Page 83 of Supernova

Then—

“Insomnia! You’re back!” He bolted forward and swung himself around the end of the desk. Before Nova fully realized what was happening, he had pulled her out of the rolling chair and enveloped her in a strangling embrace, one that she might have thought was an attack if she hadn’t known Callum so well.

“I didn’t want to believe it,” he said, pulling away. “I mean, Ididbelieve it, because—did you know you and Nightmare are almost exactly the same height?” He placed one hand about head level withNova. “Uncanny, but not a reason to assume the worst of someone. I’m sorry. But in my defense”—he gave her a mischievous look—“a part of me thought it would actually be kind of cool to be working side by side with an Anarchist. I mean—the difference in perspective, right? What are the odds of that, really? Anyway. I’m glad you’re back. I’ve come to think of you as, like, my artifacts-obsessed kindred spirit.”

She laughed. Not only in relief that Callum didn’t despise her, but also at the idea that she was as obsessed over the objects in the vault as he was. She was relatively sure that no one could be as obsessed as he was. “Thanks,” she said. “I’m ready to get back to work and put all this behind me.”

“Great plan!” He clapped his hands. “Let’s return to our previously scheduled awesome lives.” He grabbed a clipboard from the desk. “It’s been slow around here, what with everyone focusing on rebuilding the lobby and the upcoming Agent N announcement. Do you want to take the desk for a bit, or would you rather handle the restocking? It’s not much… just seven or eight items, if I remember right.”

“I can restock. I don’t really feel like sitting behind a desk right now. I did plenty of sitting around at Cragmoor.”

“Aw, man, I bet that was awful,” said Callum, his expression going distant. The moment of solemnity was short-lived, and then he was grinning again. “But that place has some wicked history. Kind of cool that you got to see it up and close and personal, right? If those walls could talk.” He shook his head. “I’d love to visit it someday. Fascinating.”

Chuckling, Nova took the clipboard from him. “No, you really wouldn’t.”

She started to head toward the vault, but paused. “Hey, Callum?You wouldn’t happen to know where I could find Magpie, would you?”

“That troublemaker?” He pondered the question. “Well. I guess I’d check to see if the cleanup crews have been called out for anything today. Barring that… maybe the lounges?”

Nova nodded. “Thanks, I’ll give that a shot.”

She passed through the filing room, half expecting to see Tina—or Snapshot, the official keeper of the vault—but the room was empty. Stepping into the enormous warehouse, full of row upon row of towering shelving units, each stocked with famous, and some not-so-famous, prodigy-related artifacts, Nova exhaled a long, slow breath.

Squaring her shoulders, she grabbed the cart containing a handful of recently cleaned objects, set the clipboard on top of it, and started pushing it down the main aisle. She returned the first two objects to their places among the collection—the Wandering Map and Tarot’s fortune-making deck of cards—but as she made her way to the back armory for the next two items, she took a detour through the section of prodigy-made tools and weaponry.

She spotted Turmoil’s Sound Deadener sitting on its shelf and recalled renting it out to Genissa Clark what felt like ages ago, though she’d never found out what Frostbite wanted it for.

Not far from the Deadener was the spot where Fatalia’s mist-missiles had been. The label remained on the shelf, but the missiles themselves were gone. Nova had taken them when she and Leroy were converting the stolen samples of Agent N into a chemical weapon, and with some minor tweaking, the missiles had provided the exact casing they’d needed. Nova had used two in her fight against Genissa Clark and her team. The remaining four had been stowed away with Leroy’s stuff at the house, and were now stored safely beneath Dave’s Pawnshop.

On the other side of the Sound Deadener was the object Nova had come for. She felt some of the tension leave her body at the sight of it. After Adrian had told her that all mirrors were being systematically removed from headquarters to prevent any more break-ins from the mirror walker, she’d worried that this, too, would have been moved to a more secure location.

It seemed the Renegades had neglected to inventory their warehouse of powerful artifacts. Though to be fair, the object almost didn’t even resemble a mirror. Nova picked it off the shelf—a large oval surface, as long as her arm, was framed in simple pewter, making the whole thing unexpectedly heavy for its size. Tilting it up, Nova peered into her reflection. The surface was dark and distorted, so that her face appeared like a phantom of herself.

The Hollow Glass, reported to reflect the shape of one’s soul when peered into under the light of an equinox moon.

Whatever that meant.

Nova had a much more mundane use in mind for it.

It wasn’t as big as a dressing room mirror, or the large mirror she had once seen Narcissa walk through at the library, but Narcissa had a small frame and lithe limbs (though she was at least three inches taller than Nova herself, which would surprise Callum if he ever crossed paths with her impostor).

She thought it would be big enough.

It would have to be big enough.

Wondering if this could be her last act of subterfuge while wearing the guise of a Renegade, Nova slipped the mirror onto the bottom shelf of the cart and wheeled it back toward the front.

Less than an hour later, Nova tracked Magpie down at a nearby construction site. She’d learned, talking to a few folks in the HQ call center, that on days when there were no crime scenes to investigate, the cleanup crews were often sent to local community rebuilding projects. Though Gatlon City had changed significantly in the past ten years, it still maintained scars from the Age of Anarchy, with plenty of neighborhoods suffering from run-down buildings that were as unsafe as they were unattractive, half-demolished structures, city parks left overgrown and untended, and on and on. Today’s project was an abandoned school that the Renegades had hopes of renovating into a community recreation center.

Nova couldn’t help wondering, as she approached the building with its pile of discarded rubble outside and broken windows and missing roof tiles, why such a job had fallen into the hands of the Renegades. Weren’t there civilian tradesmen who could use the work? Carpenters who could frame walls and install windows just as well as a prodigy could?

Ducking past the line of orange safety cones, Nova stepped into the overhang of the building. Seeing her gray-and-red uniform, most of the workers ignored her, going about their business.

It only took a few minutes to find Magpie in a back room. She was sifting through a pile of debris, using her limited telekinetic powers to separate anything that could be deemed reusable, from an intact light fixture to a tangle of copper wiring.

She looked immensely bored.

Until she glanced up and spotted Nova. She started and the copper wiring tumbled back into the rubble.

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