Page 114 of Once a Villain
“I mean...” Aaron sounded a little defensive himself now. “It’s nothing, really. It doesn’t have anything to do withus. It’s because Joan was dead in this timeline. If she’d lived, it would have been you and her.”
He’d said something like that to Joan too, when he’d first read the note himself. She hadn’t liked it when he’d said it then, and she didn’t like it now. The way he made himself sound like everyone’s second choice.
“You know... ,” Aaron added now to Nick, “I wouldn’t have picked you as liking guys.”
“Why not?” Nick sounded tired.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I do. I like both.”
“So do I.”
“Yeah, I kind of guessed that,” Nick said, with a hint of irritation, “when you slept with the girl I’m in love with.”
Joan flushed. She couldn’t help but note the present tense, though.I’m in love with.“Okay... ,” she said. “So wearetalking about it.” As she said that, though, she was interrupted by a creak on the staircase. Someone was coming down.
“Nope—still not,” Aaron said. He and Nick both looked as relieved as Joan felt.
After a few minutes, Mum appeared, seeming startled when she realized they were all sitting there silently, staring at her. “Did I interrupt something?”
Joan shook her head and saw, in her peripheral vision, the guys shaking their heads too, emphatically.
“Well... ,” Mum said. She came over to them, and Joan saw, with a swirl of unease, that her expression was grim. “You were right. My Ali friend said that Eleanor forced them to seal up that huge hole above the stadium yesterday. And they’re still concealing tears in the sky. The timeline isn’t lockedorrepaired.”
Joan’s stomach dropped, horror running through her alongside relief. That meant therewasa chance to change the timeline; but it also meant the timeline was still falling apart.
She found herself looking at the window, as if there might already be signs of collapse. The view, though, was eerily normal. Jamie had told her a monster fairy tale once, about the end of the world. In the story, a boy had torn through the timeline, trying to find his lost parents. Instead, he’d torn the timeline apart. He’d fallen into the void, and so had everyone else—every moment in history,every person who’d ever lived had been lost, forever, in the nothingness that lay beyond.
Was that how the world was going to end? With everything and everyone falling into the horror of the void?
“Wehaveto stop this,” Aaron said shakily. Joan had the feeling that he was forcing himself to focus, and Nick too. Their prior conversation had messed with all their heads.
“We need to seize the timeline back from Eleanor,” Nick agreed. “But how do we get to her? We already failed at the jubilee—and that was her only known appearance in public.”
“I don’t think we have much time left,” Joan said. “Eleanor pushed the timeline to the edge of collapse yesterday.”How much longer did they have before the void swallowed them all? She turned to Mum and realized that Mum was on the edge oftears; she was looking at the balcony view, raw grief in her eyes, as if her heart was about to break. “Do you...” Joan hesitated. “Do you know how to find her?” she asked Mum.
“She rarely comes out into the world, but she has in the past,” Mum said. “All those visits, though, are sealed away. We’re blocked from traveling anywhere near them.”
The blocks in traveling. Joan and the others had felt them when they’d first arrived here. Certain times weren’t accessible to travelers. Eleanor had been protecting herself.
Mum’s gaze was still on the view she’d spent so long staring at when Joan’s counterpart had died. “I need you to make me a promise,” Mum whispered. She met Joan’s eyes, and Joan knew what she was going to say. Joan was already shaking her head when Mum said it: “Promise me that you won’t kill your sister.”
Joan felt a sick thrum of guilt—and a bone-deep hurt too. Didn’t Mum know what Eleanor had done to them? Joan glanced at Nick, and a flash of defiance crossed his face before his expression shuttered. “The things she did to us... ,” she said to Mum, throat tightening as she spoke. “The things she’s doingnow—”
Mum looked agonized. “She’s done unforgivable things,” she said. “To you, to the world. And I’ll never forgive her for how she hurt you and your father in this timeline. But she’s still my daughter. Still your sister. And I can’t—I justcan’t—send you to her, knowing you’ll try to kill her. Knowing she’ll try to kill you. I’m not just thinking of her. I’m thinking ofyou. If you succeed, that’ll do something to you.”
Joan had killed people before. Indirectly. When she’d unmadeNick, everyone he’d saved as the hero had been missing in the subsequent timeline. Dead because of Joan.
And maybe she’d killed someone directly once too.... Just before she fell asleep, she sometimes saw the bloodied face of the man she’d struck in the maze of Holland House. At the time, she’d assumed she’d just knocked him out, but on restless nights her mind’s eye showed her his caved-in face. She’d hit him with a heavy candlestick as hard as she could. And afterward, Aaron hadn’t tried to steal time from the guy. They’d been fleeing for their lives, and Aaron had just left a human lying there, untouched.
Did I kill that man in the maze?Joan wanted to ask Aaron sometimes. But this Aaron didn’t remember it. He wouldn’t know.
Joan ducked her head. “Eleanor killed the King to take control of the timeline,” she said shakily. “There might not be another way to detach her from it. And wehaveto fix this timeline—you know we do.”
Mum closed her eyes in pained acknowledgment. “Then promise me...” Her breath shuddered. “Promise me you won’t kill her unless there’snoother way.”
Joan wanted to say no. Eleanor was too dangerous. If she lived, she’d be back with a new plan, causing new pain. But almost against her will, Joan also remembered the way her original self had embraced Eleanor.ThatJoan had loved her sister.
