“This is silly, but … until I saw that drawing you’d done, there had been a part of me that thought maybe this place was my own little secret. Which makes no sense. Probably thousands of people come here every year. But … being so little when I found it, I guess I felt like it belonged to me. Like maybe I’d imagined it into existence.” She chuckled and knew she would have been embarrassed to admit this to anyone else, at any other time. But being here again was so surreal she couldn’t bring herself to care.
She circled the statue. It was exactly as she remembered, if maybe sporting a touch more moss than it had back then. A hooded figure dressed in loose robes, like a medieval monk. The face carved beneath the hood was amorphous, with closed eyes and a contented smile and rounded features. Its hands were stretched toward the sky, like it was trying to catch something.
She did not know how old the statue was, but it looked like it had stood there for a thousand years. Like it would stand there for a thousand more.
“I’ve only known about this place for a couple years,” said Adrian. “Though I’ve been back to sketch a handful of times. How old were you when you found it?”
“Four or five,” she said, trailing a finger along the statue’s sleeve. “That night, I dreamed about it. This was before I stopped sleeping, obviously, and to this day it’s the only dream I can remember in perfect detail.” She surveyed the glen. The woods were so dense here the sounds from the festival could no longer be heard. Only bird melodies and rustling leaves. “I dreamed that I was walking through a jungle, with flowers bigger than my head, and a canopy so dense I couldn’t see the sky. The whole place hummed with life … insects and birds … Except I kept coming across things that didn’t belong there. Concrete steps that were covered in moss, and vines dangling from street lamps instead of trees…” She swirled her hand through the air, tracing the vines from memory. “It was Gatlon, but it was in ruins. Just a jungle now, all overgrown. And then … I found this clearing, and there was the statue. It was facing away from me at first, but even before I got close, I knew that it was holding something. So I walked around it, and I looked up, and…” She paused, feeling like she was back in that dream, drowning in the sense of wonder she’d almost forgotten.
“And then you woke up?” Adrian guessed.
She snapped her attention away from the vision and glared at him. “No. The statue was holding something.” She hesitated, feeling childish now, and a little defensive.
“Are you going to make me guess?” said Adrian.
She shook her head and tried to temper the emotion she felt at the memory. “It was holding a … a star.”
Only in saying it out loud did Nova realize how ridiculous it sounded. “Whatever that means,” she finished lamely.
“Dream logic,” said Adrian. “Or … possibly nightmare logic. I can’t tell if this was a good dream or not.”
Nova chuckled. “It was a good dream. I’m not sure why, given that all of civilization had collapsed, but … it was a really good dream.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “My parents were furious when they finally found me, and they never brought me back to that playground. But I never forgot about that dream. I must have fantasized about finding that star for years afterward.”
“Funny how some dreams stick with you,” said Adrian, sitting down on the grass and stretching his long legs in front of him. “You’re lucky. Most of the dreams I remember from childhood were nightmares. Or … a nightmare. I had a recurring one for years.”
Nova sat down next to him. “About what?”
He squirmed. “Never mind. I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s not important.”
“And mine was?”
“Yes,” he insisted. “Yours was amazing. A jungle? Collapsed civilization? A statue holding a star? That’s epic. Whereas mine was just…” He waved a hand carelessly. “You know. A nightmare. I don’t even remember that much about it, other than how much it terrified me.”
“Let me guess,” said Nova, cupping her cheek in one hand. “You used to dream that you arrived at HQ only to realize you’d forgotten to put on clothes that morning.”
He shot her an annoyed look. “I was, like, four. HQ didn’t even exist yet.”
“Oh.”
“No, it was more like … there was this thing, watching me, all the time. I called it the monster, because I was original like that. Half the time I couldn’t even see it, but I would know it was there, waiting to…”
“To what?”
“I’m not sure. Kill me, maybe. Or kill my mom or all the people I cared about. I don’t think I ever had a dream where it actually did anything, other than lurk in the background, waiting to grab me or chase me.” He shuddered. “In hindsight, it’s probably not that surprising. I grew up surrounded by superheroes. Every time my mom left our apartment I didn’t know if she would ever come back. And the news was always full of stories of people getting kidnapped or being found dead in gutters … What was my subconscious supposed to do with all that information?” He shot her a wistful smile. “I can see why your subconscious thought it would be better to just let the whole city collapse.”
A surprised laugh escaped her, and though she knew Adrian was joking, she wondered if there was a hint of truth to his words.
“Nightmares,” she mused. “I don’t miss them.”
Adrian’s face softened, and she couldn’t quite look away. Her nerves tingled.
“We should probably get back,” he murmured, without breaking eye contact. Without moving at all.
“Probably,” agreed Nova. But she couldn’t move either. Anticipation mingled with nervousness. Her heart pounded like a mallet.
Earn his affection.
She glimpsed his hand resting in the grass and tried to work up the courage to touch him. She tried to channel Honey Harper, imagining what she would do. A brush of her shoulder, a graze of her fingertips?
The thought of it made her shiver.
What would Honey do?
Nova’s gaze skipped down to Adrian’s lips.
She gulped and leaned forward.
Adrian took in a sudden breath and, before Nova knew what was happening, he had jumped to his feet and started brushing himself off. “Yeah, wow, we need to hurry,” he said, glancing at his wristband. “Don’t want to be late for … uh … jousting or … whatever it was…”
Nova gaped up at him.
Sweet rot. She had tried to kiss him and … he had rejected her.
So, that’s what that felt like.
Mortification overtook her, and she was grateful that he seemed determined not to look at her, as it gave her a moment to gather her wits and shove down her disappointment.
Shove it far, far down inside.
So far down that she could almost convince herself it wasn’t there at all.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
NOVA WASN’T SURE which riddle was more frustrating.
Adrian, who had gone from trying to kiss her at the amusement park to acting like she had a contagious, incurable disease.
Or Ace’s helmet, which was trapped inside an unopenable box.
Nova wasn’t fond of riddles in general, but of the two currently plaguing her, she found it far less uncomfortable to focus on the chromium box, and so she had spent all morning sitting at the front desk outside the artifacts warehouse contemplating just that.
How do you open an unopenable box?
How do you destroy an indestructible material?
What could be strong enough to safely get past the chromium and free Ace’s helmet from its prison?
Nova still didn’t have the answer, but she knew who did. Captain Chromium. He had made the box. He must know how to unmake it. And though Nova wasn’t sure what she could say to him to get him to give up this secret, she knew she would have to try.
Before Ace faded away into nothing.
She was caught up in a very long, very clever, very imaginary conversation with the Captain when the elevator doors dinged and none other than her second riddle strolled into the reception area. Nova jerked upward. “Adrian?”
He was practically bouncing on his feet as he hurried to her desk. “It’s here,” he said, beaming.
She gaped at him, feeling like she should know what it was, but all she could think about was the helmet.
“Excuse me?”
“I was thinking that all that stuff from the tunnels had probably gotten thrown away after it was checked for evidence, but I talked to the head of crime-scene investigation this morning and she told me it’s all been brought here. They don’t throw anything away until an investigation is closed, so right now all the Anarchists’ stuff is supposedly just sitting around in a stockpile somewhere, waiting to be tagged and categorized and”—he waved his hand absently toward the vault—“whatever it is that happens here, exactly.”
Nova studied him, her stomach dropping. “Winston’s puppet.”
Settling his elbows onto the desk, Adrian leaned toward her. “Exactly. On top of that, I’ve gotten approval from both the Council and Winston’s counselor. He can have the puppet in exchange for information, just as long as Snapshot checks it first to be sure it isn’t hiding some secret magical power.”
Winston’s puppet. That he was willing to trade information for.
Nova swallowed. “Oh. That’s … great.”
“Is Snapshot in?”
The door to the filing room opened, but it was Callum, not Snapshot, that strolled out. He froze as soon as he saw Adrian. “No way! Sketch in the flesh! I’m a total fan.”
“Oh, thanks,” said Adrian, accepting a firm handshake with a bewildered expression.
Nova gestured between them. “Uh … Adrian, Callum. Callum, Adrian.”
“Are you here to check something out?” said Callum. “We’ve got a feather quill that I think you’d really like.”