Somehow, she’d never pictured it coming to this, though she probably should have.
The words caught in her throat, and it was Honey who answered for her. “He’ll be ready.”
Ace held Nova’s gaze another moment, before nodding. “Take your positions and await my signal.”
They dispersed. Nova dreaded going back to Adrian, to again be accosted by those looks of hope sprinkled with loathing. She was relieved when Narcissa jogged up to her in the cloister, clutching a stack of familiar comics.
Relieved for half a second, before Honey called back to her, “I’ll go ahead and check on the prisoner. You take your time, sweetness.”
Bile rose up in Nova’s mouth, thinking of Honey and that stiletto knife. But it wasn’t her concern, she told herself, fighting every instinct to chase after her.
Adrian was no longer her concern.
Burying her apprehension, she turned back to Narcissa. “Glad to see you stayed.”
“Yeah, well…” Narcissa kicked at the stone floor. “I promised the Rejects I’d help them secure a better future for themselves. We haven’t accomplished that yet.”
“You’re right,” said Nova, a little darkly. She wondered if any of them, when they’d been plotting their revolution, had foreseen this.
“You know now, don’t you? About the Sentinel?”
Nova tensed. “Yes,” she said slowly. “You knew already?”
“That’s what I wanted to show you the other day.”
Narcissa started to flip through one of the comics, but a particularly loud explosion above the barrier made her jump and she dropped the stapled pages. They fell at Nova’s feet. When she stooped to pick up the comic, the air caught in her lungs. The pages had opened to the final spread. It showed the main character, the young boy known as Rebel Z, as he transformed into a superhero. The superhero he needed to become in order to seek vengeance on the mad scientist.
In the image, he was donning an armored suit, one that was remarkably like the Sentinel’s.
Nova examined the picture, wondering if this would have changed anything if she’d seen it before the attack on the arena. She wondered if it changed anything now.
“The comics are actually pretty good,” said Narcissa. “It’s a shame he never finished the story.”
Nova swallowed, wondering if it was okay for her to hope that maybe someday he’d get a chance to. “Thanks for showing me this,” she said. “But you were right before. It doesn’t change much at this point.”
Nova started to head back to the chapel where Adrian—kind, righteous Adrian—was shackled to a cold altar, but as she rounded the nearest corner, she crashed into Honey Harper. Without pretense, Honey plucked the comic book out of Nova’s hand.
“Hey!” said Nova, too late to grab it back as Honey spun out of reach and started making her way down the corridor, flipping through the pages.
“So this is what’s caused so much interest between you and the mirror girl?” said Honey, turning the pages this way and that, inspecting the drawings with an air of derision. “What is it, exactly?”
“It’s … nothing,” stammered Nova. “Give it back, Honey.”
“I take it our young artist drew it,” she continued, ignoring Nova. “Must have been a while ago. He’s certainly improved, hasn’t he?” She chuckled. “Not that I can do any better.”
She suddenly stopped walking. She was gripping the comic in both hands, carelessly creasing the brittle pages in her fists. “Is that who I think it is?”
“Doesn’t really matter,” said Nova. “We already knew he was the Sentinel, so…” She trailed off, noticing the page that Honey had landed on. It didn’t show Rebel Z in the Sentinel’s armor. Rather, it showed a shrouded figure with bony fingertips and nothing but shadows where a face should be.
“He … drew that when he was, like, eleven,” said Nova. “He’d probably heard about Phobia, from back during the Age of Anarchy. He could have inspired this … this villain … thing.”
Honey shut the comic, her eyes shimmering with a glee that sent a chill down Nova’s spine.
“You don’t believe that,” said Honey. “I overheard you two talking. There are more drawings, aren’t there? Some not quite so recent?” She didn’t wait for Nova to answer, which was just as well because Nova wasn’t sure what to say. She didn’t want to lie to Honey, but she could already see Honey’s mind calculating what this meant.
Suddenly, Honey let out a barking laugh and clapped one hand over her mouth. “My, my,” she said through her fingers. “That little artiste … and he has no idea, does he?”