spread her hands wide. “So here I am, letting you all in on the big secret. I’ve fooled the Renegades yet again. I am Nightmare. You have the wrong girl.”
“And how do we know you’re not just an impostor?” yelled Danna, but she refracted into butterflies again before giving the villain a chance to answer.
This time, Adrian moved, too, engaging the springs on his feet to launch him over a series of tables cluttered with handbags and scarves.
Nightmare ducked back into the dressing room.
Danna and Adrian both raced after her, the butterflies mere feet in front of him. The doorway narrowed to a short corridor. To their left, rows of closed dressing room doors. To their right, a triptych of full-length mirrors arranged on a carpeted platform.
Nightmare stood on the platform, leaning against the center mirror. The lights were off and Adrian might have missed her in the darkness, but for the sheen of her mask. Danna must have noticed her at the same time, for the swarm suddenly twisted in her direction.
Nightmare waved.
The butterflies began to converge.
Adrian dove for her even as her body was slipping back through the mirror, its surface rippling outward like the surface of an inky-black pond. Danna’s hand grasped at the air, her finger barely catching the edge of Nightmare’s hood before she sank into the mirror and the material slipped from Danna’s grasp. Adrian’s momentum carried him crashing past Danna. He tucked his arm in at the last moment and crashed into the mirror. The glass cracked, a fractured web shooting out from the impact, along with the sting of pain down his arm. He leaped back, cursing and rubbing his shoulder.
Beyond the glass they could still see her, a girl now fractured into a dozen shards. Her hood had been pulled back off her head, setting free a long ginger braid.
Though he couldn’t see her mouth, Adrian knew she was smirking at them. She raised two fingers to her mask and pretended to blow them a kiss, before her image faded away and they were left staring at their own reflections.
Reflections that were equal parts furious and mystified.
“What the hell is going on?” said Danna.
“I don’t know,” Adrian admitted, still examining the spot where Nightmare had been. Nightmare, who could walk through mirrors. Nightmare, who had long red hair. “But I know that girl.”
Danna jolted. “What?”
“You weren’t with us at the Cloven Cross Library,” he said. “When we went to find out if the Librarian was still dealing black- market weapons.”
“And?”
“That was his granddaughter. She was working at the library that day.” He started walking back toward the doorway, though his skin still prickled from the sensation of being watched. He wondered if Nightmare was still there somewhere behind the glass, waiting to see what they would do next.
He nearly collided with Ruby on his way out, and Oscar wasn’t far behind her, though he was moving slower on his cane after their rush to capture the burglars earlier, and Adrian could see he was already winded from the sprint across the department store.
“She’s gone again,” he told them. “She’s traveling through the mirrors.”
“Mirrors?” said Oscar. “Like that girl at the library?”
“She is the girl from the library,” he said. It took Adrian a moment to remember her name. “Narcissa Cronin.”
“The Librarian’s granddaughter?” barked Ruby. “But she was … she’s … There’s no way that girl is Nightmare!”
“Why not?” said Adrian.
His question made them all freeze. Watching one another in the dark, Adrian could see emotions warring on their faces, too.
“But she was so…,” Ruby started again, grimacing as she searched for the right word.
“Unvillainous?” suggested Oscar.
“Yes! I mean, we only met her for a minute, but she seemed so shy and … and she was reading a romance novel!”
“What’s wrong with romance novels?” said Danna.
Ruby huffed. “Nothing! It’s just—”
“It’s just that villains read only manuals on death and destruction?” said Danna, lifting an eyebrow.
Adrian crossed his arms. “So you admit it might be her?”
Danna gawked at him. “I’m not admitting anything! I just don’t think someone’s reading preferences automatically rule them out as an enemy.”
“She does have villain connections…,” mused Oscar. “Including connections to the Anarchists, if her grandpa was selling to them for years. And I guess she does have reason to hate Nova, if she really thinks Nova could have stopped the Detonator that day.”
“None of this matters,” said Danna, “because she’s not Nightmare. She’s a copycat!”