Page 133 of Once a Villain
“Did you just unmake that blast?” Ruth asked her, eyes widening.
“Seems like some of those old powers are coming back after all,” Eleanor said warily. Her hand was still raised. Joan waited, half flinching, for the next blast, but it didn’t come. Eleanor was just staring at her, expression distant, as if she wasn’t quite seeing her. As if she was seeing her actual sister; the one she’d been raised with. The Joan of the original timeline.
Joan thought again of the scene at the Grave house. There’d been a genuine love between Eleanor and Joan’s original self. How had it come to this?
“That wound looks really bad,” she said to Eleanor. She was reminded of Gran’s blood-soaked clothes whenshe’ddied in this very house. “I think it might kill you.”
Eleanor’s gaze focused slightly. “What doyoucare? You want me dead.”
“Iwant you dead,” Aaron muttered.
Joan’s feelings toward Eleanor were so complicated that she barely knew how she felt about her. She was pretty sure that Eleanorwouldhave to die. And a large part of Joan wanted that—Eleanor had just threatened Nick; she’d threatened all of them. And yet...
Promise me that you won’t kill your sister, Mum had said. She’d released them all from that promise, but Joan still felt the weightof it. “Mum asked us not to kill you,” she said to Eleanor. “She begged us not to—she wanted us to persuade you to fix the timeline yourself.” Joan could hear the pleading note in her own voice. “Whywon’tyou fix it?” She couldn’t understand it. “Mum believed you would.”
Eleanor’s eyes widened slightly at the mention of Mum, and for one tentative second, Joan thought that she’d gotten through to her. But then Eleanor’s gaze focused, hardening again. “Because I don’twantto change this timeline. I want to lock it down. This is the world I always wanted to make.”
“A world where humans are suffering?” Joan said disbelievingly. “Where the Lius are gone? Where I died as a baby?”
Eleanor was silent at that. A sick look flittered over her face, but she shrugged it off. “Those were necessities. Sacrifices that had to be made.”
“So many necessities,” Joan said. “So many deaths and sacrifices to create this timeline.”Shefelt sick, thinking of all the people she’d loved who’d died in lifetime after lifetime. “And... people told us you’re never even seen in the world. You did all this to bring our family back—do you spend any time with them at all?”
Another flicker crossed Eleanor’s face, this time closer to pain. “Shut up.”
Joan wondered what it had been like for Eleanor to come home to the family she’d missed so much. Mum had said Eleanor had cried as she’d seen each member of the Graves. But as for the Graves themselves... Joan bet they’d been afraid of the new Eleanor, just like everyone else in this world was. Had Eleanorsensed that? “Mum said you erased another Eleanor when you arrived in this timeline. Mum said she wasn’t like you at all.”
“Oh, shutup!” Eleanor threw another burst of power at Joan. This one was strong enough to make tables and chairs thud against the back wall, to make Ruth stumble back, but Joan herself just seemed to absorb it. She’d unmade it again without even thinking.
And now, as Joan concentrated on dissolving the shield, she felt the barrier shiver. She stared at the glass-like shine of it, breathless suddenly.Be unmade, she told it, and it shivered again. She could vaguely feel Eleanor trying to throw more blasts at her, but none of them reached her.Be unmade, Joan told the shield.For God’s sake, be unmade!
After a minute, Eleanor physically shoved Joan back with her free hand. It was weak, though. Eleanor didn’t have much reach, pinned to the wall. “God, you’re bad at the Grave power!” Eleanor snapped at her. “You should have practiced!”
“I guess I was too busy running for my life,” Joan said, exasperated. “From you!”
“That’s a stupid excuse!”
“You’re a stupid excuse!” Joan blurted.
Joan had always seen Ruth as a sister, but the truth was, she’d never spoken to Ruth like this. Eleanor seemed to bring out something childish in her; maybethiswas a remnant of the true timeline.
“Be unmade!” she said aloud, letting her anger toward Eleanor, toward the shield, rush out with the words. As she said it, the resistance under her hand shivered again. Joan felt a surgeof power rise from inside. “Be unmade!”
The shield shivered away as she said it, vanishing like smoke. Joan stared, almost too surprised to grasp what she’d done.
When you get there, do what you need to do, Mum had said at the end.Do it without hesitation.
Aaron echoed those words now. “Do it!” he barked at Nick.
Nick didn’t need to be instructed. He’d already drawn the dagger again, and he thrust it now into Eleanor’s heart.
Thirty-Six
Joan stumbled back, remembering how the radiance of the timeline had left the King when he’d died; it had streamed into Eleanor, filling her with unthinkable power. Would that happen now? Would the timeline flow toward one of them?
But to Joan’s shock, Eleanor just pulled the knife from her chest with a pained grunt.
“Fuck!” Eleanor said to the ceiling. “Ohfuck??! That really hurt!”
