Opening a pouch on her tool belt, she wriggled out one of her gloves and used her teeth to pull it onto her hand. She shook loose the nylon rope, watching it cascade to the ground, then secured her ankles around it. Her hand took hold, she sucked in a deep breath, and dropped.

The rope hissed between her boots. Despite the protective glove, she could feel the friction burning hot in her palm. Her left arm began to tingle.

A few seconds later, she let go, landing in a crouch in the midst of a battlefield. She peeled off the glove and shoved it back into the pouch, then started in Ace’s direction. She weaved through the melees and wrestling matches, the glinting weapons and projectiles and blasts and screams. She saw Locksmith moving down the line of prisoners as sneakily as he could, undoing their shackles one by one. She saw Leroy pinned to the ground by a dark-haired woman who was trying her best to strangle him, even while he pressed his acid-oozing fingers into her face. His expression was wild and manic, almost as if he was enjoying the brawl, and it occurred to Nova with a shock of surprise that it was Thunderbird who had him by the throat. Thunderbird … without wings.

He had neutralized a member of the Council.

A whip lashed around Nova’s ankle, yanking her to the ground. She grunted from the impact. A second later she was being dragged through the dirt. She flipped onto her back, facing the Renegade—Whiplash—with a snarl. She snatched a throwing star from her belt and hurled it at her attacker. Whiplash yelped as it caught her in the arm and dropped the handle of her whip. Her distraction gave Nova enough time to untangle her leg, and a second later she leaped for the woman, who bared her teeth and lifted her hands to meet Nova’s attack.

Her bare hands.

Big mistake.

The moment their skin met, Whiplash’s eyes widened in realization, half a second before they rolled back into her head and she collapsed into the dirt.

Checking the security of the backpack, Nova started running. Though her attention was focused on getting to Ace, she couldn’t help scanning the faces of Renegades as she bolted past, wondering if Adrian was near. But the only member of her team that she saw was the occasional glimpse of a monarch butterfly weaving in and out of the thrum.

When she spotted Ace again, she was startled to see him watching her. He was still bent over his knees, panting. His eyes carried an unfamiliar desperation. A pleading.

“I’m coming,” she whispered, as much to herself as to her uncle. “I won’t fail you. Not this time.”

Nova ducked out of the way of a barbed tail—Stingray?—then launched herself over a suspicious puddle of inky-black goo. Her feet touched the ground again, just in time for an enormous wave to crash into her, knocking her onto her side. The water eddied way, leaving her spluttering as the dirt floor thickened into sticky mud. She cursed Tsunami and climbed back to her feet, preparing to fight, but the Councilwoman was already fending off an attack from one of the freed prisoners.

Arm tingling as sensation returned to her muscles, Nova pushed the sopping-wet bangs back from her face and readjusted the weighted hood over her face. Between the mud and the drenched clothes, it felt like every step toward Ace was becoming more and more of a struggle.

She had just caught her breath when her own name pierced her ears.

“Nova! NO!”

She spun in time to see Winston Pratt throwing himself at her.

Nova reeled back, bracing herself for a fight.

But Winston didn’t attack her. Instead, he gasped and stumbled to one knee, gaping up at her in shock.

It took Nova too long to understand what was happening. It took her too long to notice the stain of red spreading across the front of his shirt. It took her too long to see the clear glass shard jutting from his chest, slicked with blood.

Distantly, she heard someone cursing. She looked past Winston and saw Genissa Clark gripping a crossbow. She dug out another projectile from a small cooler at her feet and loaded it onto the crossbow’s track. Not glass, Nova realized. Ice.

Genissa’s face was red with fury, her teeth gnashing as she lined up the sights with Nova’s heart.

Nova dove to the ground. The icicle whizzed past and shattered on something behind her. Nova pushed herself up and lunged at Genissa. The girl had another icicle in hand, but no time to nock it into the crossbow before Nova tackled her. They fell to the ground. Genissa swung the icicle, trying to stab Nova with the tip, but Nova grabbed her wrist and pinned it to the ground.

Nova’s body was aflame with anger. Her blood pumped with adrenaline as she replayed Winston’s panicked voice shouting her name.

In that moment, she wanted nothing more than to murder Genissa Clark.

Instead, she screamed, as loud as she could, the contempt tearing at her throat—“You are so lucky I don’t have time for this!” Then she pressed a hand to Genissa’s forehead and released her power like a sledgehammer into the girl’s skull. Genissa’s head dropped limply to the dirt, her lips parted, her pale skin coated in dust and muck.

Panting, Nova ripped herself away. Mere seconds had passed since she heard Winston call her name, and he had not moved. He was still kneeling in the dirt, his back to her, the white shard of ice prominent against the red stain on his clothes.

“Winston.”

She collapsed beside him, a hand on his shoulder. He met her gaze, and she could see him already losing the fight to stay with her. His skin was as pale now as when he had been the Puppeteer. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’s okay. I can’t take out the ice just yet, because … the bleeding…” She sniffed and scanned the arena, wondering if there had been any Renegade healers in the audience. She knew none of the Anarchists’ new allies had healing abilities, but if they really saw Winston as one of them now, then maybe the Renegades would take care of him. “I’m going to find someone. Just hang in there—”

“Nightmare,” he said, with a bit of a cough. He sagged, sitting back on his heels, grimacing at the movement. “I’m sorry. I … called you Nova … before.”

“It’s okay. I don’t think anyone’s paying attention. Can you walk? We have to get—”

“Nightmare…” He took her hand, and she realized he was crying. In that moment, she realized that she was, too. “We were friends, weren’t we?” He coughed. A bit of blood sprayed across his bottom lip. “I know I wasn’t always … a good friend … but I … I liked having you around, back then. When you were little. It was nice to be … a kid … again.”

Her breaths started to come in erratic gulps. “Of course. Of course we were friends.”

He smiled, but it was laced with pain. His eyes were losing focus. “I wanted to tell you…” He coughed. The ice in his chest jostled with each movement. “I’m no longer sure … I was meant to be … a villain.” His gaze softened affectionately as he squeezed her hand. She wasn’t sure when he’d started holding it. “I’m not sure you are, either. Maybe … none of us…”

A nearby explosion made Nova jump. She threw her arms wide, as if to protect Winston from the blast. A dozen steps away, a cloud of smoke was spreading outward, sending Rejects and prisoners and Renegades alike scrambling to cover their faces.

“Winston, I need to get to Ace. And then I’ll get you out of here, okay?” She faced him again. “Ace and I will…”

Her words faded away, settling with the smoke and dust.

Winston had slumped forward, barely supported by Nova’s arm and the ice that kept his chest from collapsing on itself.

He was already dead.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

NOVA STUMBLED TO her feet, feeling like her insides had been raked out with a fork. She spun in a dazed circle, expecting another attack on her life to come at any second, from any direction. She saw no sign of Leroy or Thunderbird. She saw Honey in the stands, having barged in when the fighting ensued, the cloud of wasps and hornets surrounding her so dense that her body resembled a living hive. She caught sight of Phobia at the same moment that his body transformed into a writhing pit of venomous snakes that darted at a group of Renegades, driving them apart. The prisoners, having been freed of their shackles, had joined the fight. She saw allies and enemies, doing their best to survive. Doing their best to maim and kill.

She saw a lot of blood. A lot of terror. A lot of fallen bodies.

Pulse running hot, she looked up, blinking dust from her eyes.

Ace.

If she could just get to Ace, she could put a stop to this.

She reached for the strap of the backpack and froze.

It was gone.

She reeled around, searching, frantic. There. Not far from Genissa Clark’s unconscious body. She raced toward it, then dropped, skidding through the dirt as her hand grasped the handles.

She immediately knew that something was wrong.

“No. No, no, no!”

The zipper was partially undone, and though she already knew the truth, her hands worked on autopilot, yanking it down the rest of the way.

Revealing an empty receptacle inside.

Nova threw the bag to the ground and searched out Ace, hoping that maybe he’d used whatever power he had left to call the helmet to himself. But no—when she spotted her uncle, he was half collapsed over the edge of the platform, his breaths coming in ragged gulps of air. The helmet was nowhere in sight. A thousand possibilities flashed through her mind, each more terrible than the last, as she desperately scanned the arena. She wanted to believe that maybe it had fallen out during the fight, maybe it had rolled beneath a chair or gotten buried in the mud or—

“Looking for this?”

Her head jerked up.

Magpie was standing in the front row of the stands, holding Ace Anarchy’s helmet.

“You really should keep a closer eye on your things.”

Growling, Nova ran for her, already calculating the best way to scale the short wall up to the audience seats. Magpie didn’t wait for her to catch up. She bolted up the steps, taking them two at a time.

She had a head start, but Nova was faster. She had just hurtled herself over the railing when Magpie reached the top of the first level. Instead of running to the exit, though, Magpie sprinted down a row of seats, yelling, “Catch!”