Page 113 of Supernova

Honey started, blinking up at him, but Ace was already making his way over the foundation of where the nave had stood. Stone and crumbled benches parted before him.

“You are a queen, Honey Harper,” he said, lifting his hands to either side. The crumbled stone blew upward and stayed, hovering, in the air. A million pieces of debris, waiting.

Narcissa gasped and dove off the column as it, too, began to rise. As itallbegan to rise.

It felt like the threat of an earthquake beneath their feet.

“You must never kneel,” Ace continued. “Not to me. Not to anyone. Not one of us shall ever kneel again.”

He spun in a slow circle, studying the bits of wreckage that now filled the air. Nova remembered this look from her childhood. Ace had always seen the world differently—like a series of building blocks that he could learn the secrets to, if only he cared to inspect them a little closer.

His confidence was disarming.

He was finally whole again.

“My friends,” he said, his voice filled with tenderness. “My dream was never to be a king lording over his subjects. I never wished torule. But history has shown me my mistakes. If hubris is the great flaw of our enemies, then apathy was mine. I did not do enough to guide humanity down the path toward true freedom. I was too passive. Content to let free will run its course, I stayed in the shadows while others claimed control. But now my fate is clear. This is not the day that I become a king.” He raised his hands toward the brightening sky. “Today is the day we become gods.”

The sun glinted off the wall of the cathedral, its beams striking Ace and setting his figure aglow. He was dazzling. Golden and unstoppable.

While they watched, motionless, Ace did what Nova had never seen him do before.

For once, he did not destroy.

He created.

He rebuilt.

It was like watching a cataclysm in reverse. Great cracks in the cathedral’s foundation fused together. The stone walls reassembled themselves, piece by piece. The towering columns stood like soldiers, while the vaulted beams of the ceiling perched high above. Glass shards melted together, forming a gallery of windows along each breathtaking wall. Splinters of raw wood were knit into pews and choir seats and polished handrails. Not a piece was missing from the west face’s facade—every spire, every gargoyle, every Gothic arch, every watchful saint.

When the rumbling of the earth fell quiet, Ace could no longer be seen, having enclosed himself within the opulent building. The rest of them stood outside the doors to the nave, their ornate carvings exactly as Nova remembered from her childhood—wheat fields and lambs and serenity.

No one moved. Nova’s eyes stung from the dust that had beenkicked up in the reconstruction, but she hardly dared blink, lest this was all an illusion.

So often she had heard tales of the ruin Ace Anarchy had wrought on the city. In the early days of his revolution, he had collapsed whole bridges, torn down entire neighborhoods. He had been full of fury and passion. He had wanted to see this cruel world burned to the ground.

But the helmet and Ace’s power could be used for other purposes, too.

What a marvel.

What a gift.

With her heartbeat thundering, Nova found herself clapping a hand over the star on her wrist. It was made of the same material, created by her father’s hands, just as the helmet had been. She knew it was powerful, but could it be capable of something so miraculous?

Phobia moved first. With the blade of his scythe aloft, he drifted toward the grand entrance. The doors blew back as he approached, and Nova couldn’t tell if it was Phobia who had controlled them or Ace.

Stirred into action, she followed, still half in a daze. The others filed in at her side.

She couldn’t withhold a gasp as she stepped into the nave. It was precisely as she remembered. She felt like she was that same child, stricken and afraid, who had walked into this space all those years ago, having just had her life torn to shreds. Despite her sorrow, her breath had caught even then. She had not been immune to the magnificence that surrounded her. Every little detail of the cathedral had amazed her, and it amazed her still, staring up, up, up, at the vaulted ceiling.

Only one thing was missing.

Ace.

“Where did he go?” whispered Honey, and the tremor in her voice suggested to Nova that none of the Anarchists had ever seen Ace do anything like this before.

Suddenly, the peal of ringing bells echoed around them.

They exchanged glances. Narcissa and many of the Rejects appeared more than a little hesitant, while a number of the rescued Cragmoor inmates hovered together at the door, wary and guarded.

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