Gargoyle’s skin began to morph, losing its crusted, stony exterior, turning splotchy and baby soft. Starting with his head, then moving down his neck, into his shoulders and chest.

He gawked at Nova, stunned.

“Does that upset you?” she taunted.

Gargoyle roared and charged for her, swinging his arm—still stone. Nova lifted her hands. Frostbite screamed.

His fist smashed down onto the solid blocks of ice, shattering them.

His last act before the stone was gone completely.

Gargoyle wailed and collapsed to his knees, but Nova ignored him. With her hands free, she grabbed a second dispersal device from her belt and threw it at Frostbite and Aftershock. It struck the ground and another cloud of green smoke billowed up. Aftershock dropped the helmet and dived away from the explosion while Frostbite fled for the far corner of the lobby. She was screaming orders, but Nova doubted anyone was paying attention to her.

She cursed, doubting either of them had been caught in that cloud of vapor. She had to be more careful—she couldn’t waste them.

Reaching over her shoulder, she grasped the pike where she had strapped it to her back, relieved that Gargoyle had been too arrogant to strip her of it. Freeing it from the harness, she gripped it in both hands and drove the point into the ice at her feet. The ice chipped, then cracked. Four more swings and her legs were free.

Nova pulled herself from the ice and stumbled, crashing to her knees. Her feet were numb. Her legs unwilling to follow directions.

Scrambling on her hands and knees, she forced her limbs to cooperate. She was on her feet again, slipping and stumbling. She lunged for Ace’s helmet and snatched it off the ground. She tried to pivot, but her feet got tangled together and she fell again, slamming her knee into the tiled floor. Cursing, she used the pike as a support as she forced herself back to her feet.

Her path to the main exit was blocked, so she ran the other way. Toward the sky bridge, the stairs, a back exit. Options scrolled through her mind. A map of the building was etched into her memory. She knew every hallway, every door.

Settling on the shortest route, she swung to the left.

An earthquake rumbled beneath her. The earth split, driving a crack between her legs. Nova fell again.

The crack continued past her, burrowing through the red R in the center of the lobby, driving the foundation apart.

Nova gasped as she watched the course of the widening fault line. Straight for the sky bridge.

Straight for the quarantine.

Max hadn’t moved. He didn’t move, even as the ground beneath him split apart.

Nova screamed, but the sound was consumed by ear-splitting cracks of concrete, groans of metal, shattering glass.

One of the support columns broke—the noise as loud as a tree trunk being split by a battering ram.

The sky bridge collapsed.

The quarantine fell.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

ADRIAN STARED INTO the black hole surrounded by the cathedral’s ruins. Ruby and Oscar stood at his side, equally silent. They never would have discovered the staircase if Danna’s butterflies hadn’t clustered around it, forming a quiet, twitching guard at the entrance. The stairs were invisible until you were right on top of them, expertly disguised amid a collection of fallen wall panels and chipped stonework. It seemed random, but after the fight with Phobia, Adrian knew it wasn’t.

How long had the Anarchists been guarding this place? Since they were run out of their tunnels, or even before then? And what could be down there that they wouldn’t move to a less auspicious location? A weapon? A storehouse for stolen goods? A boardinghouse for wayward prodigies?

“Well,” said Oscar, doing a decent job of hiding his apprehension, “I guess I’ll go first.”

He took one step and Adrian clapped a hand on his shoulder, gently pulling him back. Oscar didn’t fight him.

“Oh, right,” he said, tapping his cane lightly on Adrian’s back. It made a quiet clanging noise. “It probably does make more sense for you to go. But if you change your mind—”

“Oscar,” Ruby said, warningly.

He fell quiet.

Adrian started down the stairs. The case was so narrow that he had to angle his body as he went. One flight ended in a short stone landing. He turned and headed down again. His visor adjusted to night vision in the darkness, tinting the underbelly of the cathedral an eerie green. He could hear Oscar and Ruby coming down after him, but their presence kept him tense more than comforted.

He swore to himself that after he told his dads about his secret identity, he would insist that they start incorporating armor into the Renegade uniforms. It could be heavy and clunky at times, but he would have felt better if his friends were half so protected.

A second landing gave way to a slightly wider staircase, and an arched doorway with words carved in ancient Latin.

They passed through a wide chamber. A tomb. White marble sarcophagi lined the opposing walls, watched over by stone figures shrouded in cobwebs and dust. Adrian tried to move with stealth, but his boots clomped against the floor, reverberating through the hollow grave.

A large wooden door fitted with ironwork greeted them at the end of the tomb and around its edges, Adrian detected the faint glimmer of golden light.

Oscar swirled a cloud of vapor around his fingers. At the first sign of trouble, he would fill the space with fog, disorienting potential enemies.

Ruby unhooked the gem from her wrist.

Adrian called forth the slim cylinder on his forearm. The close quarters made him uneasy. It made his springs useless, and a fireball in such a contained space was just as likely to harm his allies. He suspected he would see Queen Bee and Cyanide when he opened that door. His suit would protect him from both, at least for a while, and it would be a quick fight with Oscar and Ruby at his side.

Especially if the Anarchists were caught off guard, though every clapping footstep made that more unlikely.

Adrian placed a hand on the door and braced himself. Behind him, he pictured Smokescreen and Red Assassin taking up position.

Setting his jaw, he yanked open the door.

A skeleton stood on the other side.

Ruby squeaked and swung her gem at it—instinct, Adrian guessed, as much as anything. It struck the skeleton between two rib bones and the whole thing shattered, collapsing to the stone floor with a melody of wooden knocking. Its skull rolled against Adrian’s foot.

Heart pounding, he swept his gaze upward. They were in the catacombs. More coffins were surrounded by walls of bones, shelves of skulls. Two standing candelabras held white taper candles that were nearly burned through and a curtain of femurs and clavicles hung across the space, obscuring what was kept behind it.

Phobia? Is this where he returned to when he evaporated like that? Adrian pictured a video-game character being sent back to the start of a level each time they were killed and a laugh stuck in his throat, turning into a choking cough.

The bones at his feet began to shake. They shuffled across the floor and gradually reassembled, until the skeleton stood upright before them again. Its hollow eyes and toothy grin were unchanged, and Adrian wondered if it was only his imagination suggesting irritation coming from the figure.

The skeleton bowed low at the waist and, without lifting his head, gestured dramatically toward the bone curtain.

Adrian stepped inside, giving the skeleton a wide berth. As soon as Ruby and Oscar were inside, the creature climbed up onto a wooden board hung over a sarcophagus, crossed its arms over its chest, and fell asleep. Or, died.

Adrian was still studying the skeleton when the entire curtain of bones fell, crashing into the stone foundation. They scattered to each corner.

He spun around. Air left his lungs. Disbelief mottled his thoughts.

Ace Anarchy.

Ace Anarchy.

He didn’t fully trust his eyes. He couldn’t be entirely sure. There were few photos of the villain without his helmet, and those were largely from his youth—before his rise to power. This man was not young. He did not look powerful either. His pallor was gray and cracked with wrinkles. His hair thin, his body more reminiscent of the skeleton who had welcomed them than the broad-shouldered prodigy who had overthrown an entire government and cast the world into a period of fear and lawlessness.

But his eyes. Dark, nearly black, and every bit as keen as Adrian would have imagined.

He was levitating, his legs crossed like a meditating monk as he hovered over the floor of fallen bones.

And his voice was strong, if also laced with a bone-deep weariness.

“Charmed,” said Ace Anarchy, baring his teeth, “I’m sure.”

Adrian was thrown against a wall. His back struck the stone so hard it sent rivulets of dust raining from the ceiling. He grunted and strained to move, but while his limbs inside the suit were free, the armor itself was immobilized.

Adrian cursed.

Telekinesis.

He’d thought the suit would protect him, but of course it wouldn’t, not against a telekinetic like Ace Anarchy.

The catacombs filled with white smoke, so thick Adrian couldn’t see past his visor. He struggled harder. If he could just move his arm, he could get to the switch on his chest that would retract the suit—

It was no use. Ace wasn’t going to release him.

He heard Ruby’s battle cry and he imagined her swinging her dagger-sharp bloodstone at Ace Anarchy’s throat, but then her cry turned into a yelp of surprise.

Adrian’s entire body tensed, and he fought against the invisible bindings again, but it was useless. He slammed his head against the back of the helmet and forced his muscles to relax. He had to be calm. He had to think.

There were grunts and cries of unleashed fury, and he found himself wishing that the smoke wasn’t quite so thick so he could see what was happening.

Adrian urged his heart rate to slow. Think. Think.

His fingers flexed and for a moment he thought Ace’s control of him was loosening, but then he realized that Ace wasn’t concerned about his fingers, not when he had his body secured from neck to wrists to ankles.

He turned his head as much as he could within the helmet. The dust was thick on the wall. It had coated his suit when he had crashed against it.