Much of the northeast side of the cathedral was still standing: the library, the chapter house, the main chapel. Even the bell tower was there, though most of the roof and the south wall had crumbled, leaving some of the huge bronze bells visible through the stone ruins. Otherwise, the cathedral was not much more than a pile of rubble. The nave, the choir, so much exquisite architecture, destroyed in the cataclysm between heroes and villains.

Already Nova could sense the dismay from her companions. The pawnshop may not have been much, but it had provided shelter and security. Ace couldn’t expect them to stay here.

But Ace’s countenance was altogether different as he stood before the ruins, taking in the abandoned bell tower with the faint light of dusk glinting off the helmet. Nova began to wonder if Uncle Ace, when he wasn’t downtrodden and suffering, might actually have a taste for the grandiose.

Ace stepped forward, clearing a path in the rubble with a twitch of his fingers. He paused a few steps away from where the main entrance had once stood, where worshipers would have entered the nave through a pair of vast, ornately carved wooden doors. “I am proud of you all,” he said, facing them. “Prodigies the world over will be encouraged by our victory tonight.”

Leroy lifted a hand in Nova’s direction. “Our little Nightmare deserves most of the credit. She planned it all.” He winked at her. “Everything will change now. You will see, Nova. Nothing shall be in vain.”

Nova frowned, memories of the fight flashing through her thoughts. Callum. Winston. Adrian.

She didn’t want credit for everything that had happened, and she certainly hadn’t planned it all. By using Agent N, Leroy and Honey had double-crossed her. Perhaps the decision had resulted in some sort of victory, but Nova couldn’t help feeling that she’d lost as much as she’d won.

Phobia stood off from their group, gripping his scythe in one hand as he peered toward the city buildings beyond the wasteland. “There will be a delectably exorbitant quantity of fear today,” he said, his voice being carried on the evening breeze. “Panic. Desperation.” His cloak fluttered as he craned his head toward Ace. “Retaliation. It will not be long before they come for us.”

“So they shall.” Ace sounded almost excited by the prospect. “And we will be ready to meet them when they do. I will not fall to the Renegades again.” He flicked his fingers through the air and the rubble trembled at their feet. Rivulets of dust slid down the sides of fallen arches. Colorful shards of stained glass glinted beneath the setting sun.

“Oh, Ace,” Honey swooned. Nova realized with a start that Honey was crying. Already her dark mascara had made pathways down her cheeks. She sank to her knees at Ace’s side and grabbed his hand, nuzzling her face against it. “It is so very good to have you back. To see you as you were.”

She went to kiss Ace’s fingers, but he pulled his hand from her grip. “Stand up,” he said, almost sharply.

Honey started, blinking up at him, but Ace was already making his way over the foundation of where the nave had stood. Stone and crumbled benches parted before him.

“You are a queen, Honey Harper,” he said, lifting his hands to either side. The crumbled stone blew upward and stayed, hovering, in the air. A million pieces of debris, waiting.

Narcissa gasped and dove off the column as it, too, began to rise. As it all began to rise.

It felt like the threat of an earthquake beneath their feet.

“You must never kneel,” Ace continued. “Not to me. Not to anyone. Not one of us shall ever kneel again.”

He spun in a slow circle, studying the bits of wreckage that now filled the air. Nova remembered this look from her childhood. Ace had always seen the world differently—like a series of building blocks that he could learn the secrets to, if only he cared to inspect them a little closer.

His confidence was disarming.

He was finally whole again.

“My friends,” he said, his voice filled with tenderness. “My dream was never to be a king lording over his subjects. I never wished to rule. But history has shown me my mistakes. If hubris is the great flaw of our enemies, then apathy was mine. I did not do enough to guide humanity down the path toward true freedom. I was too passive. Content to let free will run its course, I stayed in the shadows while others claimed control. But now my fate is clear. This is not the day that I become a king.” He raised his hands toward the brightening sky. “Today is the day we become gods.”

The sun glinted off the wall of the cathedral, its beams striking Ace and setting his figure aglow. He was dazzling. Golden and unstoppable.

While they watched, motionless, Ace did what Nova had never seen him do before.

For once, he did not destroy.

He created.

He rebuilt.

It was like watching a cataclysm in reverse. Great cracks in the cathedral’s foundation fused together. The stone walls reassembled themselves, piece by piece. The towering columns stood like soldiers, while the vaulted beams of the ceiling perched high above. Glass shards melted together, forming a gallery of windows along each breathtaking wall. Splinters of raw wood were knit into pews and choir seats and polished handrails. Not a piece was missing from the west face’s facade—every spire, every gargoyle, every Gothic arch, every watchful saint.

When the rumbling of the earth fell quiet, Ace could no longer be seen, having enclosed himself within the opulent building. The rest of them stood outside the doors to the nave, their ornate carvings exactly as Nova remembered from her childhood—wheat fields and lambs and serenity.

No one moved. Nova’s eyes stung from the dust that had been kicked up in the reconstruction, but she hardly dared blink, lest this was all an illusion.

So often she had heard tales of the ruin Ace Anarchy had wrought on the city. In the early days of his revolution, he had collapsed whole bridges, torn down entire neighborhoods. He had been full of fury and passion. He had wanted to see this cruel world burned to the ground.

But the helmet and Ace’s power could be used for other purposes, too.

What a marvel.

What a gift.

With her heartbeat thundering, Nova found herself clapping a hand over the star on her wrist. It was made of the same material, created by her father’s hands, just as the helmet had been. She knew it was powerful, but could it be capable of something so miraculous?

Phobia moved first. With the blade of his scythe aloft, he drifted toward the grand entrance. The doors blew back as he approached, and Nova couldn’t tell if it was Phobia who had controlled them or Ace.

Stirred into action, she followed, still half in a daze. The others filed in at her side.

She couldn’t withhold a gasp as she stepped into the nave. It was precisely as she remembered. She felt like she was that same child, stricken and afraid, who had walked into this space all those years ago, having just had her life torn to shreds. Despite her sorrow, her breath had caught even then. She had not been immune to the magnificence that surrounded her. Every little detail of the cathedral had amazed her, and it amazed her still, staring up, up, up, at the vaulted ceiling.

Only one thing was missing.

Ace.

“Where did he go?” whispered Honey, and the tremor in her voice suggested to Nova that none of the Anarchists had ever seen Ace do anything like this before.

Suddenly, the peal of ringing bells echoed around them.

They exchanged glances. Narcissa and many of the Rejects appeared more than a little hesitant, while a number of the rescued Cragmoor inmates hovered together at the door, wary and guarded.

Narcissa was as pale as the white stone walls.

Nova had to remind herself that she had nothing to fear. None of them did. Not from Ace, at least. And so she started toward the bell tower, walking a path that felt like walking through a long-forgotten memory.

Not knowing what else to do, the others followed.

A number of their allies were panting by the time they reached the top of the staircase that spiraled up to the bell tower. Ace stood at one of the open-air windows, studying the city beyond the wasteland. Renegade Headquarters could be seen rising up from the skyline.

The bells had stopped ringing.

It was almost as though Ace wanted the Renegades to come find him. Was he so eager for another fight? Nova’s nerves were frazzled. There was so much they had to discuss, and soon, before this went much farther.

Today is the day we become gods.

No.

Nova didn’t want to be a god. She had a much different plan in mind, one that had been seeded during her time in Cragmoor prison, and one that felt more necessary now than ever before.

“Ace,” she started, “they’re going to know exactly where we went.” She gestured at the others, hoping for their support. “Should we talk about what to do from here? Make a plan?” She cleared her throat before adding. “I … have some ideas.”

Ace turned, beaming at her. “You have always been full of ideas, my little Nightmare. I owe you so much. You have returned to me my strength, my power. You have laid the foundation for our ultimate victory. You have secured for us the Renegades’ own weapon, ensuring not only our survival, but their demise.”

Ace began to walk the perimeter of the bell tower. Though it was newly reconstructed, the wooden boards beneath his feet creaked exactly as they had when Nova was a child. He let his focus linger on the city skyline as he passed each window—eight in all, each hung with a bell of its own, though none as enormous as the two gigantic bells that hung in the tower’s center. The steeple over their heads was a labyrinth of crisscrossing support beams, pulleys, and ropes. Nova could hardly believe that she was standing here, again, after all these years. That it could be so unchanged.

“I have been granted a great gift these past ten years,” said Ace. “Rarely are we given the opportunity to ponder our failures and prepare ourselves for a new path. For this, I shall always be grateful for the Renegades and what they did. To me. To us.” He dragged his fingers along the stone windowsills. “I now have a clarity of purpose that eluded me before. I was not prepared to usher our world into the society I envisioned. But that has changed. I believe in a man’s freedom to craft his own life, to make his own choices, without the meddling of a higher power. Without the interference of arbitrary laws. Without the forced imposition of someone else’s principles, all under the guise of providing for a greater good.”