He drew a set of large headphones and pulled them from the stone. He held them out to Nova. “Noise-canceling headphones,” he explained. “Not even gunshots can get through.” He nudged her shoulder with the headband.

Nose wrinkling with doubt, Nova took the headphones and slipped the padded cuffs over her ears. Instantly the world, which had already been quiet, dimmed to impenetrable silence, fed only by the thundering of her own pulse, the drum of her own heartbeat.

Adrian’s lips moved. A question, she thought, but Nova shook her head at him.

Adrian grinned. He lay down, extending his arm over the patch of moss. An invitation.

Nova hesitated for far less time than she should have, then sank down and settled her head into the crook between his shoulder and his chest. It took a moment for her to get comfortable with the headphones on, but when she did, she realized that there were two heartbeats now drumming against each other. Though the aromas from the jungle had filled the room, this close to Adrian she could smell the chemical tang of paint mixed with an undercurrent of pine-scented soap.

Her attention landed on the star. It never dimmed. Never brightened. Never changed at all. Just hovered, peaceful and constant.

And this boy, this amazing boy, had made all of this.

She remembered why she had come there that night. To find the Vitality Charm. To protect herself in the upcoming fight with Agent N. To fulfill her duty.

It could wait. Just one more hour. Maybe two. Then she would put Adrian to sleep and she would continue with her plan.

For now, in this strange, impossible dream, it could wait.

Steadily, slowly, their heartbeats fell into sync. Nova listened to them thumping in tandem for what might have been an eternity. She was still staring at the star when, unexpectedly, it winked out and Nova fell into a quiet, dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

SHE AWOKE TO THE SOUND of birds. In that hazy place between sleeping and waking, it seemed entirely normal that the city’s cooing pigeons and squawking crows had been exchanged for the trill and chatter of far more exotic creatures.

The tranquility lasted for only a moment. Eyes snapping open, Nova jolted upward, one hand sinking into moss and the other landing on a discarded pair of headphones. A blanket tumbled around her hips.

“Great skies,” said Adrian. He sat a few feet away, his back against the statue. A large sketchbook rested beside him, a pencil settled in its gutter. From her vantage point she could make out an upside-down, half-completed toucan.

He smiled. “For someone who never, ever, ever sleeps, you sleep like a pro when you want to.”

Nova palmed her eyes, trying to rub away her drowsiness. “Time is it?”

“Almost five,” he said. “At night. You’ve been sleeping for nearly twenty-four hours straight. Which, by my estimate, still means you’re nowhere near caught up.” His expression turned serious, that little wrinkle forming over the bridge of his glasses. “I tried calling the number in your file, to let your uncle know where you are, but it said it’s been disconnected. Is there another number I should try? He must be worried.”

She blinked at him in bewilderment, unable at first to distinguish between the pretend “uncle” mentioned in her official paperwork and Ace. Her head felt like it was filled with fog and she wondered if everyone woke up this … this groggy. That was the word for it, right? Groggy?

How did people stand it?

“No, it’s fine,” she said, shaking her head. “He’s used to me disappearing at night and not coming back for days. Hard to be cooped up inside while everyone else is sleeping. Plus, now, with patrol duty…” She raked her fingers through her hair, working out a few snags. “Anyway, I’ll … uh … check my file. The number probably got entered wrong.” She rubbed her lashes again and was surprised to find flecks of white caught in them. “Have I really been sleeping for…” She froze, a sting of panic coursing through her limbs. “Do you think it’s because of Max? Is this some sort of aftereffect?”

“What, we can’t give credit to my magically efficient, noise-canceling headphones?”

Nova frowned, even as her fingers fell on the headset.

But then she realized he was joking. “Actually, the thought crossed my mind too. It could be related. Max mentioned having some mild insomnia since you were in the quarantine that day. We know he got a small portion of your power. So maybe now you’re capable of sleeping, but you can sleep by choice, not out of necessity? Or maybe the … conditions have to be right.” He cast a wistful look at the headphones.

Nova curled her fingers around them. Even now, all these years later, she could hear the gunshots inside her head, deafeningly loud. She wasn’t convinced that a set of headphones would allow her mind to rest, after ten years of terrors.

Or perhaps it didn’t have much to do with the headphones at all. She flushed, remembering how it had felt to lay her head against Adrian’s chest. To listen to his heartbeat. There had been a feeling she couldn’t recall having experienced since she was a child.

The uncanny sensation of being safe.

Adrian was watching her, his expression serious. “It’s all right, Nova,” he said, leaning toward her. “It’s been weeks since you came in contact with Max, and this is the first time you’ve slept since then. I’m ninety-nine percent sure that still makes you a prodigy.”

She blinked, realizing how drastically Adrian had misinterpreted whatever he was seeing on her face. He thought she was worried about her powers, but that was a long way from the truth. She knew her true power—Nightmare’s ability to put people to sleep—was intact. She wasn’t afraid of that.

No, what she feared was something far, far worse, and had much more to do with the way she had sunk so easily into oblivion while in the arms of Adrian Everhart.

She was afraid, even now, of the way her fingers were twitching to reach out and touch him, when she never felt compelled to touch anyone, unless it was to disarm them.

And she might have been terrified of how hard it was to keep her gaze from straying to his mouth, or how her own traitorous lips had started to tingle, or how her own heartbeat had become an entire percussion section inside her chest.

Adrian’s eyes narrowed, just slightly. “What’s wrong?” he asked. A little suspicious, a little uncertain.

“Nothing,” she whispered.

Everything, her mind retorted.

What was she here for?

Not to sleep. Not to tell Adrian all the secrets she’d kept locked up her entire life. Not to be reminded for the umpteenth time how things might be different, if only …

Well. If only things were different.

What was she doing here?

Her gaze darted up to the boughs of the surrounding trees, where she spotted an all-white parrot. “The birds are new,” she said, eager to change the subject. To think about something else, before her mind tracked to kissing again.

Adrian didn’t respond for a moment, and she desperately wanted to know what was going through his head.

Had he thought about kissing too?

Her fingers curled around the blanket that had been tucked around her while she slept. Twenty-four hours. He must have been awake for ages now. How long had he been sitting there while she slept? Had he been watching her? And why was it that the possibility normally would have been annoying, if not downright creepy, but now all it did was make her worry that she might have said something incriminating in her sleep? Or, worse … drooled.

No. No, that wasn’t worse. She mentally shook herself, telling her thoughts to get themselves in order.

This was why sleep was dangerous. It addled her senses, and she needed to be on full alert. It made her vulnerable, regardless of how safe she had felt in Adrian’s arms.

“It felt like it needed wildlife,” said Adrian, “and I had some free time. And now I know that I can only draw so many parrots before losing interest.”

She shook her head warily. If Callum ever got ahold of Adrian’s sketchbooks, he would be beside himself. “You’re incredible, you know that, right? I mean … you can create life. First that dinosaur, and now an entire ecosystem?”

Adrian laughed, and though his skin was too dark to be sure, she was almost certain he was blushing. “I don’t think of it like that. I can create … the illusion of life.” He tracked the blue wings of a bird as it hopped across the canopy overhead. “I have a vague idea of how birds fly, and I know they eat bugs, and if they were chased by a falcon they would run away. But they’ll never learn or grow beyond what they are now. They won’t build nests or hatch eggs. They’re more like … like automatons, than real birds.”

Nova peered at him and tried to feel like his humble comments were warranted, but she knew he was underselling himself.

Typical Adrian.

Before she could respond, someone shouted from what seemed like miles away—

“Adrian! Dinner’s done!”

Nova tensed, surveying their jungle sanctuary.

She had forgotten, completely forgotten they were indoors at all, and not in the overgrown ruins of a long-dead city.

They were at his house. His mansion. The one he shared with the Dread Warden and Captain Chromium.

And his dads were here.

Adrian, too, seemed momentarily shaken. “Right,” he said, closing the sketchbook over the pencil. “Are you hungry?”

Her lips parted. Suddenly her breaths were coming in short, uncomfortable bursts.

Dinner. An everyday family dinner.

With them.

Shutting her mouth again, she forced herself to nod. “Yeah. Actually, I’m famished.”

“Me too.” Adrian stood and offered a hand, which she pretended not to notice as she pulled herself up using the crumbled stone wall. She wasn’t ready to touch him again. She didn’t want to know how much she would enjoy it.

By the time she turned back, his hand had slipped into his pocket. In addition to the long-sleeved tee, he had changed out of his jeans into gray sweatpants, and there was something so intimate and relaxed about it that she almost found him even more handsome this way.