It didn’t take long for them to get kicked out of the Oracle, leaving Vivainne with hundreds of questions she’d hardly been able to voice. She would have, if she’d been able to speak, but standing in front of Ashfall and Manhattan had turned her tongue to lead.

  Waiting outside the Oracle room stood a tall, narrowly built boy with lighter skin than his mother and his father’s signature supertrait hair, red until it faded to white at the tips. He was one of Pip’s guests at her birthday party, though Vivainne hadn’t so much as spoken to him.

  “Florence!” Pip cheered, throwing her arms up almost as if she wanted to hug him before rethinking the action.

  “I’m jealous,” Florence said, his eyes flicking past them to the door sealed tightly shut, Thalia still inside. “They almost never let me go in there.”

  “Grandma Thalia is trying to woo us,” Pip said with a shrug. “It’s so cool though.”

  “It really is,” Florence agreed. “Is the New Denver Oracle like this?”

  “Wouldn’t know,” Pip said with a shrug. “I’ve never been allowed in.”

  Florence blinked his long eyelashes slowly. “Really? What gives, you’d think they’d at least let you visit?”

  “Mum doesn’t want us around hero shit until we’re grown,” Pip said. “Your parents let you go around it?”

  “Of course,” he said, running a hand over his dreadlocked hair. “I practically have the run of this place.”

  “Except for the Oracle.”

  “Well, it is classified stuff,” Florence said. “But yeah, they want me involved, since they want me to be a hero.”

  “I wish,” Pip muttered, letting out a long sigh.

  Vivianne glanced between them, silent but curious. She would have thought that any Carter would want their children involved with the world, considering just how influential they were. To imagine someone didn’t want a Carter child to be a hero was… strange.

  “What about you?” Florence said, turning abruptly to Vivainne. “I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be rude. My name’s Florence.”

  He held out a long fingered hand, offering it up between them. Vivainne blinked slowly, then grasped it, his handshake firm and surprisingly warm. She pulled her hand back, fingers tingling from the heat.

  “Vivainne,” she said, reminding herself to smile.

  “You’re here to tour as well, aren’t you?” Florence asked.

  “I am.”

  “What connects you to the Carters? I know you’re not Pip’s girlfriend, unless she broke up with the other one sometime in the last week.”

  “Hey!”

  “No,” Vivainne said quickly. God, she didn’t need anyone thinking she was connected to Pip, especially not like that. “Thalia Carter is just doing my…” What was she supposed to call Recompense? “Caretaker a favor. I’m living with Recompense right now.”

  “Oh,” Florence said, eyebrows knitting together. “Why’s that?”

  “Recompense is family,” Pip threw in helpfully. “He’s basically my uncle.”

  “So that would make you two cousins.” The way Florence said the words, the corners of his lips tilting upward mischievously, told Vivainne exactly what he thought of the idea.

  “No,” Vivainne said quickly, shutting the idea down immediately. They weren’t family, and she didn’t need anyone getting that idea. She had a complicated enough family as it was. “I’m just here to see the program. I’ll probably stay in Los Angeles, though.”

  Something sparkled in Florence’s eyes. “Why don’t you see what we have to offer before making that decision.”

  He led the way down the stairs, steering them through the massive building. Once down on the main floor, which Vivainne realized was only one of many floors throughout the skyscraper, he led them onto an elevator. With a card from the lanyard around his neck, he brought them down to the training level. They passed floor after floor, descending so deep Vivainne felt the moment they were past the level of sunlight, still dropping floor after floor.

  They must be underground, she realized as the elevator finally came to a halt.

  Before the door could open, Florence reached out and pressed a button, grinning at them. “Prepare yourselves.”

  “Stop being dramatic,” Pip snapped, grabbing him by the sleeve of his white sweater and hauling him out of the way. The moment his finger left the button, the doors slid open, releasing them into a massive, sprawling campus far beneath New York City.

  “Welcome to the world’s premier hero training program,” Florence said, lifting his arms with a flare. “What do you want to see first?”

  The elevator doors slid shut in his face.

  “Fuck,” he muttered, pressing the button to open the doors again before someone could summon their lift back up to the surface.

  “Nerd,” Pip cackled. The door opened and she barreled out, entering into a surprisingly quiet thoroughfare. Vivainne followed, eyes sweeping to take it all in. Thalia wasn’t lying. It certainly was more impressive than Los Angeles or New Denver.

  And it was quiet, too.

  “Where is everyone?” she asked, her words echoing through the massive room. She cringed at the volume, pulling in on herself as she awaited an answer.

  “Christmas break,” Florence explained. “Most everyone goes home to visit family or go on vacation. Which means we have the run of the place.”

  “This is so cool,” Pip whispered. So I’m not the only one intimidated by this place, Vivainne thought, the realization giving her the presence of mind to straighten back up. There was no reason to be intimidated. She’d done more heroic things than Pip had, especially if the Carter had never been exposed to the hero world until now. Vivainne had fought criminals and villains, even if they were all members of her own family.

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  “Come on,” Florence said, grabbing Pip’s arm and looping it with his own. “You aren’t going to believe the training arenas they have here. There’s systems that can almost perfectly replicate someone’s power so you can train against them.”

  “No way.”

  The two drifted off, leaving Vivainne standing alone in the massive space, ceiling so far above her, illuminated by glaring fluorescent lights. So different from the underground lab her mother had built.

  Even underground, the hero’s space was full of light and fresh air, little indication they were far beneath the earth other than the lack of windows. There were no shadows here, none that Vivainne could slip into and hide inside of. How was she supposed to fit in here?

  She was the daughter of a villain, a villain who would soon be going to trial. Once that happened, her family name would be everywhere, and everyone would know where Vivainne had come from. How was she supposed to deal with that?

  A faint rattling caught her ear, like the drifting of sand against stone. She glanced around, only noticing the crawling of glitter across the tile floor when it began to grow, forming into a familiar woman.

  Glitterbomb, Artemis Carter, smiled warmly at Vivainne. “Nice to see you decided to come.”

  “Pip is up that way,” Vivainne said, pointing.

  “Oh, I heard,” Artemis said, shaking her head. Her hair shimmered with the faintest bit of glitter, light catching on her golden locks. “They’re making quite the racket. Why aren’t you with them?”

  Vivainne shook her head. Why would she be with the two young supers? She was only here because Recompense didn’t want her in the city. Those two were already fast friends, she didn’t need to intrude on their fun. “I’m just taking it all in,” she said instead.

  “Why don’t I show you around,” Artemis offered, already on the move. Was this something Carters did? They just moved and expected the whole world to follow them.

  Not one to disappoint, however, Vivainne followed. Her nerves and fears faded to the background as Artemis led her through the underground campus, pointing out classrooms and training arenas with special tech to ward off life ending injuries. Obstacle courses and huge climbing towers, with a clubhouse at the very top. A room with top of the line super tech with replicas of famous heroes and villains and their powers, which Pip and Florence were already putting to good use.

  Florence threw a fireball from his fist, exploding against the creation of the villain Aquasus. Before the flames cleared, Pip leapt at the villain, massive crafted sword in hand. Glass, she’d said her power was. Apparently, tough enough glass to withstand a close combat fight.

  Watching them fight, the sinking feeling returned. “I don’t think I belong here,” Vivainne murmured, a pit opening up in her stomach and dropping her into the depths.

  “Why don’t I show you something else,” Artemis said slowly. She led them away from the simulated battle and down a long hallway, darker than the rest. “There is more than enough space in this world for supers who do more than throw a punch.”

  She stopped in front of an unassuming black door, no sign on the front to indicate its purpose. With a tap of her keycard, she opened the door, into a dark, dank alley. The smell hit Vivainne’s nose immediately, mildew and other unsavory scents, mingled together in the still air.

  “On the other side of that wall, there’s a villain’s lair,” Artemis said, pointing down the alleyway. When Vivainne snapped around to stare at her, she continued. “Not real, of course, but it’s a real enough situation. There’s a lot more to being a hero than going out swinging. Sometimes that means infiltration. Sometimes, that means going undercover to discover just what someone is up to. You’re familiar with that, aren’t you?”

  “And what if I don’t want to do that?” Vivainne asked, and though she was still standing behind the hero, all she could remember was standing in her mother’s lab and listening to herself scream.

  “Then we find another place for you,” Artemis said with a shrug. “We take anyone, regardless of their power, and we find a place for them. Or did you really believe that anyone thought a glitter shifter would be an impressive hero?”

  “But you’re a Carter.”

  “Sure,” Artemis said. “But that only worked against me. You’re a Monet. That’s going to work against you too. It’s up to you to decide what to build for yourself.”

  Vivainne nodded, silent as she stared into the simulated alley. Artemis made a good point, but that didn’t alleviate the feeling that Vivainne was an imposter in this world. She wasn’t even meant to have this power. For all she knew, she was stealing another deserving super’s spot, one who would have made a far better hero than she would.

  Artemis nudged her into the alley. “Give it a shot,” she ordered, closing the door behind her. Her voice echoed through the space she’d just been standing as the darkness closed in. “I’ll be watching.”

  Vivainne let out a sigh as she stared into the dark alley. Carters certainly did expect the world to bend before them, and who was Vivainne to say no?

  The familiar weight of darkness settled over her shoulders, and she allowed her core to do what it wanted to: fade into it. No longer was she standing in the shadows, she was the shadows, and that meant she could see everything. The crook waiting around the corner, sitting just out of sight of the main alley, a gun in his hand. A gun. How quaint.

  The ceiling didn’t reach high enough for Vivainne to reach the roof, but that didn’t matter. She crawled along the seams in the brick, moving silently past the guard. Only a moment’s hesitation brought her back, considering him again. It probably wasn’t smart to leave someone sitting right outside, was it?

  Vivainne reached out, a tendril of shadow as her arm to grab the avatar, when she thought again. She didn’t know what she was doing here, or what she was supposed to find, only that it was a villain’s lab. The last thing she needed to do was alert the villain inside that someone was here.

  Turning back around, she left the guard alone, and piercing through the wall of the building.

  She wasn’t quite sure what gave her the power to move through walls, only that to her mind, it made sense. If light couldn’t reach inside the wall, that meant they were dark, which meant she could reach them.

  The wall was thick, brick on the outside and lined with something on the inside. Soundproofing, she realized after a moment’s inspection. It sent a sliver of dread through her, though she knew none of this was real. Soundproofing rarely meant something good.

  The lair was sparsely furnished, with only two figures waiting inside. Evidently, this wasn’t supposed to be a big time villain, just a small timer. Considering as much, Vivainne only half paid attention to their conversation as she crept around the room. Their plans weren’t sophisticated, and didn’t matter to Viv, considering she was going to stop them before they ever left the room.

  She was going to stop them. How, she hadn’t decided yet. It wasn’t like she had a lot of experience with this, and the only fight she’d had ended with half a building destroyed and enough cuts and bruises to make her think twice now. But she didn’t need to fight them, did she? They didn’t even know she was here.

  Her shadows stretched out, drinking up the rest of the room. The minimal light the villains had gave her plenty of room to work with. That was the trouble with working in the shadows; there was always someone else doing the same thing.

  With a thrill, her attention caught on a small, out of the way notebook. Being so far away, she couldn’t read it properly, but she could feel the pencil marks on the page. It was the plans to the formula they’d been talking about, something that would allow them to make an attack on their target.

  She listened for a moment longer, shadows wrapping around the notebook as she did. Not stopping them herself was a risk, but… this was the threat, wasn’t it? Not them, not really.

  If it wasn’t, she was making a mistake, but she couldn’t fight them. So she grabbed the notebook and took off for the back door, slipping through the crack between the door and the frame as she phased the notebook just enough to carry with her.

  Rather than another room to escape, she found herself in a small but well lit room, face to face with a stunned Pip.

  Color flushed to her cheeks as her body reformed, clutching the notebook to her chest. Why was Pip watching?

  “That was awesome,” she whispered, her eyes wide.

  “Good job,” Artemis said, sitting in a chair on the other side of the room. She reached out a hand, taking the notebook from Vivainne as she fell prey to the attention and froze. “Like I said, there’s a place for any power in this organization.” She placed another paper in Vivainne’s open palm, tapping it with one pink painted nail. “An application. Think about it. This could be the place for you, you just have to decide.”

  Vivainne stared at the paper in her hands as someone clapped her on the back, Florence and Pip’s voices rising over each other as they spoke in rapid succession. Whatever they were saying, it didn’t matter. She had a decision to make.

  No.

  She had an application to fill out.