The butterfly moved to the stand of plants on the other side of the garden. A swallow trilled from a power line overhead. Nova almost hoped the bird would soar down and snatch the butterfly into its beak, because then she wouldn’t have to worry about whether or not the creature was really one of Danna’s spies.
She wouldn’t have to spend the rest of the day wondering whether Danna was following her.
She wouldn’t be terrified that Danna had already discovered her secret.
She was beginning to contemplate the odds of the butterfly staying put long enough for her to run into the house and find something to capture it with when the creature finished its meal and took off, flittering up and over the row house and toward the next road.
At least it was flying away from headquarters.
It was probably just an ordinary butterfly, she told herself. Nothing to worry about.
Nova trudged the rest of the way toward her own weed-infested yard, ignoring the deafening buzz of Honey’s beehives as she stomped into the shadow of the crumbling row house. Her hands shook as she yanked open the sliding glass door and trudged into the dingy kitchen. They continued to tremble as she unclasped the buckle of her utility belt. She dropped it onto the counter beside a coffeepot half full of long-cold coffee and an assortment of vials and beakers, remnants of Leroy’s latest work.
She tore off the wristband next and tossed it onto the table where a plain gray vase sat forgotten. A bouquet of flowers that had once flourished at the tip of Adrian’s marker now stood shriveled, the dead, papery heads hanging forlornly from their stems.
Her heart jolted even now, but this time it wasn’t with sorrow, but resentment.
Damn Adrian Everhart.
It had been more than a month since he had come to this house and drawn her those flowers. When he asked her to go to the carnival with him, on a date that wasn’t a date. Weeks in which her heart had jolted a tiny bit every time she passed that bouquet, every day draining the color from their petals, until they formed one more sad, dejected still-life in this sad, dejected house.
Though, to be fair, the house had become a lot less dejected under Honey Harper’s ministrations. She had embraced their new home with singular devotion, giving Nova the impression that Honey was actually living out some fantasy of homemaking she’d held on to for years, but had kept deeply buried. It was always clear how much Honey hated living in the tunnels, away from flowers and sunshine and breezes. They had been trapped for years, unable to abandon Ace as his health failed him, or to risk making the Renegades suspicious of their activities by moving somewhere closer to civilization.
But since they were forced from their home—away from the tunnels and the cathedral and Ace—it had become clear that Honey, at least, was flourishing with the change. She had spent her weeks merrily toiling away at their new abode, often singing show tunes at the top of her lungs as she worked. Their furniture had been aired out, the floors had been scrubbed, and while the offensive paisley wallpaper still hung in the living room, at least the cobwebs had been swept away. Nova had been surprised at the vigilance with which Honey had attacked the grime throughout the house, and how she hadn’t once heard her complain about a broken nail or calloused fingers. When she’d mentioned that to Honey, she received a knowing wink in return and the sage observation that “A true queen is made not in times of prosperity, but in times of hardship.”
Nova kicked off her boots into a corner of the front room. Leroy was reading a newspaper by the window, where he had hung a mustard-yellow blanket for privacy. Honey despised that blanket and had tried multiple times to replace it with lightweight sheers, but on this, Leroy was firm, insisting that they needed privacy more than beauty. The daylight that filtered through the blanket made the room feel sickly, as if the walls themselves were suffering from late-stage jaundice.
It was Honey’s least favorite room in the house.
A headline at the top of Leroy’s paper read PRODIGY DRUG-THIEF “HAWTHORN” STILL AT LARGE.
But when Leroy lowered the paper, Nova could see he’d been reading the comics pages.
“Rough day, Insomnia?” His reading glasses dropped to the end of his scarred nose, revealing the ring of discolored skin around one eye.
The other Anarchists had all taken to calling her this lately. Insomnia—her Renegade alias. At first it had irked her, but now she didn’t think they were using the name to be mocking. Rather, it was a reminder, always, of what she was doing with the Renegades. She was a spy. A detective. A weapon.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Reaching into her sleeve, Nova retrieved the vial of Agent N she had taken from the training hall and tossed it to Leroy. He made no effort to catch it, letting it bounce off his chest and land in his lap. He folded the paper and picked up the vial, inspecting the liquid. The solution sloshed thickly as he tipped the vial from side to side. “Terrifying stuff.”
“Most patrol units will have finished their training by the end of next week. They’ll start equipping us with it then. We’ll need to be extra careful.”
He turned over the vial and watched as a single air bubble rose through the elixir. “This is for me to keep?”
“For now. Like Ace said, we need to see if we can weaponize it against the Renegades, before they use it against us. Or if we can even replicate it. I might be able to steal more in the coming weeks, but not enough to use against the whole organization.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Also, there was talk of it being effective in gas form. I wonder if that might be a possibility. A gas could be used against more than one Renegade at a time, at least.”
“It will be easy enough to figure out its properties and what sort of combustion would be required for vaporization,” said Leroy. “We’ll also need to determine its reduction in potency as the molecules are diffused, so that we can predict its range of effectiveness. I can get started on all that, but unless you’re also going to obtain some deconstructed hand grenades for the substance, there won’t be much we can do with the knowledge.”
“You figure out how to turn it into a gas, and I’ll start working on a dispersal device,” said Nova. “I have my eye on some explosives I saw in the Renegades’ collection that I think could be altered for something like this. Plus, they’d be easy to steal.”
“Shame that our only reliable contact for explosives is no longer among us.”
Nova ground her teeth. “I’m not sure I would call Ingrid reliable.”
Leroy lifted an eyebrow at her—or what would have been an eyebrow, if the hair hadn’t long ago been singed off. “I was referring to the Librarian.”
Nova curled her nose, almost embarrassed. “There’s been some debate around headquarters about whether or not Captain Chromium would be affected by Agent N. He couldn’t be injected, given that no needle could puncture his skin, but it’s unclear whether or not the liquid would harm him if he swallowed it, or the gas if he breathed it in. If you come up with any theories one way or the other, I’d love to hear them.”
He tapped a finger against his chin. “I’ll see what I can find, though I’m not sure how much I can accomplish with such a small test sample. And without access to the Renegade labs, their tests, their supplies … and, of course, the boy.”