She glimpsed his hand resting in the grass and tried to work up the courage to touch him. She tried to channel Honey Harper, imagining what she would do. A brush of her shoulder, a graze of her fingertips?
The thought of it made her shiver.
What would Honey do?
Nova’s gaze skipped down to Adrian’s lips.
She gulped and leaned forward.
Adrian took in a sudden breath and, before Nova knew what was happening, he had jumped to his feet and started brushing himself off. “Yeah, wow, we need to hurry,” he said, glancing at his wristband. “Don’t want to be late for … uh … jousting or … whatever it was…”
Nova gaped up at him.
Sweet rot. She had tried to kiss him and … he had rejected her.
So, that’s what that felt like.
Mortification overtook her, and she was grateful that he seemed determined not to look at her, as it gave her a moment to gather her wits and shove down her disappointment.
Shove it far, far down inside.
So far down that she could almost convince herself it wasn’t there at all.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
NOVA WASN’T SURE which riddle was more frustrating.
Adrian, who had gone from trying to kiss her at the amusement park to acting like she had a contagious, incurable disease.
Or Ace’s helmet, which was trapped inside an unopenable box.
Nova wasn’t fond of riddles in general, but of the two currently plaguing her, she found it far less uncomfortable to focus on the chromium box, and so she had spent all morning sitting at the front desk outside the artifacts warehouse contemplating just that.
How do you open an unopenable box?
How do you destroy an indestructible material?
What could be strong enough to safely get past the chromium and free Ace’s helmet from its prison?
Nova still didn’t have the answer, but she knew who did. Captain Chromium. He had made the box. He must know how to unmake it. And though Nova wasn’t sure what she could say to him to get him to give up this secret, she knew she would have to try.
Before Ace faded away into nothing.
She was caught up in a very long, very clever, very imaginary conversation with the Captain when the elevator doors dinged and none other than her second riddle strolled into the reception area. Nova jerked upward. “Adrian?”
He was practically bouncing on his feet as he hurried to her desk. “It’s here,” he said, beaming.
She gaped at him, feeling like she should know what it was, but all she could think about was the helmet.
“Excuse me?”
“I was thinking that all that stuff from the tunnels had probably gotten thrown away after it was checked for evidence, but I talked to the head of crime-scene investigation this morning and she told me it’s all been brought here. They don’t throw anything away until an investigation is closed, so right now all the Anarchists’ stuff is supposedly just sitting around in a stockpile somewhere, waiting to be tagged and categorized and”—he waved his hand absently toward the vault—“whatever it is that happens here, exactly.”
Nova studied him, her stomach dropping. “Winston’s puppet.”
Settling his elbows onto the desk, Adrian leaned toward her. “Exactly. On top of that, I’ve gotten approval from both the Council and Winston’s counselor. He can have the puppet in exchange for information, just as long as Snapshot checks it first to be sure it isn’t hiding some secret magical power.”
Winston’s puppet. That he was willing to trade information for.
Nova swallowed. “Oh. That’s … great.”
“Is Snapshot in?”
The door to the filing room opened, but it was Callum, not Snapshot, that strolled out. He froze as soon as he saw Adrian. “No way! Sketch in the flesh! I’m a total fan.”
“Oh, thanks,” said Adrian, accepting a firm handshake with a bewildered expression.
Nova gestured between them. “Uh … Adrian, Callum. Callum, Adrian.”
“Are you here to check something out?” said Callum. “We’ve got a feather quill that I think you’d really like.”
“Oh yeah?” said Adrian, though he quickly shook away his interest. “No, thanks. Actually, I was told there’s a place here where they’re storing all the stuff that was confiscated from the Anarchist holdings in the subway tunnels?”
“Sure, there’s a storeroom in the back. But I’m warning you, it’s a mess back there. It’s on my list to get cleaned up, but…” Callum shrugged. “Hey, maybe that’d be a good job for us to do together, yeah?”
It took Nova a moment to realize he was talking to her. She jerked upright. “Yeah. Great. Sounds like fun.”
Callum pointed at Adrian. “You know, I should probably check that you’ve been given clearance, but … bah, who am I kidding? Of course you can see it. Come on back.” He waved his arm.
Adrian flashed an excited grin at Nova and started to follow.
“Hey, wait,” she said, jumping from her chair. “Can I come too, or…？”
Callum laughed. “This girl! Her curiosity is insatiable!”
Taking that as a yes, Nova flipped over a BE RIGHT BACK sign on the desk and darted after them. Callum weaved through the front section of the warehouse, giving Adrian much the same orientation he’d given her on her first day, until they arrived at a freestanding room near the back corner, with walls that didn’t quite stretch all the way to the ceiling.
Callum thrust open the door. “All right, you two have fun. I’ll let Snapshot know you’re back here.”
Nova hovered beside Adrian in the doorway, her jaw dropping. She half expected to be overcome with sadness to see all of her things and the belongings of her family, now in the hands of the Renegades—unappreciated and unloved.
But instead, she felt overwhelmed.
And a little relieved.
The chances of Adrian finding anything amid this clutter were slim.
Squaring his shoulders, Adrian angled his body to fit between two towering shelves and squeezed into the room. “He wasn’t kidding, was he?”
Nova followed after him. It was as if the Renegades had filled cart after cart with all the random things they had found down in the tunnels and just … dumped it here, without care or ceremony. Though, as her eyes adjusted to the chaos, she began to notice at least some half-hearted attempts at organization. She spotted Honey’s beloved wardrobe against one wall, piled over with her sequined dresses and silk scarves, but also Leroy’s bathrobe, and a trash bag from which Nova’s own street clothes were bursting through. Other accessories—jewelry, shoes, and the like, almost all Honey’s—were strewn across a cart nearby. The furniture was mostly lumped into a teetering stack in the middle, including Leroy’s beloved moth-eaten armchair. Practical household items were grouped erratically across a series of shelves, from electric teakettles to can openers and even a broom, though Nova couldn’t recall anyone ever using a broom down in the tunnels.
Wait, no, there had been that time when she’d seen Ingrid chasing a rat with one …
Adrian weaved through the narrow pathway, and Nova saw what had caught his attention. A bright-colored play tent, crumpled beneath a long table. “Looks like there’s some Puppeteer stuff over here,” Adrian said, crouching to dig through the rumpled nylon fabric.