“I’ve just learned the most delectable secret about you!” Queen Bee said, clasping her hands in front of her face.

Nova opened her mouth to say something, but stopped herself and shut it again with a grimace.

“I wonder if you can guess what it is.” Queen Bee sat down beside Adrian, her arm pressed against his. Hairspray clogged his lungs and he angled his head away, but she didn’t seem to notice. “I’ll give you a hint. It has to do with our eerie skeletal friend, who likes to go on and on about fear and courage and bleh.” She rolled her eyes in mock disgust.

Jaw tightening, Adrian glanced up at Nova in disbelief, before glowering sidelong at Queen Bee. “Phobia killed my mother,” he said through his teeth. “It’s not a secret anymore, but, wow, I sure am glad it’s been so amusing for you.”

Rather than seem disappointed, Queen Bee gasped and pressed a hand dramatically to the base of her throat. “That’s right, he did kill Lady Indomitable. Why”—her eyes glinted cruelly—“that just makes all of this even richer, doesn’t it?”

“Honey,” said Nova, her voice cutting. “It’s not a game.”

“Oh, lighten up,” said Queen Bee, flicking a few fingers toward her. “You’ve been frolicking around the city with your Renegade friends for months now. It’s time I got to have some fun, too.” She winked at Adrian, but then her expression became thoughtful. She placed a hand on his forearm, right over his wound, squeezing just enough to make him flinch. A few of the bees deserted him and started making their way up her limbs instead. “I’ve just had a thought. Do you believe in archenemies? You know, that a hero and a villain are destined to be locked in an eternal battle forever and ever until they finally destroy each other? Because I always thought the idea was a bit too clean-edged, if you know what I mean—Ace Anarchy and your dear dad notwithstanding—but I’m beginning to wonder. Because it’s just so…” She tapped a finger against her shiny, sticky lips. “Perfect. Your own mother, the person you must have loved more than any other in this world, cruelly snatched away from you by … your very … own … creation.”

Adrian blinked at her and would have gone on blinking at her, except a hornet decided at that moment to try and climb into his ear and he let out a yelp and roughly shook his head.

“Oh, allow me,” said Queen Bee, scooping her finger against his earlobe and lifting the creature away.

Adrian shuddered. “What are you talking about? My creation?”

“See for yourself. Nightmare?”

Nova hadn’t moved from the entryway and for the first time Adrian noticed she was holding something. A stack of papers. She seemed reluctant to give them up. She seemed reluctant to do anything more than stand there, shoulders tensed and face borderline apologetic, but he didn’t think it was the capturing, the tying up, or the torturing that she was sorry for, which made him go cold with suspicion.

“What is she talking about?” he demanded.

Nova still didn’t move. Still didn’t speak.

“Don’t be shy. Our guest asked you a question.” Honey got to her feet and grabbed the papers away from Nova, who didn’t resist. “Now, let’s see, where was it?”

As she started flipping through pages, Adrian realized what they were. His comics.

He sneered. “The Sentinel isn’t exactly a secret anymore, either, you know.”

“Patience, patience,” said Queen Bee. She flipped through the whole comic, the third and final one Adrian had made, the one where Rebel Z first donned the armored suit and transformed himself into a superhero intent on revenge. Reaching the end, she frowned and started flipping back the other way, turning the pages carelessly in her haste. He heard some of the paper rip. She reached the front again and heaved a sigh. Holding the comic up by just the front cover, she tilted her head to the side and started flipping through the pages again, as if this new perspective would help.

Adrian raised an eyebrow at Nova.

Groaning, Nova finally stepped forward into the room and yanked the pages out of Queen Bee’s hand. Dropping to her knees in front of Adrian, she set the third issue of the comic aside and found the first issue in the stack, the one where Rebel Z was captured by power-hungry villains, kept locked up, and tortured while all his friends suffered around him.

It was all sounding eerily prophetic.

Adrian tried not to think about that as he watched his old drawings flip past. Though he knew it hardly mattered at the moment, he couldn’t help cringing at the awkward facial features and the hands that resembled pudgy starfish.

Nova stopped on a page where one of the kidnapped kids was being tortured and turned the book around, holding it up for him to see.

He took in the drawing, and couldn’t help the twinge of surprise that coursed through him. One of the kidnapped children was dead, still strapped to a medical table while the doctor and a nurse watched in the background. A shadowy figure was rising up from the boy’s body, like a wisp of formless black smoke, but with a single bony hand pointing at the boy’s dead eyes.

It had been a long time since Adrian had seen the comics. He vaguely remembered the skeletal hands, the dark shadowy cloak. He vaguely remembered how this phantom creature was intended to get stronger over the course of the series and become one of Rebel Z’s most feared enemies. He vaguely remembered what the creature became—a villain crafted from fear and death, who had no face, no soul, and a mean-looking scythe that Adrian had thought would be fun to use in future epic fight scenes.

It took only a second to guess at what Nova and Queen Bee were suggesting.

But … what they were suggesting was ludicrous.

“What’s your point?” he said, glaring at her over the top of the page.

Nova lowered the comic. “I think this is Phobia,” she said, with such tenderness that he felt his fury flare irrationally.

“That,” he said, nodding toward the book, “is the disembodied soul of a troubled kid who’s been used as a science experiment by an evil branch of the government.”

“Oooh,” said Queen Bee, clapping her hands. “I would read that.”

Sighing, Nova set the comic back on the floor. “It’s not just these comics. I’ve seen your drawings from when you were little. Really little. The phantom from your dreams? You drew it, a lot. And over time, it was turning into this.” She pointed at the page again.

Adrian let out a hoarse laugh. “Hold on. You really think I created him? Phobia?”

Nova pressed her lips until they went white. There was so much pity in her eyes that Adrian wanted to scream. Had he really been relieved to see her only a few minutes ago?

“It fits the timeline,” she said. “It fits what little we know about Phobia. It explains why no one has any idea who he was or where he came from. He just … appeared, out of nowhere, and right around the time that you would have been old enough to start drawing him.”

“I would have been four!” he said. “Maybe five. I might be good, but I’m not that good.”

She shook her head. “It’s not about skill though, is it?”

He scowled, biting back his irritation. She was right. His superpower didn’t work based on how good of an artist he was. It worked through his intention, though what he believed his drawings could become.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I would remember creating … that.”

“Would you?” interjected Queen Bee. She was still smiling, as if she were enjoying a particularly saucy soap opera. “Do you remember every drawing you made when you were four years old, maybe five?”

He glared at her, even as his breaths began to quicken.

Of course he didn’t remember every drawing. His mom had once joked that Gatlon City would have to open a new paper factory with how many pages and pages of crayon scribbles he was creating.

“There’s also that phrase he uses,” said Nova. “The one he would leave on his victims?”

Adrian glared at her. “What about it?”

“You told me it’s like something your mom used to say, about being brave. I think you fed him that line, or your brain did, when you were little. You created him with that thought in mind.”

His heart was pounding hard now, threatening to break through his own rib cage. “No,” he said firmly. “It’s impossible.”

“And … Adrian…” Nova’s face contorted, twisting with pain. “He works through people’s biggest fears, and you told me that, back then, your greatest fear was … was that someday your mother would leave, and she would never come back.”

A shiver raced down his spine. He tore his gaze away from her, staring instead into the shadowed corner where Phobia had loitered not all that long ago.

His mother’s murderer.

It wasn’t possible. Adrian didn’t … he couldn’t have …

“I’m so sorry,” Nova whispered.

“What’s to be sorry about?” tittered Honey Harper. “We should thank you. Phobia may not be the most charming of roommates, but he has proven to be an effective villain.”

“Honey, please,” said Nova. “Could you just go away?”

Queen Bee flashed Adrian a haughty, victorious smile, and it was that look, filled with such delight, that made it seem almost real.

His lungs spasmed, pushing out what little air he had left.

“Of course, Nightmare,” said Honey. “I’ll just give you some time alone, let our young hero come to terms with the fact that, when you think about it … he pretty much murdered his own mother.”

“Honey!”

Queen Bee left the chapel, her own squealing laughter echoing after her.

Nova rubbed her temple. “Adrian, it isn’t your fault. You have to know that. You were just a kid. There’s no way you could have known what you were—”

“Stop.”