He never complained. He had Nova and the others, he would say. He had his books and his teapot and that was all he needed.

But Nova knew it wasn’t enough. He was dying. Soon he would be just one more forgotten skeleton beneath those hallowed ruins.

“I understand,” Honey said, her voice gentler now. “I truly do. Ace is like a father to me, too, you know. I hate seeing him this way. But you know how to help him, and it isn’t with a little bit of fresh air.”

Nova pursed her lips. The helmet. “I know,” she whispered. Then a thought occurred to her and she glanced back at Honey. “Aren’t you older than Ace?”

Honey gasped in dismay. She snatched a jar from the vanity and tossed it at Nova’s head. Nova ducked and the jar crashed against the wall, exploding in a cloud of talcum powder.

“Never let me hear those words from your mouth again, do you hear me?”

Nova laughed. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Clearly I was mistaken.” She stooped and picked up the near-empty jar and returned it to the vanity. Her mouth dried as she scanned the array of cosmetics and perfumes, most of them crawling with curious wasps. “Actually, Honey? I … I could maybe use your help with something.”

Honey crossed her arms, still irate.

“It’s about Adrian.”

Her expression quickly turned to intrigue. “Oh?”

“I’m not sure if he’s … interested in me anymore. At least not like … like that.” At Honey’s skeptical look, Nova attempted to gather what dignity she could in the stiffening of her shoulders. “So, maybe you could help me figure out … how to get him interested. Again.”

An eagerness brightened Honey’s face. “Oh, my sweet girl,” she said, placing her fingers against her chest. “I’ve been waiting for you to ask.”

* * *

WE ALREADY KNOW one of the Council’s greatest weaknesses … and when the time is right, we will use him to great advantage indeed.

That’s what Ace had said, and he was right. If Captain Chromium and the Dread Warden had a weakness, it was their adopted sons—Adrian and Max. Nova could use Adrian’s trust to her advantage, especially if that trust also came with his affection.

But why did earning his affection have to seem so horrifically awkward?

“I can’t do that,” said Nova, arms folded tight over her chest.

“You can, and you will. Here, like this.” Honey crossed one long leg over her knee and scooted a hair closer to Nova on the mattress. Her bare toes nudged Nova’s shin, so tenderly she would have thought she was imagining it, except Honey had just outlined this exact flirtation technique in painful detail. “Then you angle your shoulders, like this.” Honey flipped her hair to one side and shifted her body closer. “Give him your undivided attention. Like there is nothing else in the room half as interesting to you as this conversation. He needs to believe you are mesmerized by everything he’s saying.” Honey settled an elbow on her knee and her chin on her knuckles. Her smoky eyes locked on to Nova’s. The look was so intense, Nova found herself starting to blush.

“Now, this is the clincher,” said Honey. “Whatever he says next, you laugh. Not too robustly, but just enough to let him know you think he’s charming, and you could listen to him speak all day. Ready?”

“What if he doesn’t say anything funny?”

Honey giggled and tapped Nova on the knee. It was a sweet chirp of a laugh that sent a tingle of pride through Nova’s chest, until she realized that Honey wasn’t laughing because she was amused, but was only trying to demonstrate what she was talking about.

Nova flushed. It was uncanny, the way Honey could pull someone into her orbit. Make them feel so important, so witty, so worthy, all with a few well-timed laughs and the faintest of touches.

She shook her head and stood up, kicking some of Honey’s discarded shoes to the side of the room.

“This is never going to work,” she said. “He’ll see right through me.”

“You worry too much,” said Honey, settling back on her palms. “If he can tell you’re trying to flirt with him, even if you’re terrible at it, he’ll be charmed by your attempts, and flattered all the same. Just like that, the flame will be rekindled and you’ll be back to your angst-riddled un-relationship before you can bat those pretty lashes at him.”

Nova scowled. “I think you’re underestimating his intelligence.”

“And I think you’re overestimating the egos of teenage boys everywhere. Trust me, little Nightmare. You can handle this. It isn’t chemical gastronomy or … whatever it is Leroy does.”

Nova scoffed. “I’d rather take my chances with the chemicals.” She rubbed her palms down the sides of her pants. They had started to sweat as she mulled over the possibility of looking at Adrian like Honey had looked at her. Touching him. Suggesting with every gesture, every glance, that she wanted him to try to kiss her again.

Her heart thumped as a bewildering thought occurred to her.

Sweet rot. What if it actually worked?

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

ADRIAN WAS BOTH nervous and exhausted as he reached the mezzanine floor over the main lobby of headquarters. He knew he should be catching up on sleep, as he had stayed awake painting the last few nights. The mural was starting to take shape, even if only in underlayers of shadows and light, general outlines and suggestions of the work still to come. The details still needed to be filled in, all those little highlights that would bring it to life.

He’d finally put the paintbrush down when his alarm reminded him that there was something else he wanted to do today, something far more important than his new art project. Even more important than his hunt for Nightmare or the Anarchists. An idea that had been growing in the back of his head since he’d left the artifacts warehouse, filled with equal parts intrigue and hope.

He crossed the sky bridge and paced around the glass wall of the quarantine. He could feel the weight of the Vitality Charm pressing against his chest, warm even through the fabric of his uniform.

He had spent hours reading about the medallion in the database and doing what research he could do on his own, though the charm’s history was not as well documented as some artifacts in the Renegades’ collection. It had been forged by a prodigy blacksmith during the Middle Ages. The blacksmith’s abilities were questionable, but he was evidently a healer of some sort, and the charm soon earned a reputation for being able to ward off the plague. That plague. Naturally, such a coveted object was eventually stolen and the blacksmith was hanged for crimes of witchcraft not long after, and so a duplicate was never made, so far as anyone knew.

The charm disappeared from the history books for a few centuries after that, eventually resurfacing during late 1700s, where it was purchased at auction by a superstitious and perhaps paranoid prince who would claim for the rest of his life that the charm protected him from the enemies who were always trying to poison him. That prince eventually died of (apparently) natural causes in old age, and the charm was passed down through generations of duchesses and barons until it was sold off to pay for a large amount of debt many years later. It disappeared from the public eye again, until eventually it was donated to a small prodigy-themed museum, the entire collection of which was given to the Renegades after the Day of Triumph.

Given to or confiscated … the details on how the Renegades had obtained many of the artifacts in the vault were rather vague.

It was believed that the charm could protect a person from poisoning, illness, and “any threats that would sap the physical strength or otherwise weaken the prodigious abilities of the wearer,” according to its description in the database. It was unclear how much this theory had been tested, but it gave Adrian an idea that he couldn’t shake.

Any threats.

That’s what the description said.

And what, or who, was more of a threat than Max?

Adrian wasn’t a fool. He knew that whoever had worn the Vitality Charm over the years had likely never encountered a threat quite like Max. He suspected his theory was untested, and it would be putting his powers at great risk to be the first.

Immunity from the Bandit wasn’t impossible. Captain Chromium was proof of that. And with every step Adrian took toward the quarantine, a voice whispered louder in the back of his head: What if it worked?

What if this small, unassuming medallion could actually protect him from Max’s power? What if it could allow him to get close to his little brother, maybe even give him an actual hug, for the first time in his life?

Though it was late, the massive lobby of HQ was still faintly lit by the flickering blue television screens stationed throughout the space, illuminating Max’s miniature glass city. It had mostly been put right since Max’s telekinetic attack—when he’d been practicing levitation and lost his concentration, putting a glass spire through his palm. His wound was healing, though prodigy healers were unable to work on him due to the nature of his powers. A civilian doctor had had to replace a tendon in Max’s finger with one taken from his forearm—a procedure that struck them all as vaguely antiquated. But it went well, and the doctor had promised that the only permanent side effect would be a gnarly scar.

Since recovering from the incident, Max had kept busy fitting the broken glass buildings back into place, using his own power of matter fusing for most of the repairs.

The glass city always looked so different at night. Usually the daylight that streamed in from the surplus of windows set the city aglow, reflecting off the glass spires in shades of orange and yellow. But now it appeared that twilight was falling over the structures, as if even this model city were preparing for a peaceful night’s sleep.

Not that the real Gatlon City was ever peaceful. In a lot of ways, Adrian sometimes thought he preferred this small glass city, closed off from the world. There was no crime, no destruction, no pain. No villains and no heroes.

Other than Max himself. The only prodigy in his small universe.