Archenemies

I read Archenemies in two sittings, and the second sitting was mostly me waiting for the closet door to open. That is the trick of the second book in Marissa Meyer's Renegades trilogy: she puts the most dangerous object in Gatlon City in a hall closet and then lets her heroine agree to help the boy who is hunting her. The novel was published in 2018 by Feiwel & Friends, and it is very much a middle book, with all the pleasures and frustrations that label implies. It is also a lot of fun.

The setup is a double life stacked on another double life. Nova Artino is a young Renegade who calls herself Insomnia, because she never sleeps. She is also Nightmare, the masked Anarchist who has been spying on the Renegades from inside their own headquarters. Adrian Everhart is her patrol leader, the son of two members of the Renegade Council, and a prodigy who can bring his drawings to life. He is also the Sentinel, an armored vigilante who works outside the law his parents enforce. Neither knows the other's secret. The reader knows both. Most of the book runs on that gap.

The Sentinel goes into the river

The opening is a chase. Adrian's patrol, which includes Oscar (Smokescreen), Ruby (Red Assassin), and Danna Bell (Monarch), is after a group of rogue prodigies. One of them, Hawthorn, escapes with a hostage, and the Renegades hesitate because their rules forbid a shot that might hit the hostage. Nova and Adrian both hate the hesitation. Nova goes after Hawthorn on foot, and Adrian slips away to become the Sentinel.

The Sentinel catches Hawthorn on a barge. She wraps him in thorn-covered limbs and throws him into the river. His armor drags him down, and Nova, watching from the shore, concludes that the Sentinel has drowned. The Renegades search the water and find nothing. Adrian sheds the armor underwater and washes up alive, then has to invent a bad excuse for why he is soaked. It is a good opening because it establishes the book's central irony in action: the city's most famous vigilante is declared dead while the boy who wears the armor is already back among the people hunting him.

Agent N changes the rules

The plot's engine arrives at a mandatory Renegade assembly. The Council unveils Agent N, a serum that permanently strips a prodigy of their powers. It is built around the ability of Max, Adrian's little brother, a boy who absorbs the powers of any prodigy near him. Max has spent his whole life in a glass quarantine at headquarters, because being close to him is dangerous for everyone else. The Renegades have turned that tragedy into a weapon.

To demonstrate, they bring out Winston Pratt, the Puppeteer. He seizes control of people in the audience, including a young Renegade, and for a moment the room is chaos. Then a researcher injects him with Agent N, and his puppet-like markings fade. The audience applauds. Nova is horrified. So is Adrian, though for different reasons. The scene does what good middle-book worldbuilding should do: it makes the heroes' victory feel like a threat.

Nova asks whether the effect is reversible. It is not. She asks what controls will keep the Council from using Agent N on anyone it dislikes. The answer is a memo and a promise. Danna notices how hard Nova takes it and starts watching her. That detail matters later, when a single butterfly becomes a hostage.

Adrian has his own reason to care. He wants to know who killed his mother, Lady Indomitable, and Winston Pratt claims to have information. Adrian brings the old villain his puppet, and Winston repays him with a warning instead of a name: Nightmare is still alive. Adrian's fathers tell him it is manipulation. Adrian cannot let it go.

The helmet in the chromium cube

Nova's mission is simple and impossible. Ace Anarchy, her uncle and the old leader of the Anarchists, is hiding in catacombs beneath a ruined cathedral with the remains of his council: Leroy Flinn, called Cyanide, who makes poisons, and Honey Harper, called Queen Bee, who controls stinging insects. Phobia is there too, a figure who seems to be made of fear. Ace is weak without his helmet, the artifact that amplifies his power. He wants it back. He also wants Nova to stay close to Adrian, because Adrian's family sits at the center of the Renegade government.

Nova gets a second job in the Renegade artifacts department, where the helmet is stored. The department is a wonderful invention: a warehouse of superhero history, full of old costumes and strange weapons. Callum Treadwell, the chatty clerk, gives her a tour. Magpie, a young Renegade, brings in a bin of recovered junk that includes Nightmare's own metal mask. Nova pockets it without logging it. The mask is a nice touch. She is hiding evidence of herself.

The helmet is not on a shelf. It is sealed inside a cube of chromium, forged by Captain Chromium himself, and the cube is supposed to be indestructible. Nova tries to break it in the vault and nearly blows up the room. She learns that the only thing that might break chromium is another piece of chromium, specifically Captain Chromium's own pike.

Meanwhile, the Renegades start training everyone to use Agent N. Nova is a natural shot. Adrian is terrible. She flirts with him, steals a vial of the serum, and passes it to Leroy, who begins working on a gas version that can be deployed in a mist-missile. If it works, the Anarchists will have a way to strip powers from a distance. The Renegades already have the serum. The book's moral center is the question of who gets to decide when a person's power is taken away.

The charm, the mural, the kiss

Adrian finds the Vitality Charm, an old medallion said to protect against anything that would weaken a prodigy. He tests it by walking into Max's quarantine and hugging his brother for the first time. Then he tattoos the charm's symbol over his heart so the protection becomes permanent, and gives the medallion to his other father, Simon, so Simon can be near Max too. It is the warmest sequence in the book, and it is also a heist opportunity. Nova sees the charm and immediately understands what it could do for the Anarchists.

The romance gets its best scene at the Sidekick Olympics, a field day for children without powers. Nova watches the kids and thinks about her sister, Evie, who she believes died when Nova was six. She and Adrian slip away to a statue glen she remembers from childhood, a clearing with a hooded stone figure holding out its hands. They trade stories about their parents' deaths. Adrian's mother was murdered. Nova's parents and baby sister were killed when she was six, and she has spent her life since then being raised by Ace. The scene is quiet and specific, and it earns the feelings that follow.

Adrian invites Nova to his mansion and shows her a mural he has painted of her childhood dream: a jungle swallowing a ruined city, with the statue at the center. He brings it to life with his power. A strange star appears in the statue's hands. Nova tells him the full story of her family. He tells her about the nightmare he keeps having about his mother. She falls asleep against his chest, which is the first time she has slept in a decade. When she wakes, he asks her to the Renegade gala. They kiss.

Then she puts him to sleep with her power and searches the house. She finds the Vitality Charm in a closet and takes it. She also takes the star from the mural, and it settles into the empty prongs of her father's unfinished bracelet. The bracelet has been a piece of jewelry for most of her life. Now it has a light in it.

This is where the book is at its most effective. Nova's betrayal lands because it is the logical result of everything she has told herself. She likes Adrian. She also believes his family's government killed hers. The scene works because both things are true at once.

The gala and the vault

The gala is the book's big set piece. Nova arrives on Adrian's arm, dances with him and Oscar, and says goodbye to her friends without telling them it is goodbye. Then she leaves early, changes into Nightmare's costume, and breaks into headquarters through a window. She disables the security cameras, gets stung by Stingray, and keeps going because the Vitality Charm neutralizes the venom. She puts Stingray to sleep when he touches her face. In the vault, Callum tries to stop her. She knocks him down, then puts him to sleep too.

She takes the Captain's pike and hits the chromium cube. Nothing. She hits it again. Nothing. She throws the pike in frustration, and the star in her bracelet flares. The pike glows coppery gold and shatters the cube like glass. Nova takes the helmet.

Frostbite's team is waiting for her. Frostbite encases her in ice and shoots her with Agent N. The charm neutralizes it. Nova drops a mist-missile filled with Agent N gas, and Gargoyle, who is close enough, loses his powers permanently. Aftershock, another of Frostbite's teammates, brings down the ceiling with an earthquake. The quarantine around Max collapses. Frostbite throws the pike at Nova, Nova dodges, and the pike goes through Max.

That is the moment the book turns. Nova forgets the helmet and the escape. She kneels beside Max, pulls the spear out, and drags Frostbite close so Max can absorb her ice power and freeze his own wound. For a few minutes, the mask does not matter. She is someone who cannot watch a child die. Then the Sentinel arrives, and she runs with the helmet. Adrian stays with Max.

The catacombs and the capture

While Nova is in the vault, Adrian is following a butterfly. Danna has been spying on the Anarchists, and one of her butterflies was trapped in a jar in the catacombs, which means Danna cannot reform into her human body. The free butterflies lead Adrian to the old Anarchist lair. He fights Phobia, sees his greatest fear, and wins. He changes into the Sentinel in front of one of Danna's butterflies, so she learns his secret. Then Ruby and Oscar arrive, and Danna's swarm has to convince them he is on their side. He takes off his helmet and tells them the truth.

They find Ace Anarchy in the catacombs, frail but still dangerous. He fights them with the last of his telekinesis and the coffins in the crypt. Adrian captures him. Then Max's distress signal comes through, and Adrian races back to headquarters, too late to stop Nova from escaping but in time to take Max to the hospital.

The aftermath is the best and cruelest part of the book. Ace is in Renegade custody. Max is alive but critical. Nova goes home to the Anarchists' row house and hides the helmet in a closet. Adrian comes to her door at dawn, exhausted and grieving. He tells her what happened. He says he is going to find Nightmare, and he asks Nova to help him. She looks past him at the helmet in the closet and says yes.

The cliffhanger is a promise, not a reveal. Adrian still does not know that the girl he is asking for help is the villain he is hunting. Nova still does not know that the boy asking is the Sentinel. The book ends with the two of them in her doorway, the helmet in the closet behind her.

What works and what does not

The best thing about Archenemies is the way it makes the political argument personal. Agent N is personal. It is Max, a lonely boy in a glass room, and Winston Pratt losing the face that made him himself. It is also Nova, who knows that if she is caught, the Council will do the same to her, to Ace, and to everyone she loves. The book is genuinely interested in the question of whether a government of heroes can be trusted with a weapon that can strip a person of a defining part of who they are.

The weakest thing is the pacing. The middle section repeats itself. Nova cycles through guilt and family memories, then goes to another Renegade event and tells herself again that she is doing this for Ace. The heist is well constructed, but it takes a long time to arrive, and the title promises a confrontation that the book keeps postponing. The Anarchists are also underused. Leroy and Honey mostly wait in the catacombs, and Phobia is dispatched quickly. For a book about a war between two factions, a lot of the war happens offstage.

The secret identity is the other problem. Meyer keeps the lie going for the entire book, and the strain shows. There are only so many times Nova can nearly be caught before the near misses start to feel like scheduling. Winston sees her at the Agent N demonstration and says nothing. Danna's suspicion keeps growing. Stingray nearly unmasks her before she puts him to sleep. The book survives on close calls and on the restraint of people who have every reason to talk. The same goes for Adrian. He is a smart, observant character, and the book has to work to keep him from noticing what is right in front of him. The ending makes the delay worth it, but the middle sags under it.

The romance is the part that will divide readers. Nova is torn between Adrian and Ace. Adrian is torn between Nova and the Renegades. Each of them is lying to the other about the most important thing in their life. The book is at its best when it lets that contradiction sit without resolving it. The gala scenes are good because they are sad. The kiss is good because it is a betrayal in progress.

I would not start the series here. Archenemies assumes you know the first book, and it ends on a cliffhanger that makes the third book mandatory. But as a middle chapter, it does what a middle chapter should do. It raises the stakes and deepens the lie. It puts the characters in a position where the next choice will cost them something real.

The image I keep coming back to is Nova standing in her own doorway, with the helmet hidden a few feet away, telling Adrian she will help him find Nightmare. She means it and she does not mean it. That is the whole book in one room.