Mom retreated into the kitchen to start putting away the cans and boxes she’d scattered across the linoleum, while Papà sank into a chair at the apartment’s only table. Nova watched him massage his temple for a moment, before he squared his shoulders and started to work on some new project. Nova wasn’t sure what he was making, but she loved to watch him work. His gift was so much more interesting than hers—the way he could pull threads of energy out of the air, bending and sculpting them like golden filigree.
It was beautiful to watch. Mesmerizing, even, as the glowing strips emerged from nothing, making the air in the apartment hum, then quieting and darkening as her father let them harden into something tangible and real.
“What are you making, Papà?”
He glanced over at her, and a shadow passed over his face, even as he smiled at her. “I’m not sure yet,” he said, his fingers tracing the delicate metalwork. “Something … something I hope will put to right some of the great injuries I’ve caused this world.”
He sighed then, a weighted sound that brought a frown to Nova’s face. She knew there were things her parents didn’t talk to her about, things they tried to shelter her from, and she hated it. Sometimes she would overhear conversations between them, words passed through the long hours of night when they thought she was asleep. They whispered about falling buildings and entire neighborhoods being burned to the ground. They murmured about power struggles and how there didn’t seem to be any safe place left and how they might flee the city, but that the violence seemed to have consumed the whole world now, and besides, where would they go?
Only a week ago Nova had heard her mother say—“They’ll destroy us all if no one stops them…”
Nova had wanted to ask about it, but she knew she would get only vague answers and sad smiles and be told that it wasn’t for her to worry about.
“Papà?” she started again, after watching him work for a while. “Are we going to be okay?”
A figment of copper energy spluttered and disintegrated in the air. Her father fixed her with a devastated look. “Of course, sweetheart. We’re going to be fine.”
“Then why do you always look so worried?”
He set down his work and leaned back in his chair. For a moment she thought he might be on the verge of crying, but then he blinked and the look was gone.
“Listen to me, Nova,” he said, slipping off the chair and crouching in front of her. “There are many dangerous people in this world. But there are also many good people. Brave people. No matter how bad things get, we have to remember that. So long as there are heroes in this world, there’s hope that tomorrow might be better.”
“The Renegades,” she whispered, her voice tinged with a hint of awe.
A wisp of a smile crossed her father’s features. “The Renegades,” he confirmed.
Nova pressed her cheek against Evie’s soft curls. The Renegades did seem to be helping everyone these days. One had chased down a mugger who tried to take Mrs. Ogilvie’s purse, and she’d heard that a group of Renegades had broken into one of the gangs’ storehouses and taken all the food to a private children’s home.
“And they’re going to help us?” she said. “Maybe we can ask them for medicine next time.”
Her father shook his head. “We don’t need that sort of help as much as some other people in this city do.”
Nova’s brow furrowed. She couldn’t imagine anyone needing that sort of help more than they did.
“But,” her father said, “when we need them … when we really need them, they’ll be here, all right?” He swallowed, and sounded more hopeful than convincing when he added, “They’ll protect us.”
Nova didn’t question it. They were superheroes. They were the good guys. Everyone knew that.
She found Evie’s pudgy fingers and started to count off each knuckle, while running through all the stories she’d heard. Renegades pulling a driver from an overturned delivery truck. Renegades breaking up a gun fight in a nearby shopping district. Renegades rescuing a child who had fallen into Harrow Bay.
They were always helping, always showing up at just the right moment. That’s what they did.
Maybe, she thought—as her father turned back to his work—maybe they were just waiting for the right moment to swoop in and help them too.
Her gaze lingered on her father’s hands. Watching them mold, sculpt, tug more threads of energy from the air.
Nova’s own eyelids started to droop.
Even in her dreams she could see her father’s hands, only now he was pulling falling stars out of the sky, stringing them together like glowing golden beads …
*
A DOOR SLAMMED.
Nova awoke with a start. Evie huffed and rolled away from her.
Groggy and disoriented, Nova sat up and shook out her arm, which had fallen asleep beneath Evie’s head. The shadows in the room had shifted. There were low voices in the hallway. Papà, sounding tense. Her mom, murmuring, please, please …
She pushed off the blanket that had been draped over her and tucked it around Evie, then crept past the table where a delicate copper-colored bracelet sat abandoned, an empty space in the filigree waiting to be filled with a precious stone.
When she reached the front door, she turned the knob as slowly as she could, prying the door open just enough that she could peer out into the dim hall.
A man stood on the landing—stubble on his chin and light hair pulled into a sleek tail. He wore a heavy jacket, though it wasn’t cold outside.
He was holding a gun.
His indifferent gaze darted to Nova and she shrank back, but his attention slid back to her father as if he hadn’t even seen her.
“It’s a misunderstanding,” said Papà. He had put himself between the man and Nova’s mom. “Let me talk to him. I’m sure I can explain—”
“There’s been no misunderstanding,” the man said. His voice was low and cold. “You have betrayed his trust, Mr. Artino. He does not like that.”
“Please,” said her mom. “The children are here. Please, have mercy.”
He cocked his head, his eyes shifting between them.
Fear tightened in Nova’s stomach.
“Let me talk to him,” Papà repeated. “We haven’t done anything. I’m loyal, I swear. I always have been. And my family … please, don’t hurt my family.”
There was a moment in which it looked like the man might smile, but then it passed. “My orders were quite clear. It is not my job to ask questions … or to have mercy.”