But then, a lot of what Adrian could do didn’t seem possible.

A star.

Neither she nor Adrian spoke for a long time. The room was silent, but there was something about the jungle he had created—the jungle, Nova thought with bewilderment, the jungle he created—that gave the impression of life and noise, of warmth and growth, of thriving permanence.

Finally, Adrian cleared his throat. “That wasn’t in the mural.”

“I know,” said Nova, remembering the statue in the painting, and how Adrian had drawn it so that they could only see its back, not its hands. After another thoughtful moment, she said, “Intention?”

“Maybe,” said Adrian. “I was thinking about your dream when I did it.”

“What does it do?” said Nova, which might have been a strange question. What did any star do?

But Adrian merely shrugged. “It’s your star. You tell me.”

She bit the inside of her cheek. Was it her star?

“I don’t know. I woke up before anything happened.”

A part of Nova wanted to reach out and touch it. The star emanated a comforting warmth, and she didn’t think it would burn her, like a real sun out in the real universe. But she was worried that she would ruin the spell if she touched it. Maybe it would fade away. Or, perhaps worse, maybe nothing would happen at all. She didn’t know which of them was more responsible for dreaming this star into existence—her or Adrian—and she didn’t want to tempt disappointment by finding it was nothing more than a pretty visual effect.

She breathed in the aroma of dew-soaked leaves and intoxicating flowers. Shutting her eyes, Nova sank down, sitting cross-legged on the soft moss. It was easy to fall into the tranquility of this place. To believe this was the real world, hundreds of years in the future. The city had fallen, and there were no more villains and no more superheroes. No more Anarchists, no more Renegades, no more Council. No more struggles for power.

Just, no more.

She opened her eyes as Adrian lowered himself to the ground beside her, a little stiffly, she noticed, as he tried not to bend around the wound on his side.

“Is it terrible,” she said, “that it might take the fall of humanity to make me feel this relaxed?”

It took Adrian a moment to respond, but he sounded serious when he said, “A little.”

Nova laughed, a real one this time. He chuckled too.

“Why?” he asked. “Why is it so hard to relax?”

She dared to look at him. She knew he wasn’t prying, and that he wouldn’t push her, despite his curiosity.

She braced herself.

She thought it would be hard to form the words, but it wasn’t. Not really. They’d been perched in the back of her throat for ten years, waiting for her to speak them. She thought back to the first night she had sat and talked with Adrian, really talked to him, when they were running surveillance on Gene Cronin and the Cloven Cross Library. She hadn’t told Adrian about her family then. She hadn’t confessed her complete origin story. But somehow, she felt like she’d always known that she would tell him, eventually.

“When I was six years old, I once fell asleep holding my baby sister. Evie.” Her voice was low, barely a murmur. “When I woke up, I could hear my mother crying. I went to our door and I looked out into the hallway and a man was there, holding a gun. I later found out my dad was being blackmailed by one of the villain gangs, and when he didn’t fulfill part of their bargain, they hired this guy to … punish him.” She frowned, her gaze lost in the shadows between ferns and fallen tree trunks, her memory trapped in that apartment. She scrunched her shoulders against her neck, once again paralyzed with fear. “He shot my mom,” she whispered, “and then he shot my dad. I watched it happen.”

Adrian’s hand twitched, drawing her focus out of the shadows and down to his graceful fingers, his dark skin. He didn’t reach for her, though she thought he would hold her hand if she moved first.

She didn’t.

“I ran to my bedroom and hid in the closet. I heard him come inside, and … then I heard…” Tears began to fill her eyes. “I heard Evie. She woke up and she started to cry, and … and he shot her too.”

Adrian jerked involuntarily, a flinch that shuddered through his whole body.

“She wasn’t even a year old yet. And when he found me in the closet, I looked in his eyes and I could tell, I could just tell that he didn’t feel an ounce of remorse. He’d just murdered a baby, and he didn’t feel anything.”

This time, Adrian did reach for her hand, slipping his fingers between hers.

“He aimed the gun at me, and…”

Nova hesitated, realizing at the last moment that she couldn’t tell Adrian this part of the story. The shock of being on the verge of speaking an unspeakable secret startled her from the memory.

“And my uncle showed up,” she said, swiping at her nose with her sleeve. “He killed the man. He saved me.”

Adrian’s shoulders fell. He cursed quietly beneath his breath.

Nova lowered her head. The pain that came with the memories was coupled with guilt. She had relived that night countless times in her thoughts, all the while knowing—she could have stopped it. If she had been brave. If she hadn’t run. If she hadn’t hid.

She could have put the man to sleep. Saved Evie, at least, if not her parents.

But she’d been a coward, and …

And she’d been so sure. So sure that the Renegades would come. It was her faith in them that had destroyed her family, almost as much as the hitman himself.

“After that, every time I closed my eyes, I would hear those gunshots in my head. I couldn’t sleep. After a while, I stopped trying.”

Even recently, when she had briefly fallen asleep inside Max’s quarantine, the nightmare had plagued her. The hitman looming over her. The cold press of the gun to her forehead. The gunshots echoing through her skull.

BANG-BANG-BANG!

She shuddered.

Adrian rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. “Nova,” he whispered, shaking his head. “I’m so sorry. I knew they were killed during the Age of Anarchy, but I never thought—”

“That I witnessed it? I know. It wasn’t something I thought belonged in my Renegades application.”

He nodded in understanding, his expression heavy with sorrow.

And though telling the story brought her sadness, it also brought anger. The resentment that had crowded out her own sorrow for the last ten years.

Where were the Renegades? She wanted to shout. Where was the Council? Where were your dads?

She clenched her teeth and peered down at their entwined hands. His was warm and solid, while her hand had gone limp.

“My mom was murdered too,” he whispered.

She swallowed. “I know.” Everyone knew. Lady Indomitable had been as much a legend as any superhero.

“I didn’t see it happen, of course. No child should have to go through that. But I did”—his brow scrunched in pain as he spoke—“for a long time, I wondered if maybe it was my fault. At least, in part.”

She jerked, startled at how his words mirrored her own guilt. “How could it have been your fault?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense, but…” He grimaced. “Remember how I said I used to have really vivid nightmares? The ones with the monster? Well, part of that recurring dream I had was where my mom would leave our apartment, flying out through the window to go save the day somewhere in the city, and I would be watching her go, when … this shadow would come over her and she wouldn’t be able to fly anymore. I would watch her fall. I would hear her scream. And I would look up and the monster would be on the rooftop, just … staring at me.”

Nova shivered.

“I had that dream more times than I could count. It got to where I would throw tantrums every time my mom put on her costume. I didn’t want her to go. I was so terrified that she wouldn’t come back. And then, one night, she didn’t.” He met Nova’s gaze. “When they found her body, it was clear the fall had killed her, and there was a look of … of terror on her face. For a long time I thought that my dreams had made it come true. Like maybe they were prophetic or something.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” said Nova, squeezing his hand. “They were dreams, Adrian. It was just a coincidence.”

“I know,” he said, though Nova wasn’t sure if she believed him, or if he believed himself. “But she could fly. How could she have fallen so far without being able to…” He lowered his head. “No villain ever took credit for her death, as far as I know. Which is unlike them—a lot of the villain gangs liked to brag about their victories. And killing Lady Indomitable … that would have been a victory worth bragging about.” His voice turned sour, and it was clear that this mystery had haunted and frustrated him nearly as long as Nova’s past had tormented her.

“You want to find out who did it,” she said slowly, “so you can have revenge.”

“Not revenge,” said Adrian. “Justice.”

She shivered. He said it with conviction, though she wasn’t sure he would recognize the difference in his own heart.

And what of her own heart, she wondered.

Did she want revenge against the Council, or justice?

Her whole body felt heavy thinking about it.

This wasn’t for her. This moment of peace. This sense of safety. This world with no heroes and no villains, where she and Adrian Everhart could sit holding hands inside a childhood dream.

This world didn’t exist.

Rubbing his forehead, Adrian let out a sigh. “I’m sorry. This,” he said, gesturing around, “is supposed to be a dream, not a nightmare.”

A faint smile twitched at the sides of her mouth. “It is a dream, Adrian. The first I’ve had in a long time.”

His eyes shone at her words. Then he fished his marker from his jeans pocket and glanced around. “I have an idea,” he said, turning to a crumbling stone wall. He began to sketch. It amazed Nova that he could create something real and tangible out of nothing. He could go on like this forever, creating a dream within a dream within a dream.