“Don’t worry,” said Honey. “Leroy and I are working on a few options. You stay focused on getting to Ace and making sure the Agent N reveal falls through. We’ll take care of the rest.” She draped an arm over Leroy’s shoulder and steered him back toward his makeshift laboratory in the basement’s far corner.

Nova watched them go, her gut tight with apprehension. There were so many things that could go wrong.

But there wasn’t time to dwell on any of them.

“All right,” she said, turning back to Narcissa, who was still staring dumbfounded at the unconscious Harbinger. “Did you find what I asked for at the mansion?”

Narcissa blinked at Nova for a few seconds, before giving herself a shake. “Yes, I did. Right where you said they’d be.” Narcissa pulled a satchel from behind her and set it on the table. Reaching inside, she produced a thick stack of papers, many yellowed with age and crinkled at the corners, some tears fixed messily with clear tape. “At first I thought this was just a part of your infatuation with the Everhart guy, but now … I get it.”