Nova grunted, but she wasn’t sure if she agreed. Once the public knew about Agent N, they’d be crying for it to be applied to every case of prodigy wrongdoing. And the Council was so eager to hold on to their reputation, she suspected they would acquiesce easily.

And with every prodigy who was neutralized, the Renegades’ power would grow and grow.

“You don’t like Agent N either, do you?”

She started. “What?”

Callum leaned against the desk. “I think it’s tragic. For someone to be given these incredible abilities, only to have them stripped away? It’s so wasteful. To know what this world could look like, what humanity could be, if only we all chose to do our best, to help others, to … to be, well, heroes. I don’t like to think of that chance being taken away from someone before they’ve lived up to their potential.”

“Right,” said Nova. “Except, having superpowers doesn’t automatically turn you into some selfless hero. People are greedy and cruel, and … for some, having superpowers just makes them even more greedy and cruel.” Her jaw tightened. “Genissa Clark is proof of that.”

“Yes…,” Callum said, speaking slowly, as if he were forming his thoughts as he spoke. “But I think that when given the choice to do good or to do harm, most people choose good.”

“And I think,” Nova countered, “that nothing is as black and white as people want to pretend. Doing good and doing harm aren’t mutually exclusive.”

He listed his head. “Example?”

Nova pulled the chair toward her and dropped into it. “I don’t know. Ace Anarchy?”

Callum’s expression turned to delight. “I’m listening. Go on.”

Nova frowned at him. Sweet rot, he was a strange guy. “Well, he’s a villain, right? Everyone knows that. Unquestionable. He killed people. He destroyed half the city.”

“But?”

“But if it weren’t for him, prodigies would still be living in fear. Persecuted, victimized, abused … He created a world where prodigies could stand up for themselves. To declare what we are and not be afraid that we’ll be punished for it. He fought for the rights of all prodigies. Whereas the Renegades only seem interested in defending prodigies who agree to their code.”

“But people were still afraid,” said Callum. “The Age of Anarchy was not a nice time—not for anyone. It was the Renegades who made people feel safe again. So really, it was the Renegades who showed the world that prodigies deserved rights.”

“The Renegades wouldn’t have existed without Ace Anarchy.”

“Do the ends justify the means?”

“Sometimes.”

“Then Ace Anarchy was a hero.”

She peered at him suspiciously. “I didn’t say that.”

His grin returned, and Nova had the impression that this conversation was little more than a fun debate to him. She wondered if he was one of those devil’s advocate types—who could argue on either side, regardless of his actual opinion.

“Follow me,” he said, turning his back on her.

“What? Where are we going?”

“I want to show you something.”

Nova didn’t move. As Callum waited for the elevator to arrive, he shot her an impatient look.

Nova stood. “Fine. But I’d better not get fired over this.”

Callum chuckled. “You and I are the only ones in this whole organization who think that working in the artifacts department is fascinating. Trust me. They’re not going to fire you.”

The elevator arrived and Nova followed him inside. She felt compelled to deny his assumption—she wasn’t working here because the artifacts were fascinating. She was here because she had a job to do. She had a helmet to retrieve.

But then she realized that Callum wasn’t altogether wrong. She did think the job was interesting. As an inventor, she could appreciate the innovation that had gone into a lot of things in the collection.

Still, though. She wasn’t about to nerd out about it like Callum did.

The elevator began to rise, and Nova glanced at the panel of numbers. With a start, she pushed herself away from the wall.

Callum was taking her to the topmost floor, where the Council’s private offices were located.

Tension wrapped around her limbs.

Why was he taking her to the Council? Had he figured her out? Did he know?

She shouldn’t have defended Ace Anarchy. She shouldn’t have been so careless with the electrolysis experiment. She shouldn’t have criticized the Renegades and Agent N.

Nova curled her fingers, feeling the familiar sensation of her power warming her skin. She targeted the back of Callum’s neck. Half a second and he would be unconscious.

Her attention skipped to the camera attached to the elevator ceiling and she hesitated.

“Have you been up here before?” said Callum, watching the numbers flash above the metal doors. “They keep some of the coolest things from the collection on display outside the Council offices, though between you and me, their choices are questionable. I mean, everything has its place, but people are way too obsessed with weapons and warfare. If it were up to me, I’d display something like the Legacy Torch. It may not be flashy, but it played a huge role in early prodigy history.”

As he rattled on, Nova allowed herself to relax.

He wasn’t turning her over to the Council. He was just showing her more of his beloved memorabilia.

Figured.

Prism was seated at an imposing desk when they stepped off the elevator, her crystal skin glinting in the light from a blown-glass chandelier. She beamed when she saw Callum, her teeth sending a dazzling array of rainbows across the glossy white floor.

“Hey there, Wonder Boy,” she said. “Is it already time to change out the exhibits?”

“Not today. I just wanted to show Insomnia the scenery. Have you met?”

Prism’s smile alighted on Nova. “Just once. So nice to see you again.” She stretched out a hand. When Nova shook, she found her skin was as hard and cold to the touch as glass. Here, she realized, was yet another prodigy who might not be vulnerable to Agent N darts.

Though she couldn’t imagine why anyone would care to neutralize Prism. As far as she could tell, the woman was made of some sort of crystal, and … that was it. Her only “power” was a pretty show when light struck her skin the right way.

“Go on,” said Prism, gesturing toward a door. “The Council isn’t in yet, so you’ll have plenty of peace and quiet.”

They passed through a circular lobby with various display cases and prominent paintings, but Callum didn’t comment on the prized artifacts. Not even the enormous painting that depicted the defeat of Ace Anarchy on the Day of Triumph—a painting that infuriated Nova as much now as it had the first time she’d seen it. Instead, Callum showed her through a wide door, down a short corridor that passed Tsunami’s office, and out onto the headquarter building’s observation deck.

Nova stepped outside and felt the temperature drop. They were surrounded by glass and steel—beneath their feet and curving upward to form a transparent shelter over their heads. Callum went ahead of her, placing his hands on a rail that wrapped around the deck.

Nova followed.

Her breath hitched.

The view wasn’t like anything she’d ever seen before. She had spent plenty of time on the rooftops of buildings, even skyscrapers, but never had she been so high up. Never had she seen Gatlon City laid out like a dream. There was the bay in the distance, where the morning sun was dancing on the waves like molten gold. She could see both the Sentry and the Stockton Bridges spanning the river, majestic with their towering pylons and the graceful arcs of their suspension cables. There was the landmark Merchant Tower, with its recognizable glass spire, and the centuries-old Woodrow Hotel, still sporting a ghost sign on its brick. Things she had seen a thousand times before, but never like this. From so far away, she could no longer see the scars of time left on the city. The buildings that were crumbling to the elements. The abandoned neighborhoods. The drifts of garbage and debris piled up on sidewalks and in alleyways. There was no noise up here to compete with the tranquility. No sirens, no shouting, no car horns. No yowling of stray cats or squawking of territorial crows.

It was breathtaking.

“You know what’s amazing?” said Callum. He pointed, and she followed the angle of his finger down to City Park—its lush green fields and autumn-painted forests like an unexpected oasis in the sea of concrete and glass. “You see that tree, near the southeast corner of the park? The evergreen, that kind of stands up over all those little deciduous ones? That’s a queen cypress tree. Do you know how slow those things grow?”

Nova blinked at him, unable to discern where he was going with this. “I don’t.”

“Slow,” Callum said. “Really slow. So whoever planted that tree, they must have known that they were going to have to wait years—decades—before they could sit under it and enjoy its shade. Maybe they never got to. Maybe they planted it, hoping that their kids or their grandkids, or even complete strangers, generations away, would be able to sit under the boughs of that tree and that maybe someone would spare a moment of gratitude for the person who had the foresight to plant a little sapling in the first place.”

He fell silent and Nova’s brow furrowed. This was the important thing he had to show her?

“Also,” said Callum, “trains. Trains are so cool.”

Nova hummed to herself and began plotting what she could say to politely remove herself from this conversation and go back to work.

“Think of the early steam trains. All that engineering, all those resources … It must have been faith at first, right? A confidence that this was the future—travel and industry and trade. There was no guarantee that those tracks would be laid, connecting all these cities and ports, but someone had enough conviction to go ahead with it anyway.”