Page 137 of Once a Villain
There wasn’t time to stop the bullet. There wasn’t even time for Joan to scream.
Even as she thought that, though, she realized that someone elsewasscreaming.
“No!” The word was thick with emotion. And the voice was Eleanor’s.
Before Joan could even process that, the bullet vanished from in front of her face.
Thirty-Seven
The whole thing—from the moment of Conrad’s shot—had happened so quickly that Joan was still turning, still flinching from the bullet that hadn’t come.
Now she stumbled back, and nearly tripped over a tuft of overgrown grass. She stared, taking in slowly that they weren’t in the Breakfast Room anymore. This was the field where they’d started, where the ruins of Holland House had been.
It was still the middle of the night here—as if no time had passed at all. Joan’s breath came out in a cold white puff as she looked around.
Conrad was gone, and so were theCuria Monstrorum. Everyone else was here, though—Ruth, Nick, Aaron, Jamie, and Tom.
And Eleanor.
The others seemed just as stunned as Joan was. Nick was on his knees—he’d been reaching out as Conrad had shot at her. Aaron’s hand was still outstretched too; he blinked now, and a shudder of relief ran through him as he realized Joan had survived.
And howhadJoan survived? What had just happened? Had Eleanor saved them? It didn’t seem possible, and yet no one else in that room had had the power to do it. Joan turned to Eleanor. “Was that you?Why?”
Eleanor stood a few paces from the rest of them, her white dress still stained with blood. She shook her head slightly as if she didn’t know why herself.
Joan replayed the scene again in her head. The way the original Joan had locked immediately onto Eleanor; she’d glimpsed her sister, bloodied and scared, and she’d scrambled up, desperate to get to her.
And Eleanor had looked at her in return like...
“You still love her,” Joan said slowly. “You love her so much that you loveme.”
“And you don’t remember me at all.” Eleanor sounded a little hoarse. “You only know me likethis.”
That was true. Joan only knew her as a villain—it had been her only role in Joan’s remembered life.
She wondered suddenly if Eleanor had been bluffing at the end of the last timeline. She’d made Nick choose between Joan’s life and the King’s, but would she really have killed her? Joan wasn’t so sure now.
But Eleanorhadkilled Joan as an infant here. She’d arranged for the Hunts to die at Nick’s hand in another timeline. Unconscionable choices, and so many of them.Necessities, she’d called them.
Mum had thought that Eleanor would be persuadable. Joan hadn’t believed it. But now... She looked up at the sky. The tears in Eleanor’s broken timeline were all visible. Instead of stars, there were only shadows.
“Whydon’tyou fix the timeline?” she asked Eleanor. She really couldn’t understand it. “Why are you being so stubborn?Everyone’sgoing to die—including the Graves. You did all this tosave them, and they’re going to die anyway.”
“You never shut up, do you?” Eleanor said. There was an odd, flat note in her voice.
“Eleanor...”
“You think I haven’t tried?” Eleanor’s last word cracked. “You were right, okay? I made a timeline too far from true, and I can’t revert it to how it was! I’vetried!”
“If you can’t fix the timeline, then just detach yourself from it!” Nick said. “Let someone else have that power. Maybetheycan fix it.”
Eleanor made a sound of frustration, of desolation. “Ican’t! I leashed it too tightly to myself! I can’t detach it! And I can’t die while it’s leashed to me! And before you do something stupidly heroic,” she added derisively to Nick, “yourdeath won’t help either. The truth is, youdideffectively die when the ring put you in that stasis. And Istillcouldn’t lock down the timeline. I wasn’t strong enough.” She shook her head. “It fights me all the time. I don’t know if it ever fought the King like this....”
Joan felt a wave of despair roll over her. She’d unmade the house, the Ali seals in the sky. She’d even made a window into the true timeline. But the bond between Eleanor and the timeline had just been too strong to break.
“The void is going to eat us all up,” Eleanor said. “Just like in the stories.”
“Because ofyou,” Joan said. The anger in her voice petered out by the end of the sentence. She was tired, and she ached all over. She could tell Eleanor’s shoulder was still hurting too.
