Page 36 of Archenemies

She triedHelmet.

A list scrolled down the page.Astro-Helm. Helmet of Cylon. Helm of Deception. Kabuto of Wisdom. Titan’s Golden Headpiece.

None of them were Ace’s.

Despite her disappointment, she couldn’t smother a spark of interest at the sheer breadth of the collection. She remembered reading about the Helmet of Cylon and how Phillip Reeves had confounded an entire enemy battalion with it during the Four-Decades War, even though he supposedly wasn’t a prodigy. Or how Titan had survived being crushed in an avalanche, which many attributed to his famous headpiece. Some of these artifacts were so mythical, shehad trouble believing they were real at all, much less being housed in a drab warehouse on the fourteenth floor.

And people could just…borrowthis stuff?

The elevator dinged. Nova straightened, expecting a stranger—that Callum guy Tina had mentioned—but her polite expression fizzled when her eyes landed on a pale, scrawny girl with a bob of shiny black hair.

Magpie. A Renegade, and a thief, though the rest of the organization seemed willing to overlook that character flaw.

Nova wrapped a hand around the bracelet her father had made when she was a child—the last of his creations before he’d been murdered. Magpie had tried to steal it during the Renegade Parade. She would have gotten away with it, too, if Adrian hadn’t seen it happen.

Nova still shivered when she thought of how Adrian had taken her wrist and redrawn the clasp on her skin.

Magpie froze when she saw Nova, and her flush of dislike must have mirrored Nova’s exactly. The girl was carrying a small plastic bin, which she hefted over to Nova’s desk and dropped to the floor with a loudthunk.

“Have fun,” she said, scowling. She turned on her heel to head back to the elevator.

“Hold on.” Nova pushed herself out of the chair and rounded the desk. “What is this?”

Magpie let out a melodramatic sigh, complete with drooping shoulders and rolling eyes. “You’re new, aren’t you?”

Nova’s jaw clenched. Crouching, she peeled the lid off the bin. Inside she saw what appeared to be a lot of junk. A corkscrew. A metal ashtray. A stack of tattered postcards featuring photos of Gatlon City, pre–Age of Anarchy.

“I’m on cleanup duty,” said Magpie, fisting her hands on her hips. “You know, after your patrol buddies make an enormous mess of things—again—they send us in to put things back together and scavenge anything useful.” She nudged the bin with her toe. “Here’s our latest findings. So you can catalog them, or whatever it is you do. It’s a bunch of rubbish in this haul, if you ask me.”

“Not surprising,” said Nova, “given that anything you find of value is more likely to end up in your pockets than the Renegade system, right?”

Magpie returned her glare and they stood in mutual hate-filled silence for a moment, before the girl heaved another sigh of exasperation. “Whatever. I did my job. You do yours.” She pivoted away.

Nova picked a doll off the top of the heap, and her attention caught on something metallic. “Wait,” she said, reaching for it. Her fingers wrapped around the edge of the piece of curved metal and she pulled it from the bin.

Her pulse skipped.

It was Nightmare’s mask.Hermask.

CHAPTER TWELVE

“WHERE DID YOUget this?” said Nova.

Magpie pressed the elevator call button, then slowly turned around, her expression rife with disinterest. “Where do you think?” she said, with barely a glimpse at the mask. “Pulled it out of the rubble at Cosmopolis Park. You were there that day, weren’t you?” She crossed her arms. “Superiors thought it should be filed away, but I don’t care if you throw it in the trash. It’s just a piece of banged-up aluminum. Even I could make one if I wanted to.”

Nova’s fingers curled defensively. “That was a long time ago. Why are you just bringing it in now?”

Magpie lifted an impetuous eyebrow. “Because for the last month we’ve been digging through all the junk down in the subway tunnels left behind by those pathetic Anarchists. I deserve a medal for how much of their trash I’ve had to sift through. Nothing of value and absolutely nothing to help the investigation. A waste of time—thatandthe funhouse. But”—she lifted her hands—“what’s it to me? I’m just a laborer.”

“Did you find anything else… interesting?”

“What, like body parts? My abilities don’t translate to human flesh.”

“And… nothing from the tunnels either?”

The elevator dinged and Magpie turned away. “You’re the one who has to catalog it all, right? I guess you’ll find out.”

Nova glowered. She stood, still clutching the mask. “Howdoyour powers work, anyway? Are you, like, a walking metal detector? Or a magnet? Or what?”

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