Page 104 of Once a Villain
“Shit!” Aaron scrambled up, dragging Joan with him, but the tear kept opening as Joan moved, as if the world itself was tissue under her hands.
“Stop!” Aaron said to her urgently. “You have to stop!”
“I don’t know how!” Joan said. She was terrified. The tear was larger than the table itself now, and within the hole, the shadows of the void coiled and shifted like snakes.
And then she heard a step behind her, and Nick was standing there, reassuring and solid, a hand on her back. “Take a breath,” he said softly, and Joan did—gulping in air. “You’re okay. Just breathe. Just be calm.” Joan took another breath. He tugged hergently back a step, moving back with her. This time, to her relief, the tear didn’t rend further.
“Guards!” Aaron exclaimed. “We need to go!”
The guards were swarming into the pub, their red coats distinct and bright. Someone must have hailed them from the street.
“Over there!” It was the same person who’d shouted earlier. “It’s her! That’s the girl!”
“Did you see an exit when you went to the bathroom?” Aaron asked Nick.
“Dead end,” Nick said shortly. His eyes darted; he was looking for a way out too.
“The kitchen!” Joan said. There was an open door behind the bar, showing a cooking space. “They should have a door for deliveries!”
She felt a wave of déjà vu as they sprinted for it. She and Nick had been caught like this once before—in a courtyard outside the café where she’d worked.
This time, they didn’t even make it out of the dining area. Guards were suddenly surrounding them.
“Travel out!” Nick told Aaron and Joan.
“We can’t!” Aaron said tensely. “Westminster’s on a mire!” He snapped at the nearest guard, “This is a mistake! Don’t you know who I am?”
“Tell it to the courthouse,” the guard said as Court cuffs were burned onto their wrists. “You’re under arrest.” He gave Joan a nasty smile. “The Queen has been looking for you.”
Thirty
Joan worked vainly to unmake the golden tattoo on her wrist: a lion, snarling, its mouth open in a roar.
“Hands behind your back!” the guard snapped at her, and Joan swore as the cuff forced her wrists to the small of her back.
Nick and Aaron were fighting the puppet-on-strings manipulation too, but not even Nick could break it. All three of them were forced to stumble onto the street as gawkers looked on.
“They’re sayingshetore a hole in the timeline! That girl!”
“Is that Lord Oliver with her?”
“Can’t be!”
They didn’t seem to recognize Nick at all. With Aaron’s jacket buttoned over his tunic, he didn’t look much like a gladiator.
Outside the pub, a van waited, hearse-black with a coat of arms on the door in gold. Joan glimpsed the seal of the Monster Court: Eleanor’s rose, the fanned feathers of a peacock, and the winged lion. And then she and the others were thrown into the back, the doors slamming shut behind them.
Nick scrambled up, hands still stuck at his tailbone. He kicked at the closed doors—hard enough that daylight showed through the crack, then kicked again as the van started.
“Stop that!” There was just one guard in the van—a womanin the driver’s seat, with dark hair scraped back into a bun, shiny as lacquer. She fumbled open an object that looked like an arcane pocket watch: the controller for the cuffs.
Nick turned. He judged the weight of the clear screen between them and the guard, but before he could kick atthat, the guard ordered, “Sit!Stay!” as if they were dogs, and they were flung onto the van’s benches, forced to sit.
Joan couldn’t shift in the seat. Her hands were still stuck behind her back, and her shoulders seemed glued to the wall. She’d ended up next to Aaron—close enough that their upper arms brushed as the van moved.
Nick had been tossed onto the bench opposite them, and he gritted his teeth now, fighting to free his hands.
Joan strained to get a finger on the tattoo, but her wrists were crossed. She tried to reach Aaron’s, but the angle was wrong. “Do you have your controller?” she murmured to Aaron under her breath. He’d brought one with him from the previous timeline. Was it on him now?
