Someone shoved her from behind. The woman from before, crying, “Someone’s still in there! I heard them! Do something!”

 

And though it took all of Nova’s willpower not to turn around and yell at the woman to do something herself, she ignored the instinct and took off running—not into the library, but around the corner, sure the screams had come from the back.

 

No sooner had she rounded the far corner than she saw him. A kid, six or seven years old, hanging out of the second-story window. He had the collar of his shirt pulled up over his nose and even from down below she could see his panicked, bloodshot eyes.

 

Nova glanced in each direction, but there was nothing she could use to climb. No random ladder lying around, no convenient overgrown tree. She inspected the side of the building and, without giving herself a chance to overthink it, dug her fingers into the mortar of the stones and hauled herself upward.

 

She got only a few feet up the side of the building before her foot slipped and she crashed back to the ground, landing hard on her back. Overhead, the boy sobbed, his fingers clutching the sill of the window.

 

Nova got back to her feet, but another explosion rocked the ground, nearly knocking her over again. A window on the first floor had exploded outward, succumbing to the heat and pressure building up inside the library. Blinding orange flames roared inside, licking at the stone walls.

 

Nova shut her eyes, calculating the risks. Though it took only seconds to make the decision, it felt like an eternity.

 

Opening her eyes again, she reached into the compartment on her belt that held her handmade exothermic micro-flares. And, buried deep beneath them, her gloves.

 

Nightmare’s gloves.

 

She shoved her fingers into the black leather and strapped down the buckles, then pressed the switch that engaged the pressurized suction cups. Stomping forward, she leaped for the building, pressing her palms into the facade.

 

The suction held.

 

Nova started to climb. Press, stretch, release. Her toes grappling for purchase in the mortar. Her arms burning with exertion as she hauled herself higher and higher. Billows of smoke streamed up from the windows below, filling the air around her.

 

By the time she reached the window on the second story, her arms were ready to detach from her shoulders. But she made it inside, hauling herself in through the window and collapsing on the floor beside the child.

 

He stared down at her, lip trembling. “Help?” he said meekly.

 

She nodded. “Give me a second.”

 

One breath in. One breath out.

 

She sat up and staggered to her feet. This floor, too, was filling with smoke, though it wasn’t yet too thick to see. “Come on,” she said, wrapping an arm around the kid’s shoulders. He followed her without resistance through a series of archive rooms, until they reached the main staircase.

 

Nova drew up short, staring down toward the lobby. What had been the main lobby was now a sea of smoke and flames. The floor itself was smoldering and, even as she stared, the floor beneath the scholar statue in the vestibule gave out from the weight, collapsing in on itself.

 

Nova backed away, nudging the kid toward the wall.

 

“Okay,” she said slowly. “Won’t be going that way.”

 

She ushered him back the way they had come, to the open window she had climbed through. She stuck her head out and analyzed the fall. It wasn’t too bad … for her.

 

“Do you know how to tuck and roll?”

 

The kid whimpered. “Can’t you … can’t you fly?”

 

She stared at him. “If I could fly, why would I—” She lifted her hands, still cloaked by the gloves, then groaned. “Never mind. Listen. You’re going to climb onto my back and I’ll scale the wall back down. You’re going to have to trust me, okay?”

 

Though the kid’s face was full of fear, it was overshadowed by pure, inexplicable hope. “You’re a Renegade,” he said. “Of course I trust you.”

 

Nova’s gut clenched and every instinct wanted to argue that point. Don’t. Don’t trust them. They don’t deserve it.

 

But she bit back the reply and had started to crouch down so he could climb onto her back when she heard yelling.

 

Wrapping a hand around the kid’s wrist, Nova peered out the window again and spotted Ruby and Oscar running through the overgrown ivy below.

 

“Nova!” Oscar yelled, then flinched. “By which I mean, Insomnia! You need to get out of there!”

 

Relief pulsed through Nova’s veins. She cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled back, “I found the kid! Look!” Turning, she scooped the kid beneath his armpits and held him up in the window for them to see.

 

Ruby clasped a hand over her mouth. She and Oscar traded looks, but it was a short-lived silent discussion.

 

“Hold on,” said Ruby, unwinding the wire from her wrist. She stepped away from Oscar and started to twirl it like a lasso in the air. “Stand back!”

 

Nova jumped away from the window, pulling the kid with her. A second later, Ruby’s bloodstone flew over the sill. As soon as it jolted backward, the points of the gem peeled open, transforming it into a grappling hook that snagged tight to the windowsill.

 

“Cool,” the kid murmured.

 

“Have you ever done a zip line?” said Nova, peeling off her gloves and stuffing them back into her satchel.

 

“A what?”

 

“Nothing. Come on, it’s just like playing on the monkey bars. Hand over hand. If you fall, that guy with the cane will catch you, okay?”

 

The kid peered at the thin wire, then down at Oscar, his brow creased with uncertainty.

 

“He’s a Renegade too,” said Nova. “He can bench-press, like…” She considered. “I don’t know. A lot. More than you weigh, for sure.”

 

Seemingly comforted, the boy swung one leg over the sill. Nova helped him get started, showing him how to reach out with his hands while keeping his ankles locked around the rope.

 

He was halfway down and she was just beginning to relax, debating whether she would traverse the rope, too, or take the faster route of jumping, when Oscar yelled up to her, “Where’s Adrian?”

 

She tensed. “He’s not with you?”

 

Oscar shook his head. “We haven’t seen him since you came out of the basement.”

 

Nova leaned back from the window and glanced around. The air inside the library made her feel like she was inside a sauna. A smoky, stifling sauna.

 

Adrian wouldn’t still be in here, would he?

 

Unless the smoke had gotten to him. Unless he was unconscious somewhere, dying of smoke inhalation, or trapped beneath a burning bookcase, or—

 

A scream cut over the roar of the fire. Nova stilled. It wasn’t Adrian.

 

But that only meant that someone else was still in the library.

 

She followed the screaming to the far corner of the third floor, where a walled-off room stood off from the main stacks, its contents visible through a glass window in the shut door. A sign beside the door read RARE BOOKS AND FIRST EDITIONS. Nova threw it open and found a room mostly clear of the smoky haze that had filled up the rest of the building, though it immediately began to spill in through the open doorway.

 

Gene Cronin and Narcissa stood before an open window. Narcissa spun toward Nova and shrieked, “Shut the door!”

 

Nova did, slamming it with a defiant shove.

 

The Librarian did not even glance over at her. He was too busy pulling books out of glass cases and hastily wrapping them up in paper towels, before throwing them out the window in great armfuls. “Help me!” he cried. “Narcissa—quick! The manuscripts case. We have to save the manuscripts!”

 

“They’re just books!” Narcissa yelled back. “We have to save ourselves!”

 

“Just books?” Cronin roared. “My life’s work! Some of these are the only known copies left in the entire world! First editions … signed copies…”

 

“Narcissa is right,” said Nova, stepping farther into the room. She scanned the space again, thinking Adrian would appear from behind one of the cases, but it was only the Librarian and his granddaughter. Adrian wasn’t there. She gulped, and tried not to picture him trapped in the fire below. “The ground floor is compromised. The whole building is going to collapse in on itself any minute. You have to get out of here.” She scanned the room. Two walls held double-hung windows, all of which had already been opened, perhaps in an effort to let out what smoke seeped through the cracks in the door. A brick fireplace stood on the western wall, looking ironically as though it hadn’t seen fire in decades, with an ornate mirror hung over the mantel. Nova guessed this decorative element was intended more for Narcissa’s convenience than an attempt at decorative elegance.

 

Otherwise, there were four glass cases displaying ancient books, scrolls, journals, and manuscripts, and even an assortment of antique scribing and printing tools, from ink wells to lead type. More bookcases along the walls, crammed full of works that weren’t quite as rare or valuable as those in the cases. There was the door Nova had entered through, and … that was it. No other escape routes. They would have to go through the window.