Page 13 of Once a Villain
“Ispoke to you,” Aaron said uncertainly. “Is that what you mean?”
And there it was. Aaron hadn’t heard a thing. It had all been in Joan’s head.
Aaron was really frowning now. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get you grounded in this timeline.”
In the main room, the others were still looking for valuables.
Nick stood alone in the kitchen, looking grim and untouchable, and impossibly handsome. He turned as Joan and Aaron entered, and Joan’s heart ached almost as much as when her breath had stopped. Since the day they’d first met, he’d always searched for her in every room. She’d always searched for him.
Soul mates, Jamie had once said of them. Theyhadbeen. They’d belonged together in the true timeline before circumstances had ripped them apart. But now...
Joan wasn’t sure what was in her expression, but Nick’s forehead creased and his gaze swept over her with such unexpected concern that her chest tightened even more.
Beside Joan, Aaron shifted his weight. Joan blinked up at him, and found him looking between her and Nick, something strangely sad—maybe even resigned—in his eyes. He released Joan’s hand gently, and she felt instantly colder.
“We need to get some clothes and food from the market,” Aaron said heavily. “If we don’t eat something, we’re all going to fall out of this time.”
Four
Joan’s head and chest ached. The fade-out had left her feeling shaky and sore. She pulled on her game face, though, as they descended the stairs into the market below. She’d only been in this world a few hours, but it was already clear they couldn’t show weakness here. And no one could know that she and Nick were human; it was well after curfew now.
At first sight, the market was chaos: racks of clothes, curtained changing rooms, and card tables laden with belts and shoes were set up, almost at random, in the huge round space under the dome. Sellers shouted about their wares and customers yelled back, the noise echoing and mutating into a senseless cacophony. Above it all, a huge brass timepiece hung from the pitch of the dome. The hands were ravens, showing the time as six forty-five, with a small moon to indicate night.
It took Joan a second to make sense of the layout. Aisles delineated sections of the market, creating the shape of a clock. Each wedge was dedicated to a particular time period. To the left was the prehistoric: Bronze Age woolen skirts in muted colors, and Iron Age shields and jewelry. After that was ancient Rome, with stalls selling tunics and pins. Then there were early medieval cloaks and belts, and later medieval cowls....
The atmosphere, as they walked in, was volatile. “Take it somewhere else!” a shopkeeper snapped at two scuffling men.He shoved them away from his shop, big butcher’s arms tensed.
Hard-eyed shopkeepers and customers sized up Joan’s group. None of the hostile looks persisted, though. Were people intimidated by the number of them? By Nick’s size? Joan glanced at the others and registered for the first time just how banged up they all were from the fight at the end of the last timeline. A red scrape ran down Jamie’s jaw, and there were bruises on Nick’s knuckles and Ruth’s arms. They seemed as ready to fight as anyone here—even Aaron, who was unbruised but, in his overly formal suit, somehow seemed the most dangerous of them all.
“Here—” Nick tucked them all between racks of heavy cloaks so that they could decide on a plan of action. With walls of clothes around them, it almost felt like they were alone.
Joan’s stomach rumbled as the smell of cooking drifted over: fried onions and sausages and fresh bread—there were food stalls on the other side of the room.
Jamie’s jacket shivered. Frankie had been snoozing, but now her head pushed up between the flaps of the open zipper. She blinked around, bleary-eyed. Jamie lifted her out, and she shook herself awake, ears flapping.
“Foodisthe priority,” Aaron assured Frankie, as if she’d spoken.
“Let’s split up,” Joan said. “I’ll go down to the food stalls. Pies okay?” The others nodded.
“I’ll get clothes.” Ruth gestured toward the contemporary section with its gray tweed and chiffon.
“I’llget clothes!” Aaron countered.
Ruth blinked once, very slowly. When Joan and Ruth had been kids, their cousin Bertie had always fled the room whenRuth had looked at him like that, but Aaron stood his ground.
He folded his arms now. “I’m not letting you dress me.”
“You’ll buy stupid stuff that’ll make us stand out!”
“I’llbuy quality clothes that will make everyone look good!”
“You’ll—”
“Bothof you can get clothes!” Joan snapped, and was surprised when they both quieted immediately.
Ruth tilted her head. “You all right? Your face is like...” She frowned, a dramatic furrow in her brows—Joan guessed she was mimicking her. “Like you have a headache.”
Joan sighed. It felt like there was a vise at her temples. “I just need to eat something.”
