Page 124 of Once a Villain
But why was it here, in an empty field? It should have been part of a huge estate with gardens.
Her gaze found the overgrown lines in the grass again. The foundation of a once-great house. She took a sharp breath.Therewas a castle here, Mum had said.It burned down in the 1800s.
“Holland House?” Aaron murmured slowly now. “Weren’t we all here in the last timeline as well?”
The hairs rose at the back of Joan’s neck. After their conversation in the attic, she was sure that the timeline had been manipulating events to bring Nick, Joan, and Aaron together. Now it occurred to her that they kept cominghere—three timelines in a row now.
Joan had met Nick here when they’d volunteered at Holland House. He’d been her first kiss in the library upstairs. Barely hours later, she’d met Aaron for the first time, and then Nick had revealed himself to be the human hero of legend. A monster slayer. He’d massacred Joan’s and Aaron’s families, forcing them on the run. Later, Joan had unmade him in the same library where they’d kissed.
In the next timeline, Aaron had forgotten Joan, and had been working on behalf of the Court. He’d arrested Joan and Nick and brought them both hereagain.
And now, even though the house was gone, a bare field in its place, they’d still been drawn back.
Joan had the feeling suddenly of great cogs moving into place. As if some giant hand had drawn them all to this house. Not Eleanor, but the timeline itself.
A breath of wind ran through the field, displacing nothing—the force of the timeline. Joan was hit with the cold wash of dread. The timeline had been repeating itself, but every time they’d come together at Holland House, terrible things had happened: the Hunts and Olivers had been massacred here,Joan and Nick had been imprisoned....
We can’t go into that place again.The thought came to Joan’s mind like a premonition.It’ll be the end for us all.
But theyhadto go. Eleanor would be there, and this would be their last chance to stop her.
Over in the field, the gate opened, the movement slow and utterly silent. A woman appeared out of nowhere behind the gate, dressed all in black.
“These are the gates of the Monster Court!” The woman’s voice was sweet but hollow, as if she was standing much farther away than she seemed. The effect was eerie. “Cross them at your peril. Those with invitations will find entry. Those without will find the void.”
Thirty-Four
“How long will those gates stay open?” Tom whispered.
“I don’t know,” Joan breathed. They’d watched all the guests walk through the gates and vanish as they entered the Monster Court. “Time inside the Court might not reflect timeoutsideit, though.” For all they knew, an all-night party would seem to last just a few minutes from the perspective of people outside. “We might not have long at all.”
She gestured at the field. Keeping to the darkest shadows, they crept noiselessly across the road. The world around them was still frozen—eerily empty of the usual background sounds of cars and planes and insects and birds. It was possible that guards were monitoring the area around the gate, and if they were, then any sound would draw their attention.
Holding her breath, Joan stepped over the low wooden fence into the field. Long grass brushed her ankles as she examined the lines of raised welts in the ground, where the foundations of the estate had been. She beckoned the others deeper into the field, until—she hoped—they’d be out of earshot of anyone watching and listening.
“See that line?” she breathed. She pointed at the welt closest to the wooden fence, and then traced the air with a finger. “It aligns perfectly with the Holland House gate piers. That musthave been the wall around the estate. If we follow it around the grounds, we should be able to find breaks in the wall. Places where other gates used to be. And then...”
“I’ll do my thing,” Ruth said.
It took Joan about twenty minutes to find a break in the line of raised earth—a break big enough to be the width of a gate. So if this was the outer wall... She judged the distance from this spot to the earthworks deep in the field—the remains of the house itself. With luck, she and the others would arrive in one of the gardens. Far enough from the house that they wouldn’t be seen.
She nodded at Nick, and he shrugged off his backpack, digging to retrieve the telescoping metal poles they’d brought. When Joan had described what she’d needed, Mum had found a portable clothes rack for hanging long dresses. With the dresses removed, it was a simple rectangular frame, taller than it was wide, and able to stand up on its own.
Still trying to keep quiet, Joan helped Nick reassemble the frame, and they fitted it into the gap where the gate would have been, adjusting the width until it was just right. When they were done, they’d made a crude gate of their own, standing in the middle of nowhere. If someone had walked past, they’d have thought it a strange sight. Then again, very few peoplecouldwalk past right now with the world frozen.
Ruth stepped forward and put a hand on the frame.
She’d opened a portal out of the Court last time, and Joan hoped she could do the reverse now. They’d discovered that the Hunt power allowed her to hold an object in two timessimultaneously—hence the need for the frame. If Ruth could hold one side of the frame inthistime, and the other side in the Court, she’d make a portal.
“Open it in bursts,” Joan whispered. “Don’t try to keep it open continuously.”
“Has anyone ever broken into the Court?” Aaron whispered. “How do we even know this is possible?”
“Shut up,” Ruth said, closing her eyes. “I’m concentrating.”
“I’m just saying—”
“You’re still talking. Just—” Ruth’s next word was cut off by Jamie and Nick making startled sounds. Something had flashed inside the frame like a lightning strike. “Was that it?” Ruth said. “Did I do it?”
