table appeared dead, and rising up from his parted blue lips was a monster—the same shadowy figure that had plagued Adrian’s artwork for so many years. But it was no longer vague and obscure. Now its edges were outlined in crisp black.
A hooded cloak hovered over the boy’s body, bending down as if to see into the boy’s dead eyes.
A skeletal finger stretched out from billowing sleeves.
A weapon was clutched in its opposite hand, glinting faintly in the doctor’s laboratory.
A scythe.
“It could be coincidence,” Nova whispered.
“I thought that, too,” said Narcissa, lowering her voice. “So I asked Honey about him. Most of the Anarchists had followed Ace for decades; some had been with him since before the start of the Age of Anarchy, even. But Phobia just appeared out of nowhere a year or so before the Day of Triumph and told Ace that it was his purpose to bring terror to their mutual enemies. As far as Honey knows, he’s never told anyone his real name or who he was before he became Phobia.” She shivered. “The timeline works. Adrian Everhart would have been … what? Five or six when he first started drawing this … thing.” She pulled some of the older drawings from the stack. “His skills weren’t there yet, but it seems safe to say that he was drawing Phobia … even back then.”
Nova massaged her temple. She had half expected this. Thoughts of Phobia and Lady Indomitable had plagued her in her prison cell almost as much as thoughts of Adrian himself. It was a puzzle that had quickly resolved itself once Adrian told her about the card found on his mother’s body. One cannot be brave who has no fear.
Phobia’s power was to prey on his enemy’s deepest fears, and Adrian himself had told Nova that the greatest fear of his childhood had been that someday his mother would leave and never come back.
She’d hoped she was wrong. But now …
“He created Phobia,” she whispered, taking the child’s drawing from Narcissa and inspecting it with mounting dread. She was startled to find her vision misting as she tried to imagine what Adrian would feel if he knew the truth. “He created the monster that killed his mother.”
“Nova…” Narcissa reached forward and took the drawing back. “Adrian Everhart is a Renegade. He’s not on our side.”
Nova straightened, blinking back any signs of approaching tears. “I know that.”
“Yeah, but…” Narcissa frowned doubtfully. Hell, she looked borderline sorry for Nova.
Scowling, Nova gathered up the papers and shoved them back in the bag. “Thanks for getting these. I need to talk to Millie and—”
“Whoa, whoa, there was something else I wanted to show you.” Narcissa grabbed the Rebel Z comics before Nova could put them away. “Have you read these?”
“I don’t have time.”
“But there’s something—”
“Later,” Nova snapped. Then, feeling guilty, she forced a smile. She wasn’t mad at Narcissa; she was mad at this whole impossible situation.
Adrian Everhart was her enemy.
Phobia was her ally.
So why did it feel like her heart was breaking, to know how much pain it would cause Adrian to ever learn the truth of their connection?
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You can show me later, okay? I just … I really need to talk to Millie about some stuff. It’s important.”
Fingers tapping on the comic’s cover, Narcissa slowly nodded. “Sure, it can wait. It doesn’t change much at this point anyway.”
* * *
Nova had a long list in her head of everything she needed to do and everyone she needed to talk to in order to make sure all was going according to plan—the plan that was still forming by the minute. Especially now that she knew not all of Narcissa’s Rejects would be willing to pull their weight as she’d been led to believe.
But she wanted to talk to Millie first. She hoped the psychometrist might offer answers that Nova doubted she’d find anywhere else.
The basement beneath the pawnshop was divided into a series of large rooms, where a few members of their fledgling alliance had staked out a corner here or set up a cot for themselves there. There was one toilet and a shower with running water that never truly got warm, and so it was only the prodigies who were wanted by the Renegades who spent much time in the underground hideout. Many of the others still had their own homes to return to, though Nova had insisted they meet at particular times to hash out the details of her burgeoning