saving grace—that Max had, in the last moments of the battle, managed to absorb all of Frostbite’s ability. He had taken in her control of ice and used it to stanch his own bleeding, to freeze over his own wound.
It might have saved his life.
Then again, it might not.
Nova swallowed the lump in her throat as Adrian drew closer. His dark expression was about more than Max. He was full of a new burning hatred, like nothing Nova had ever witnessed before … at least not on calm, cheerful Adrian.
A burning hatred for Nightmare, who he was convinced had been the one who attacked Max. No one had seen it happen other than Frostbite and her comrades, and they weren’t about to correct anyone’s mistaken beliefs. Nightmare was too easy a target to put the blame on.
And Nova, whose secret identity remained, miraculously, unknown, couldn’t exactly clear her alter ego’s name, no matter how she yearned to defend herself whenever she saw Adrian’s eyes smolder with restrained hostility.
“When you said Nightmare had infiltrated headquarters,” Nova said, once Adrian was close enough, “this isn’t what I pictured.”
Lying through her teeth, as usual. She was always lying these days. She hardly even realized she was doing it anymore.
“Yeah, it’s pretty bad.” Adrian’s focus was distant as he scanned the destruction. “They found the Silver Spear over there. We think Nightmare got it from the vault and used it to steal the helmet. And…” His voice caught and he coughed to clear it. “We’re pretty sure it was the weapon she used on Max, too. There was blood on it. They’re going to run tests.”
Her teeth ground.
Adrian sighed and looked down. For the first time, Nova noticed something in his hands. A sphere with a small crown on one side and an open seam around its circumference. Nova recognized it immediately—one of Fatalia’s mist-missiles, or so it had been, before she had stolen it from the artifacts department. She and Leroy had reconfigured the devices to release a gaseous form of Agent N, the noxious substance that had been developed using Max Everhart’s blood. Though harmless to civilians, it was poison to prodigies. As soon as they inhaled, imbibed, or were injected with the substance, they would permanently lose their powers.
As Nightmare, Nova had detonated two of the devices in this lobby. Those, along with a stolen dart loaded with Agent N, had resulted in both Gargoyle and Aftershock being stripped of their abilities. She had orchestrated the neutralization of Frostbite, too, though she didn’t need Agent N that time. She’d simply dragged the girl closer to Max and let the Bandit do what he needed to do.
Now she found herself staring at the shell of the device, already forming a series of lies she could tell when someone bothered to check them for fingerprints. She had touched the mist-missiles one day while working in the vault … that must have been before Nightmare stole them …
But the lies were flimsy.
The higher her lies piled up, the more precarious they became. Sometimes she felt that if she dared to exhale fully, the whole thing would topple.
“It looks like one of Fatalia’s mist-missiles,” she said, keeping her tone even.
“That’s what Callum said, too,” said Adrian.
“Callum? Is he here?” Nova’s thoughts turned back to the night before, when she had left Callum unconscious in the vault.
Adrian nodded. “He went back upstairs to check if the mist-missiles are missing.”
“Maybe Nightmare took them when she took the spear.”
Adrian’s brow furrowed over his dark-framed glasses. “I don’t think so. Mack Baxter said Nightmare had some sort of bomb filled with Agent N. That’s how she was able to neutralize Trevor. I think this is one of those bombs.”
Nova silently cursed Aftershock and Gargoyle, even if she couldn’t blame them for telling the truth. “Well, maybe she was inspired by the mist-missile design. She is supposed to be some genius inventor, right? She must have created these herself.”
Adrian hesitated, and she could see him battling with his own thoughts. Finally, he conceded, “Maybe. We’ll see what Callum finds.”
Unconvinced.
Nova wouldn’t have been convinced, either. No matter how hard she tried to deflect scrutiny away from herself, her arguments just weren’t all that convincing these days.
“The thing is,” said Adrian, tossing the empty device into the air and catching it again in his palm, “if Nightmare was setting off Agent N bombs … it would have affected her, too. Why wasn’t she afraid of losing her powers?”