that’s what it took for Ace’s vision to come true. For the Renegades to be destroyed once and for all. For all prodigies to have freedom from tyranny. For the balance of power to tip back toward actual balance.
But she’d been wrong.
She couldn’t kill him.
She couldn’t do it.
And she couldn’t stand there and watch him be killed, either. Not this boy, who had given her a quiet, dreamless sleep. Who had given her a star. Who had given her hope.
Not him. Not Adrian.
Honey’s face twisted.
Then Nova heard the buzzing.
She had barely cocked her head when the first wasp landed above her elbow and drove its stinger into her skin.
Nova had seen Honey’s bees at works, had heard the screams of agony—but nothing had prepared her for this. It was a burning nail being plunged into her flesh.
Nova screamed. The gun clattered to the floor.
A second sting pierced her thigh. A third beneath her shoulder blade. A fourth on her shin. Each one speared into her, more painful than she could have imagined. And they kept coming. Scorching needles being driven into her again and again and again.
“Stop!” she wailed, collapsing against a wall. “Honey—stop!”
Every instinct told her to run, to throw herself from the tower if it would only get her away from here. But one thought kept her there, despite the pain. If she ran, Honey would kill Adrian.
“Please,” she cried, swatting away a crimson hornet. “Honey—” She gasped as a stinger burrowed into her chest. “This is wrong, Honey! We don’t need to—fight them—anymore!”
“Is that so?” Honey yelled. “So what, you thought you’d keep one as your boyfriend? Or forgive his Councilman father? You’ve never understood, Nova. You were always too young to understand.”
Another sting plunged into the soft flesh behind Nova’s ear. She tried to cover her head and neck as hot tears blurred her vision. She could feel them everywhere. Not just the venomous stings, but their legs crawling across her skin, their wings beating against her hair, the deafening buzz all around her.
Her hazy vision landed on the bare skin of Honey’s ankle. Her power pulsed through her, more desperate than she had ever felt it before.
She only needed to touch her—
She threw herself forward, arm outstretched.
Honey lifted her foot and slammed her heel down onto the back of Nova’s hand. Nova screamed.
“Nice try,” said Honey. She lifted her shoe and kicked Nova’s hand away. “Ace gave you an order, and if you can’t follow through, then I will. Captain Chromium took everything from us. Everything! And now…” She rounded on Adrian, still leaning against the wall, his hands bound behind his back. “Now I will take everything from him.”
She lunged.
Adrian sidestepped. Honey crashed into the window ledge, knocking over the oil lantern. The flame extinguished as it fell and rolled a few feet across the timber floor, oil spilling behind it. Honey pivoted, swinging the knife gracelessly through the air. Adrian kept backing away, dodging her swings as best as he could, watching his footing on the uneven boards. The blade nicked his shoulder.
Nova tried to focus, but her thoughts were dull with pain, her movements involuntary as she contorted and writhed, trying desperately to escape the swarm.
Her blurry attention landed on the gun.
Her brain was slowed by the agony, the way her entire body felt like it was smoldering from within.
Adrian’s back hit a wooden support beneath the bells.
Honey grinned.
Adrian buckled forward suddenly, crying out in pain. A black wasp was crawling over his shoulder. He spun, trying to knock it away—driving himself right toward Honey.
A howl tore from Nova’s throat. She raised the gun, sweat dripping into her eye.
Another stinger stabbed Nova’s wrist.
Honey lifted the knife, preparing to drive it into Adrian’s chest.
Nova locked her jaw around another scream and pulled the trigger.
The kickback sent her flying into the stone wall. The gun blew out of her hand, ricocheting off one of the smaller bells with a resounding clang before it careened out of the tower window.
Nova fell onto her side, just as another sting shot through her knee, and she whimpered, wishing it would stop, pleading for it to stop.
And, suddenly, it did.
Not the pain, but the volley of stings, at least.
Nova sobbed and trembled as the hornets covering her body began to take flight.
They returned to Honey. Returned to their queen, whose body lay crookedly across the old wooden floor. A small pool of blood was forming beneath her cloud of yellow hair. Nova blinked back her tears, watching as