Prologue

The air was still, not a ripple cast out across the pond, and the stars shimmered against the blackened night sky. The dirt beneath her feet was soft and damp as it seeped between her toes, her heels sinking into the mud as she stared up at the sky.

"You see it?"

Her father laid a hand on her shoulder, his fringe falling into his eyes as he looked down at her with a smile.

"You see the Big Dipper and the little one?"

He raised his finger to the sky, tracing the lines between the stars to aid her where she could not see. She scrunched up her nose and squinted at the stars, straining to see the spoon in the sky. The wind picked up and a cold breeze swept past, the chill cutting through her thin, woolen sweater.

"I can see the handle but…" She shook her head. "It's no use, Papa."

Her father knelt down beside her and wrapped an arm around her waist. He seemed more tired than usual; there were dark circles beneath his blue eyes, his blonde hair was greased back with sweat and a dark spot of blood stuck his shirt to his side. Worry ate at her gut but she'd grown used to that feeling, the anxiety that followed her into her dreams.

No one is unbeatable, it whispered in her ear at night. They won't always be here to save you.

Too used to the sound of their taunts, she rolled over in bed and drifted off to sleep.

Hands shaking, her father pointed toward the stars. "Here, Nova. See how the cluster follows around like this?"

She squinted again. "I think…I see it!"

A tired smile broke out across his face. Something troubled him, something he couldn't tell her, and she knew better than to pry into his business but the wounds on his body were a terrible burden on her conscience.

Was Mama okay? she wanted to ask. Will we have to move again? Did something happen to the Kiryus? Are we safe, Papa? Will we be alright?

But the words escaped her and she remained silent.

"I would've studied the stars in another life," said her father. He gazed up at the sky with a twinkle of wonder in his eye, though his voice wavered on the verge of tears. "But fate brought me to your mother, to you. I hoped the both of us would have a new beginning with you, my girl. That's why we named you, Nova. For you were the new beginning we'd dreamt of."

As his weary smile faded, her father held her tight to his side as they stood there together. Though her anxiety had not softened, it was easy to feel calm within her father's grasp. He smelled of pine needles and grass, as if he'd spent the day running through the wood around their house. Mama would kill him if he got more pine needles in the kitchen, green spikes scattered across the floorboards for her to step on in the dead of night.

"Is everything alright, Papa?"

Her words rattled the stars. The world plunged into a darker mood.

"I don't know, Nova," her father replied. "I hope we might be. Come now, we should get back to the house before Mama gets worried."

She supposed she should've opened her eyes then, been less naïve then, made an effort to help them then. But she was a child in a world that devoured and what else could she do but scream as her father was cut down like rabid dog?

His body hit the floor before her mother could even raise a finger to stop it. A white-knuckled hand wrapped around her daughter's wrist, her mother pulled her close. Blood poured down her face from a deep cut on her forehead and her black hair clung to her bloodied cheeks.

"Don't let them ruin you, Nova," she whispered. "Don't let them make you a monster."

With a mother's tenderness, she kissed her cheek and turned to face her death.

By the end of the night, a silver collar was slapped around Nova's neck. No longer a child to be protected, she was thrown into a cage like the rabid dogs that might tear her apart.

She'd always been afraid of needles. When her mother had taken her to get her first round of flu shots, Nova had screamed and cried at the very mention of sharp steel being pressed against her skin. The hair on the back of her neck stood tall, her cries echoed off the sterile, white walls of the doctor's office and her mother held her still as she squirmed against the doctor who gave the shot.

When it was all over, flustered and a little embarrassed, Nova wiped her eyes and leaned against her mother's arm.

"Was that so bad?" she asked, running her fingers through her daughter's hair.

Nova had been too proud to answer then, a childish stubbornness still running through her veins, but now, she knew. The tiny needles that the doctor had slipped into the crook of her forearm had been nothing at all. The thick, steel needles that Dr Kiri shoved into her spine were the true nightmare she'd been missing.

Instead of a mother to hold her hand, she had handlers holding down every muscle as she shrieked against the pain. Instead of a soothing pat on the back, she got black eyes and broken bones for crying out in agony. And instead of a father to tuck her in after a long, painful day, she was thrown into her cage like a fresh deer carcass thrown into a stockroom.

Today was no different. Her cage had always been cold, more a freezer than a real room, and the off-white tiles that lined the ten-by-ten room absorbed the frigid temperature better than anything else. But as her body shivered with a fever, the tiles were the best place to cool down. The holes in her back began to numb the longer she lay on the floor, the sickening scent of blood and iron coating the air in a thick haze. She couldn't smell anything else – just her own blood smeared across the white tiles and caking her spine, her hands and her hair.

With nothing else to do push through the pain, Nova wondered and remembered and dreamt of the life she'd had before the nightmare began.

In a moment far away, the room was a faded purple. The wallpaper was peeling along the skirting boards, a fact her mother had tried desperately to hide, and Nova had been squeezed into a white dress with sleeves that itched at her wrists.

"We'll never be ready," her mother cried from the kitchen. "God, why did they ever choose us?"

"I don't know," her father replied. "Why does anyone choose small children for early life betrothals? It's insane."

"But this is the Kiryus. They're loyal Hunters. They're good Hunters. We've never been either, how could they choose our family for this? When did the Association even arrange marriages?"

"Didn't you say they did genetic testing on you last week? Maybe that has something to do with it."

"Like what, Bram?"

"Um…good immune system?"

"You're insufferable."

Nova giggled from behind the kitchen door. Her parents had been so lively then, so full of laughter and life and joy. They weren't the best at their jobs. They came home with a patchwork of bruises in yellow, green and purple, broken bones set in casts, deep cuts sown together with string. But they loved their home and they loved her. What more could a daughter want from parents?

There was a knock at the front door. A terrible anger overcame Nova, scrunching up her nose in disgust at whoever had chosen to interrupt such a happy moment. There hadn't been too many of those that month, with her father's continued injuries leaving him bed-ridden most days and her mother's terrifying circles of cleaning the house over and over and over again until she collapsed with exhaustion. It had been nice to hear her mother laugh again, nice to see them have a little fun.

"Oh God, they're here," said her mother. "I'm gonna clean the kitchen again."

"Put the damn sponge away, Miki," said her father. The kitchen door swung wide open, almost smacking Nova square in the nose, and a bright yellow sponge flew over the dining room table.

Nova couldn't help but laugh again.

Yanked back into her cage, pain ricocheted up her spine. Kotaru, one of her handlers, nudged her shoulder with the tip of his steel cap boots. The pain roared within her but all she could do was groan. A scowl rippled across Kotaru's face and he failed to hide his disgust.

"Wonder how long this lab rat will last."

Kotaru had a tendency to talk to himself in her cage at night. Nova listened intently, though it was unclear whether he knew she listened at all, and offered replies in long bouts of piercing silence. Perhaps he has no one else to talk to, she thought as she fought the fever dreams that threatened to swallow her whole. Or maybe he just wants to taunt me.

"Doc says there's something special about you," he went on. "Something in your blood, in your genes. He wants to unlock it. Don't think he has the key though. Probably why you're all bloody like this…you're just his practice for lock-picking."

Nova groaned, the ache in her spine seeping into her bones.

"You know, you make it hard to feel bad for you though. Fighting so hard against us when you get the injections. It just frustrates us. We're short-tempered people, us Hunters. We get angry quicker than most. But I suppose I do feel sorry for you…as sorry as I can be for a lab rat."

The fever dream won the battle and it dragged Nova into sleep.

"Again."

There was blood on the training room floor again. Red, sticky and drooling from her mouth – it pooled in the wood grains and congealed under the harsh florescent lights. Nova brought a hand to her face, gingerly pinching the bridge of her nose. A shock-wave of pain lanced through her brain but there was good news to be had: her nose was still intact.

Yagari tapped the floorboards with his fighting stick. His looming figure cast a shadow over Nova as she struggled to her knees. His one blue eye glared down at her, as cold as the winter snow and as hard and immovable as the silver chain wrapped around her neck.

He tapped the stick once more. "Again."

Wiping the blood from her mouth, Nova shook her head. "I won't-"

"Again!"

Yagari swung his fighting stick hard at her head. Nova jolted back to avoid the blow and, off-balance, fell onto her back. Though she hadn't had any injections in the last week, there was always some wound that was yet to fully heal. Today, it seemed the base of her spine was still tender and pain erupted through her hips, snaking its way down into her thighs.

She let out a short cry and heaved for breath, the blow and the ensuing pain knocking the wind out of her gut.

"I can't!" she choked.

Yagari exhaled a deep sigh, dropping the fighting stick to the ground. Reaching into the pocket of his jeans, he pulled a handkerchief free and offered it her. "You've got to be better than this. You stop fighting out there, you'll die in an instant."

"Doesn't sound too bad," Nova replied, taking the handkerchief. "Better than being in here. Stuck in a cage."

Yagari scoffed. "I don't disagree…but you owe it to your parents to keep going. They never would've wanted you to give up, would they?"

The image of her father's body hitting the kitchen floorboards flashed before her eyes. Her mother's perfume, smelling of rosewater and honey, wafted past her nose. Who knows what they would've wanted, she thought. They're not here to tell me that anymore.

The handkerchief was soaked with a deep, burgundy red as she offered it back to him. She could smell nothing but iron now, bitter and sickening as it settled in the back of her throat.

"Best take me back to my cage," she said. "Don't want to give the pet too much of a taste for the outside world."

Shoving the bloodied cloth into his pocket, Yagari knelt down and wrapped an arm around her waist. As he hoisted her to her feet, Nova couldn't help but think of that last night with her father, his arm holding her tight to his side as he admired the stars in the last few hours of his life.

"You're not an animal, Nova," said Yagari. "You'll get through this. One way or another."

Head lolling to the side, Nova rolled her eyes. "As if I have another choice."

Fire, even in the beginning, had always been easy to conjure. Surely stoked by the silent rage that roared like an inferno inside her, Nova could bring flames to her palm at the slightest instruction. Learning to control the flames, however, was an entirely other ordeal. Though the heat didn't burn her, it scorched much of the furniture. The fighting sticks were the first to crumble to ash in some accidental explosion, then the guard's chairs outside her cage and the numerous stacks of paperwork in the nurse's office. Even Dr Kiri's expensive, pinewood desk went up in flames eventually, though it was hard for Nova to say that was an accident.

After fire, ice and soil came quickly under her command. The small houseplant given to her by Yagari began to grow well beyond its limits, Nova's careful touch and a hint of magic encouraging it to overtake most of her cage before it was cut down. The wounds from her injections became easier to live with once she finally learnt to conjure ice at the small of her back, numbing the dull aches and pains that once plagued her.

Thoughts were the hardest things to control. Nova never really knew when she had invaded someone else's head, not until their thoughts betrayed them and she was pulled inside their minds by the sheer force of her inexperience. It was even harder to figure out how to leave someone's head after she'd entered, for everyone's brains seemed to be a unique labyrinth of memory and emotion. Dr Kiri was the first mind she invaded, his intense focus on jamming a needle with width of a hose into her spine lowering his mental defences.

His thoughts ran in a tight circle, a silent mantra repeating itself over and over again inside his head.

Not too far in or she'll be paralysed. Not too far to the right or I might puncture her liver. Not too far left or I might sever her spinal cord and she'll die.

Needless to say, Nova had screamed the loudest she'd ever screamed that day during injections. She lost a tooth for it, as Kotaru struck her hard in the jaw. This new ability, the invasion of people's minds, was a constant shock to her system and she fought hard to avoid ever having to use it. But Dr Kiri loved the development and found every possible way to exploit it.

"I wonder if the mutation will allow for control of a foreign subject," he wondered aloud. "That was be a great asset to the Association."

Everything was a great asset to the Association, Nova deduced. Fighting a losing battle against unbeatable creatures must have seemed like a terrible thing for the Hunters to put their faith in bloody, unethical science.

All the while, a second train of thoughts and emotions emerged from within her mind. Her voice – its voice – was coarse and it rasped in her ear in the dead of night, poking and prodding with every word.

so passive, child. you realise your have the power to rip their spines from their skin and toss them aside like rag dolls?

Nova did her best to ignore her, this new, malevolent voice inside her head.

you suffer, child, but you fail to think of revenge. did your mother not teach you to purge the earth of men who would use your body?

She tried with all her might to push it down.

weak. you're nothing but weak, child. is this how you repay the parents you lost?

But most of the time, Nova couldn't escape her. She stayed silent and endured the insults that came, ever obedient and ever the willing test subject.

His hair shimmered like a star against the blackest night. Nova had never seen hair like that before, except perhaps in the photos of her aging grandmother sat up on the mantelpiece. No, she thought as she fiddled with the sleeves of her dress, Oma's hair never shone like that. Maybe his hair is made out of stars.

"Nova!" Her mother snatched at her hands; her desperate whisper laced with anxiety. "Stop fiddling. This is important!"

Nova folded her hands in her lap. "Yes, Mama."

Her sleeves continued to itch at her wrists but she knew better than to disobey. Perpetually obedient, she recalled her father's funny foreign saying; "You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, my dear."

The Kiryus were a quiet family. The mother wore a persistent look of fierce defiance, her forehead creased with hard lines and ridges though those features failed to age her. Their father was tall, though not taller than Nova's father, and he towered over his children with an unwavering aura of authority. Their lavender eyes, dispersed from mother to sons, glinted under the light. The father's silver hair echoed into his sons, a trait that Nova would find hard to forget later on in life.

"We're delighted to meet you," said Nova's father, his anxiety betraying him as his foreign accent poked through. "The Association's always buzzing with your exploits. It's good to finally meet the faces behind it all."

The mother smiled, brushing her loose blonde hair behind her ear. "We're happy to meet you all too. It's not often the Association organises betrothals but they have their reasons for these things. Hopefully, over time, Zero and Nova will grow to like each other."

At the mention of her name, Nova jolted to attention. Her mother squeezed her wrist beneath the table. "H-Hi," she stuttered. "I'm Nova. P-pleased to meet…you?"

She struggled to form words, the language of her father intermingling with her native tongue as anxiety clawed at her gut. It was easy to forget where she was when she was nervous and language was always the first thing to falter. Nova held her breath and turned to her father, desperate for reassurance. He offered her a sly grin, his thumb raised in approval, and then diverted his gaze back to the Kiryus.

"I apologise," her father explained. "I've been teaching Nova my own language and sometimes she gets a little mixed up. I'm afraid my status as a foreigner betrays me."

The Kiryu father shook his head. "Not at all. Your accent's barely recognisable."

"Thank you," her father replied, though as his accent poked through again, his cheeks flushed and he diverted his eyes toward the floor.

The Kiryu mother laid a hand on her son's shoulder, his lavender eyes turned up toward her. "Zero, say hello to Nova."

A bolt of colour flashed before her eyes, swirling around the boy's head and then darting out of sight. The spectre was blue – no, purple. With a streak of yellow through the centre. Nova squinted hard to see it again, the ghost that circled Zero, but it had left too quickly and there was nothing left to see.

The boy, Zero, could barely conjure a smile. "Hi."

The ghost appeared behind him, a streak of purple that reached toward the ceiling, and disappeared in the very same instant. Nova gasped, startled by the apparition. What was that thing, hiding in plain sight? Her eyes darted from peeling wallpaper to Zero's silver hair. Was she being tricked? She shook her head, determined to shake the image of the ghost from her brain.

Nova felt her mother squeeze her wrist again, desperate for her daughter's cooperation. "Nova? Are you okay?"

She struggled to find the right answer. "Sorry, I-I just saw…sorry."

Zero narrowed his gaze at her. The ghost appeared again, towering over him like a monster out of a fairytale. Nova jumped to her feet out of fright, knocking her chair to the ground. The spirit was darker this time, more black than purple as it sunk into Zero's shoulders and out of sight again. It seemed connected to the boy, fused with his body and his hair that glimmered like the stars.

"Mama, I don't feel good," she said, hiding the shivering in her arms as she cradled her stomach. "I keep seeing…behind him, there's…I…"

Nova shut her eyes, terrified of seeing the spirit again. She'd never seen a ghost before, not even in their old house where so many people had come before them. Why now? Why him?

A hand pressed against her forehead. Nova jumped, frightened by the contact. As she opened her eyes, the boy's silver hair was suddenly so close and his piercing gaze had softened with concern. She reached out and caught a strand of his fringe between her fingers.

"Soft…but not stars," she whispered.

The boy didn't seem to notice. "You have a fever," he said, worry lacing his tone. "Do you need an ice pack?"

The world began to tilt to the right, her vision turning fuzzy at the edges. "I'm alright. I'm oh…okay…"

The purple wallpaper faded to black but for a small moment, Nova swore the purple ghost caught her before she hit the floor.

"You shouldn't give a caged animal hope, Kaito. You'll only make it harder to control."

Nova turned the enamel knob at the head of her guitar, tightening the steel strings across the oakwood body. She plucked at 'A' and a shrill note echoed off the tiles. Too tight, let it lose. The steel creaked against the strain and Nova worried, just for a moment, that the string might snap. Her guitar had been a gift, a forbidden one that was almost snatched from her arms the first time she held it. Replacement strings would not be easy to come by, impossible almost.

Nova gave 'A' another try. Better. Much better. She thrummed the collection of strings, ears pricked for any imperfections, but she couldn't hear anything over Kaito.

"It's not hope, Nova. It's reality," he insisted. "Why do you think Yagari's been training you?"

Nova shrugged. "I don't question the practicality of the things they put me through."

"Like a loyal pet?" Kaito sneered. "Is that all you want to be? A pet?"

Nova ran her finger over the strings once more. The gentle harmony vibrated through the guitar's wooden body and bounced off the ceramic tiles adorning the walls.

"I've never been a pet, Kaito. I've been a monster on display. What good would it do to marry a monster to a man? What good could come from releasing it into the world?"

"It's not marriage," he said. "Just betrothal."

Nova stretched her fingers across the fretboard, aligning her fingertips in the formation of a 'G' chord. She wanted to play a song her mother had shown her on piano when she was young but she didn't know the strum pattern and her head was littered with cracks and holes where memories should reside.

"Like before? With Zero?" Nova strummed out a tune anyway. "A whole lot of protection that betrothal did me. Who's to say this one will do anything at all?"

"It'll get you out of here, that's what it'll do."

Nova couldn't bring herself to look Kaito in the eye. It was hard enough to be lied to all these years, told day in, day out that she might be free of this place if she just does this one, salient thing. But then that thing would be complete and the finish line would be moved, just a little further out of reach. Nova had long since resided herself to the cage she'd been afforded and the small luxuries she'd been given; her guitar, her mother's opal pendant and her father's drawings of the constellations held together in leather bindings.

Her world was small but it was all she allowed. Dreaming of anything more only lead to disappointment.

Her fingers began to ache as she held the chords against the fretboard. The order was right but the melody was so very wrong, an off beat corrupting the tune of the song. Nova frowned, searching her memory for the right pattern.

"You could be more than a monster in a cage, Nova," Kaito went on. "More than this thing that they—"

"Please stop."

The room was enveloped with a resounding silence. Nova let her hand drop from the neck of her guitar, hitting her pillow with a dull thud. She let out a sigh as Kaito's words began to settle in her stomach. Tears welled at the corners of her green eyes.

you really believe him? said the voice inside her. a man with nothing to lose but his dignity? really, child? how naïve of you.

Nova knew the voice was right. It was stupid to believe him, even more stupid to trust that he could keep his word, but the childish part of her soul wanted desperately to believe it. Maybe he'd protect her when they came to take her back. Maybe he'd tell them to stop beating her at night. Maybe, just maybe, he'd take her away from here for good.

Nova opened her eyes. "You'll keep your word?"

"Of course." He offered his hand, the best form of sincerity he could give.

Nova held her breath and took it.

"Okay."