But Ace had done his best to make it feel like a home to her. She did not recall him talking very much, but he always seemed to be near when she needed a stable presence. Sometimes he held her hand or rubbed her back while she sobbed into his shoulder. Sometimes he would use his powers to distract her from her sorrow, making playful puppets out of the figures and statues that lined the sanctuary and chapel walls. And when her curiosity overcame her misery, he showed her every hidden alcove of the cathedral. The tombs beneath its foundation, full of bones and history. The massive organ where she was free to pound at the keys to her heart’s content, filling the vast space with chilling chords that perfectly fit her mood. He had taken her to the belfry and let her tug on the ropes to make the smaller bells chime, then showed her how he could move the massive central bell with his thoughts. Their music had pealed across the rooftops of the surrounding city blocks.
The pain did not go away, but when Ace was there, it seemed to lessen, little by little.
Then, one day, he told her the truth of what had happened to her family.
Nova had been inspecting some reliquaries she’d found in one of the smaller chapels when Ace found her and sat her down on a worn wooden bench. He told her that one of the villain gangs—the Roaches—had demanded that her father craft them a collection of weapons using his gift. They had threatened David’s wife and daughters if he didn’t meet their expectations.
When her papà began to fall behind on their requests, he went to the Renegades and begged for protection. Captain Chromium himself had promised that no harm would come to him or his family, but only so long as he stopped making weapons for their enemies.
And so her dad did stop. And the Roaches, in retaliation, sent a hitman after him and his family.
Only, the Renegades hadn’t kept their word. Captain Chromium hadn’t kept his word. They were not there to protect David’s family when they needed their protection the most.
When Ace finished telling this story, he handed Nova a cup of cold milk and two vanilla wafer cookies taken from plastic packaging that crinkled deafeningly loud. Nova, six years old and so small her feet didn’t touch the stone floor as she sat on the bench, ate the cookies and drank the milk without comment. She remembered not crying. She remembered that in that moment, she had not felt sad.
She had felt only anger.
Blinding, breathless rage.
As he stood up to leave so she could come to terms with the truth of her family’s deaths, Ace had said simply, practically—“The Roaches were forty-seven members strong. Last night, I killed them all.”
That was the one and only time they spoke of her family’s deaths. What was done was done. The gang had killed Nova’s family. Ace had killed the gang. Justice was served.
Except for the Renegades, who had failed to keep their promise.
Two months after that, Nova’s life was overturned again.
On the Day of Triumph, Nova had been told to stay in the tombs. She sat in the darkness, listening to the screams and thunder of the battle, feeling the rumble and crash of the earth and walls around her. It went on for hours. Ages.
Honey found her first. Or her bees did, and they led Honey to her. They escaped into a secret passageway, small and damp, smelling of soil and musty air, lit only by the small flashlight Nova had brought with her into the tombs. Honey’s distress kept Nova from talking for a long time, but when the passage finally spilled them into an abandoned subway station, Nova dared to ask what had happened.
She received only three words in reply.
The Renegades won.
*
“HERE WE ARE.”
Nova jolted from her thoughts. Goose bumps had erupted across her skin as her memory repeated that day.
She sat up straighter and peered through the windshield. Leroy had parked on the shoulder of a quiet, narrow road just off the shore of Harrow Bay. Rocky outcroppings and foaming waves caught the light of a hesitant moon, and she could see a handful of docks stretching into the water. Most of them were bare, but a few had small fishing boats moored alongside them, their sides thunking hollowly against the pier.
She turned in her seat. To her right was a tall cliff studded with scraggly plants that clung desperately to its side and a burial ground of white driftwood at its base. Behind them, the dark road curved inland and disappeared.
No houses. No apartments. No warehouses. No buildings at all.
“Charming,” she said.
Leroy killed the engine. He was turned away from her, gazing out toward the water. “I don’t much care for the ocean,” he said solemnly. “Seeing it always fills me with regret.”