What in the world was she doing?
Maggie walked through the city with Max and Sketch, feeling like a ridiculous fool for even agreeing to this stupid plan in the first place. Dinner with Captain Chromium and the Dread Warden, who'd put her in jail in a heartbeat if they knew anything at all about what she'd been doing for the past three and a half years or what she planned to do in just a couple weeks? Dinner with Sketch, who'd always watched her with eagle eyes and patronizingly asked questions like whether she was making good choices and all that mumbo-jumbo?
Sketch, who Frostbite plans to kill…
Maggie pushed that thought out of her mind. This was a downright idiotic idea, something that could cause the whole plan to come crashing down on her—and the parade was so close. She couldn't risk it. She shouldn't risk it.
She was risking it.
Maybe it was because she didn't want to give the Everhart family any reason to be suspicious of her. Maybe it was because she hadn't wanted to say no and have Sketch follow her into her theater. Maybe she figured the risks of saying yes were slimmer than the risks of saying no.
Or maybe she kind of, sort of, a little bit actually wanted to go over to Max's house.
I'll get to see the glass city he was telling me about. I'll see where he lives, and what his room looks like, and learn more about him… the idea was uncomfortably alluring. And I'll be eating dinner with him. With all of them. We'll probably sit around a big table together, and eat a homemade meal, and it'll feel just like I'm part of the—
No. No, it would not feel just like she was part of the family. Max's family members were her enemies—at least, they would be once she made her debut as Gatlon City's new supervillain. But that was fine. Maggie didn't need a family. She was better off without one.
The walk was long and awkward. Maggie felt uncomfortable talking to Max with Sketch only a few paces away, and she suspected Max felt the same way about talking to her, because he hadn't said much more than a mumbled, "I'm glad you're okay" right as they'd started walking.
Sketch, on the other hand, kept trying to fill the silence with overly-upbeat chatter and questions like, "So, Maggie, what kind of things are you into these days?" to which Maggie mumbled evasive answers and tried not to throw up at his forced cheerfulness.
The streets became less and less shabby as they continued into the richer section of town, past even the classy apartment building where Genissa Clark lived, and eventually into a sprawling neighborhood characterized by enormous houses and thick, stately trees. Maggie couldn't help noticing how some of the houses appeared to be abandoned, with boarded-up windows and yards full of waist-high weeds. I'm living in a falling-apart theater and sleeping on a musty cot in a room made out of stage sets, when all along I could've had my own freaking mansion with a king-sized bed and probably five bathrooms? she thought in dismay, before realizing that living here would mean living closer to the most influential and Renegade-y family in the city.
Eventually, they reached what appeared to be the biggest house of them all, a grandiose mansion with elaborate window arches, at least half a dozen gables, a long flagstone walkway, and a fountain.
An actual fountain, right there in the front yard.
Maggie's abilities didn't translate to determining the value of large, multifaceted objects like houses, but she knew just by looking that this house was worth very, very much.
The yard was barricaded by a tall brick wall, which gave way to a wrought-iron entry gate. Max and Sketch stepped up to stand in front of the gate, and Max motioned for Maggie to do the same. A red light, built into one of the pillars of the gate, swept over the three of them from head to toe. "Good evening, Adrian," it said. "Good evening, Max. Good evening, guest. Please feel free to enter."
Something made a clunking sound inside the gate, which Sketch proceeded to push open. He led the way along the walkway, which wove between two massive green lawns each big enough to host their own games of soccer.
"This is where you live?" she hissed at Max.
He turned to face her, grinning at her confounded expression. "Yeah. I was pretty amazed when I first saw it too."
"I'm not—" She broke off. She was amazed, or at least impressed. Max's house looked almost like the old palaces she used to see pictures of in the stupid picture books they'd had at the children's home.
This is the kind of place I'll get to live in once I'm the ruler of Gatlon City, she reminded herself.
They stepped up onto the spacious front porch, where Sketch reached for an elegant golden handle on the yellow door, and pushed the door open to reveal an ornate hallway dominated by a glossy oak floor, intricate crown moldings, and a glittering crystal chandelier. All the sudden, her powers were going haywire. There were so many valuable things in here.
"Magpie!" Captain Chromium's loud voice effused from the hallway, and Maggie startled, her thoughts instantly switching from admiration to discomfort. She tried not to flinch as he walked forward to shake her hand. "It's nice to see you again."
She smiled politely and shook his hand, even though she was pretty sure he was lying. Her only interactions with the Council back when she was a Renegade had been for disciplinary reasons.
The Dread Warden stepped up behind him, and also greeted Maggie with a handshake and a smile. "Thank you so much for what you did for Max," he said earnestly. "We could not be more grateful."
Captain Chromium nodded vehemently. "Max told us how brave and heroic you were, staying in the fire and trying to help him escape even though Flamethrower was willing to let you go. It takes a courageous and selfless individual to risk their own life for someone else."
She felt her face start to burn, and mixed emotions rose up inside her chest. Pride and accomplishment and something warm and tingly, jumbled together with guilt and embarrassment and the feeling that she was taking credit for what someone else had done. She looked down at the ground and didn't say anything.
"So…" said Max after a moment of awkward silence. "Now that we're here, Maggie, do you want to see my glass city?"
Maggie nodded, a little too quickly. She was excited about seeing the glass city Max had told her about—the new and improved version of the one she'd only been able to see parts of, from a distance, when he'd lived in the quarantine—but she was more eager to get out of the presence of Captain Chromium, the Dread Warden, and Sketch.
"Okay." Max gestured to a grand oak staircase at the end of the hall. "It's up there."
She gave Max's family members a tense nod as she passed them, then followed Max up the stairs and down a long hallway, where they came to a stop at the fourth door on the right.
"This one's the glass city room," said Max, pushing the door open.
It was all she could do not to gasp in awe when she saw it: Gatlon City in miniature spread out across the floor. She'd seen it before, of course—every Superhero Parade for the last three years, arranged on Max's float, which she'd paid more careful attention to than she'd ever like to admit. But she'd never been this close to it. Standing right there, just feet away from the replica of the Harrow Bay Harbor, she was amazed at the level of detail that had gone into every single piece. The buildings had windows. The spires of the tallest towers were perfectly formed, reaching up to create points nearly as high as her shoulders. Painted roadways stretched through the gaps between the buildings, and upon those roadways stood dozens of pedestrians. "Are those all models of actual people?" she asked, turning to look at Max.
He had been watching her, she realized, with an eager-yet-nervous expression, as if excited to see her reaction but also worried that her reaction would be negative. He quickly looked down at the city, toward the cluster of people she was indicating.
"Nah, those are all generic people Adrian drew up. I do have actual models of some real people, like my family and friends and people who've been in the news a lot and stuff like that, but most of these guys are just because I figured populating the city would make it more realistic." He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, then quickly averted his gaze. "I don't have one of you yet. There hasn't been a lot of time to work on things like this now that there's a villain on the loose."
Maggie blushed at the idea of Max having a figurine of her in his glass city. "That's okay," she mumbled, her eyes flicking over to the area where her theater would be. The buildings over in that section were less defined than some of the more prominent towers, and a few of them seemed to be slightly off in proportion. "Shouldn't that be…"
"I know it's not quite correct in a lot of parts," said Max. "Now that I've been over there a couple times, I can spot some of the errors. Like, there's an alley right next to the theater, and that boarded-up storefront is actually a little bit farther down, isn't it?"
Maggie nodded. "And, proportionally, the theater should be a little larger compared to the building next to it."
"Yeah," Max agreed. "I see what you mean. That whole section's still kind of a work in progress."
"But it's really good," said Maggie. "The whole thing is just really, really good. Sketch made all of this?"
"Yep." She could hear the pride in his voice, pride for his big brother. His big brother who was helpful and kind and yes, an obnoxious do-gooder, but still, someone who cared deeply about Max. Someone who cared deeply about Gatlon City as a whole. Someone who didn't deserve to die.
She clenched her fists. She needed to stop thinking about what Frostbite planned to do. Sketch being alive or dead wouldn't affect her one way or the other. The only reason she even remotely cared what happened to him was because of Max. And after the parade was over and she had the helmet and had declared herself as the supreme villain over Gatlon City…
Well, Max wouldn't want anything to do with her.
She swallowed hard, not wanting to think about that either. She looked around the room, over all the glass towers, and realized what was missing from the room. "Where's your bed? And your, like, dressers and stuff?"
"Oh, that's all next door," said Max. "When Adrian first started rebuilding the glass city, it was going to go in my room, but then we realized that was stupid, because it's just Dad and Pops and Adrian and me, so we have all these extra rooms that aren't being used. So we designated this room as the glass city room. Dad and Pops said Adrian could use one of the other rooms as an art studio if he wanted, but he likes his studio downstairs."
"Nova doesn't live with you guys?" Maggie asked. She had kind of assumed she did, considering how disgustingly lovey-dovey Nova and Sketch were every time she had the misfortune of seeing them together.
Max's face twitched weirdly when she said Nova's name, but he just shook his head. "She and Cyanide run a shop downtown. They live there."
Cyanide. The name brought back the vivid memory of meeting the ex-villain the night she'd sneaked into the watch factory. Of him mistaking her for Nova because of what she was wearing. Of their weird conversation about heroes and villains, and of the fact that they'd seen each other before. When they'd locked eyes during the Renegade Parade three and a half years ago and he'd seemed to recognize her.
Would Max have an idea of why Cyanide might have known her? Did she dare ask him?
"Do you want to see my room?" Max asked before she had the chance to decide whether she wanted to say anything.
She startled out of her thoughts. "What? Your room?"
Max's face colored slightly. "We don't have to if you don't want to. Actually, it's pretty messy in there, so it's probably better if we—"
"No," Maggie interrupted. "I want to see it." She felt her own face heat up a little at how eager she sounded, and gave a little shrug, trying to play up her nonchalance. "I mean, if you want to show it to me, I don't care if it's messy. Chester and Yasmin aren't exactly the neatest people around."
It was only after they'd stepped back into the hallway that she realized how freely she'd thrown out Yasmin's name. What if Captain Chromium or the Dread Warden or Sketch had heard her? Sure, the name "Yasmin" didn't automatically indicate "Dagger," but still. She needed to be more careful. About everything.
Max opened the door to the next room over and stepped inside, gesturing to the room as a whole. "So… yeah. This is my room. As I said, it's a mess."
Maggie looked around the room, taking in the old-fashioned curtains, the four-poster bed, the oak dressers, and the desk which was cluttered with all sorts of papers and trinkets. Max was right—the room was messy, the floor laden with yet more papers, a few glass city pieces, and random articles of clothing. But despite all that, it had a comfortable feel to it.
"Whoa," she exhaled when she saw that one of the walls was painted with a full spread skyline of Gatlon City. "Sketch again?"
Max nodded. "He did that one too," he explained, pointing to the opposite wall, which held a mural of some popular video game characters.
"He's really talented," Maggie admitted. She'd known that Sketch could draw things into reality, of course, and had figured he'd need to be a pretty good artist to be able to do that. But she'd never seen this much of his artwork up close.
"He is," Max agreed.
Maggie couldn't think of anything to say after that. They stood there for a moment, the silence stretching on to the point of awkward, before Max walked over to the nightstand beside his bed and picked up a deck of cards. "Wanna play something?"
"Sure," said Maggie, relieved that they'd found something to do.
Max sat down on the bed, placing the cards down beside him, and Maggie gingerly sat on the other side of the cards, maintaining a wide berth between the two of them. "What do you want to play?" asked Max.
"Um." Maggie's mind raced as she realized she didn't actually know any card games. "I don't know. What's your favorite game?"
"Spades," he replied. "Do you know how to play?"
She shook her head. "But you can teach me."
"You sure?" he asked. "What's your favorite game? We can play that if you want."
"Nah." She waved her hand through the air. "I'm tired of all my favorite games. Teach me how to play Spades."