“My powers began to change after that,” Winston continued. “They changed me inside and out. Since that day, I have hurt more children than I could count. Not in the way that I was hurt, but as victims, powerless under my control. I don’t tell you this story because I want your pity. I also don’t mean to justify the things I’ve done, or to make excuses for the role I played as an Anarchist and … a villain.” He uncurled his spine, no longer bending over the microphone. “I tell you this because many prodigies will insist that their powers are a gift. I believed this, too. My powers were my identity. They were the source of my strength, my control. I didn’t know until recently, until after my powers were neutralized by Agent N, that they were none of these things. They were a burden. A curse. They kept me in the head of a victim for all those years, and they turned me into a monster, too. I know that I will never be free of the trauma I experienced or the memories of all the awful things I’ve done. But thanks to Agent N, I feel … for the first time, I feel like there might be a path forward. For the first time, I feel like I’m beginning to heal. To speak on my own behalf and maybe, someday, on the behalf of kids who were like me. I am so sorry for the hurt I’ve caused. I may never be able to make amends to the many children I used as puppets, but I do hope to make amends in as many ways as I can. I can’t say that other prodigies who are neutralized will feel the same way, but as for me, I am not sorry to be free of my powers.” He took Hettie and set the doll down on the floorboards of the stage, then held out a hand toward Captain Chromium.

The Captain stood and lifted the tall chromium pike that had been leaning up against his chair. The Silver Spear. He handed it to Winston.

Winston stood back, gripping the pike in both hands. “I am no longer a victim!” he yelled. With that, he swung the pike down. The flat end crashed into the doll. It shattered from the impact—its head caved in, one arm flew off the stage, a leg skidded off beneath Tsunami’s chair. Winston hit it again—two times, three.

He finally stopped after the sixth time, rendering the doll little more than broken pieces and battered clothing. Panting from the exertion, Winston handed the spear back to the Captain, then he craned his head one more time to the microphone. “But even more important than that,” he said, his voice full of emotion, “I am no longer a villain.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

EVEN ABOVE THE buffeting wind, Nova could hear the crowd inside the arena erupt over her earpiece. She flinched from the noise—a thunderstorm of applause.

She used the moment to catch her breath. She wasn’t exhausted from scaling the exterior wall of the arena. Rather, she felt like she’d hardly breathed during Winston’s speech. She was supposed to be focusing on the job ahead, but instead she was caught up in his story. Her throat was dry. Her heart felt like it was strapped into a vise. She wondered how it was possible to live beneath the same roof—or, in the same subway tunnels—with a person for ten years and still know so very little about them.

As the cacophony within the arena quieted, Nova heard Phobia’s voice rattling in her ear.

“Traitor.”

She flinched. Though she knew Phobia was talking about Winston, it felt like an accusation of her and her sympathy, too.

She didn’t respond.

“Let him choose weakness and mediocrity if that’s what he wishes,” said Honey. “We need to focus on getting our Acey back.”

“Precisely,” said Leroy. “Nightmare, what’s your status?”

Shaking away the lingering feeling of heartbreak, Nova double-checked the reading on her laser measurer. “Almost in position,” she said, marking the exterior outline of her entry point. Precision was important. Cut the entry point too far afield and she’d end up with a hundred-foot free fall, right into the waiting arms of the Renegades. “Thirty more seconds,” she said, her own voice muffled behind the metal face mask.

“No rush,” said Leroy. “They’re just now bringing out the prisoners.”

Honey sighed heavily. “And knowing Captain Chromium, he’ll be droning on for at least another twenty minutes before anything exciting happens.”

Nova hoped the Captain was feeling particularly verbose.

Calculations complete, she hooked the laser measurer back to her belt and retrieved the diamond-bladed electric saw. She waited until the Captain’s booming voice filled her earpiece, being fed to the group by Cipher, one of Narcissa’s allies who was unknown to the Renegades and had no trouble getting entry to the event, along with sixteen others from their growing group, after Millie concocted fake media passes for them. They would be positioned around the arena, waiting to help Nova and the Anarchists complete their mission.

Nova’s objective was simple.

Get the helmet to Ace.

The curved roof of the arena vibrated beneath her knees, both from the buzz of her saw and the thundering speakers inside. She paused each time the Captain did, trying to sync the noise she was making to the times his speech grew particularly impassioned.

With one hand gripping the suction cup she’d attached to the roof, she finished the last cut. She gave a hard tug and the piece of roofing popped upward. She slid it away from the hole.

Exactly eight feet below her hung a platform for one of the lighting and sound system operators. She could see only the top of the woman’s head, covered in large headphones, her attention on the huge spotlight she was aiming toward the field below.

The beam of light was following the line of prisoners that were being led out from what had once been the arena’s locker rooms, where Nova had waited for her turn at the trials. The prisoners all wore the glaring black-and-white jumpsuits from Cragmoor prison. Their ankles were bound in shackles, each shackle chained to the next prisoner in line. Their hands were fully enclosed in chromium cuffs. A number of armed guards walked beside them, most of whom Nova recognized from Cragmoor, their weapons targeted at the more dangerous of the prodigies in the line.

Ace came last, and even from so high above, Nova could sense the buzz in the crowd as he appeared. His complexion was ghastly white, with deep purple bruises beneath his eyes. The skin hung from his bones as though it could slough off at any moment. He was broken and defeated, his back bent and his head heavy as he was led in on the chain of prisoners. A mockery of the prodigy he had once been. He was not a threat. He was not to be feared, not anymore.

Nova’s teeth ground, hating to see him reduced to this.

“Everyone at their stations,” she said, tightening the straps on her backpack. She abandoned the saw on the rooftop, not wanting the added weight. Bracing her arms on either side of the hole, she slipped her legs inside, dangled for a moment, then dropped.

She landed with a thud behind the lighting operator. The woman startled, but before she could turn, Nova’s fingers were on the back of her neck and she collapsed into Nova’s arms. Nova laid her down on the platform. “I’m in.”

She checked that the spotlight was still positioned on the stage. It was one of four such spotlights, each one currently targeting Captain Chromium, who was at the podium again while the inmates stood shoulder to shoulder down the length of the field.

Knowing that the other three operators would likely be the first to notice their absent peer, Nova ducked back toward the scaffolding that connected the platforms around the perimeter of the roofline and started making her way toward the next operator.

She mostly ignored the Captain’s droning voice, but a handful of words still filtered into Nova’s consciousness as she crept through the shadows.

Villains … neutralized … execution.

She reached the second operator and felled him as easily as the first. Two down …

Below, the Captain was listing Ace’s many crimes against humanity, justifying their choice to end his life in this public manner. “Before we proceed,” he said, “I would extend a dignity that this villain never offered to any of his victims. Please, escort Ace Anarchy to the stage.”

At the end of the line, Ace’s shackles were unlocked from his neighbor’s. The guards prodded him, urging him toward the steps and onto the platform. He fixed his attention on the Captain, who waited for him at the podium. The loathing between the two men was palpable.

The arena hushed. Nova slowed so that her footsteps would make no sound as she made her way to the third platform with as much stealth as possible.

Once Ace stood before the Council, Captain Chromium spoke again into the microphone. “At this time, I ask my longtime rival, this enemy of humanity, Alec James Artino, if you would like to express any final words.”

He stepped back, offering the microphone to Ace.

Nova swallowed. She wanted to stop and watch, to listen, but she knew there was no time for that.

She reached the third platform, and put to sleep the woman she found there.

One more to go.

Below her, the arena was quiet. Her thoughts shifted to Winston, who was still on the stage, now only feet from Ace. She wondered if the two of them had made eye contact as Ace was brought up to the podium. She wondered if Ace had heard Winston’s story. Would he, like Phobia, see Winston as a traitor, or would he feel the same sympathy that Nova had?

She thought also of Adrian, who she knew was somewhere down in that crowd. She wondered if she would ever see him again, knowing that—if all went according to the plan—the answer would likely be no.

She wondered if she would regret not finding a way to say one last good-bye.

Ace approached the podium. It felt like the whole arena had gone still. Even Nova had to remind herself to keep breathing as she crept along the walkway.

His voice, when he spoke, was brittle and dry from disuse. “As I stand before you…,” he said, his words barely a croak. Nova flinched to think of him as he once was, powerful and strong, a true visionary. Now he was little more than a relic, a memory from a foregone era. “Knowing that my time left on this earth is short, I am faced with an excruciating truth. I once destroyed a world order in which prodigies were condemned and persecuted by those who feared us, those who could not appreciate our potential. And now…” He faced the Captain. “Now we are condemned and persecuted by our own.” He lifted his chin. “Alec James Artino is already dead, but Anarchy will live on. It will persist in the hearts of all prodigies who refuse to bow before this dictatorship. Our fight is not over, and we will not rest until there is freedom and autonomy for all our brethren. Until we no longer need to fear for our well-being, not from those who fear us, not from those who hate us, and not from those who envy us. The Renegades will fall, and we will rise again!”