Renegades

Nova Artino is the primary protagonist, and she is also cast as a villain within the broader world-building of the novel. Beset by a barrage of morally ambiguous internal dilemmas, Nova is wary, traumatized, and cynical. She also embodies several different superhuman personas, dubbed “Insomnia” and “Nightmare.” After her family’s brutal murder, she was raised by the Anarchists, whom the Renegades have forced into poverty and squalor. Nova’s inner development is explored heavily through her secondary power—her inability to sleep, which is derived partially from her past trauma. This problematic ability symbolizes her lack of trust in the world and in others, contextualizing her relentless drive to achieve her goals and gain revenge on behalf of her family. After her family’s murder, Nova only sleeps once, when Max temporarily takes her powers, and even then, she wakes up screaming. This demonstrates that she is incapable of truly achieving rest.

Nova’s ability to shift between identities—as she, like Adrian, has three (almost four) different personas—is characterized partially through her appearance. She is of both Filipino and Italian heritage and has blue eyes, and her physical traits allow her to pass as person of Scottish ancestry as “Insomnia.” This physical ambiguity represents her unreadability to others.