Page 28 of Once a Villain
Aaron’s expression shut off like a switch, and Joan remembered again his meager bedroom in the servants’ quarters, mean and dark in the back of the house. He opened his mouth, and Joan could tell he was about to say something truly cutting.
“Wait,” she said, holding up her hand. She didn’t want them to argue—there were more important things to talk about—but more than that, some instinct was sayingdanger, even in this protected space. She padded across the thick-piled carpet to the windows, and pulled the curtain cords from their loops, one arch after the other. Heavy blue velvet fell over the view. “The security team might still be patrolling,” she explained without turning around. She didn’t need to say the rest. They couldn’t be seen talking to Aaron like equals. The staff believed they were doing something very different in here.
Warmth rose up her chest and neck at the thought. She turned back to Aaron and Nick. The curtain brushed against her shoulders, and she imagined the cool glass behind it. The room seemed more intimate with the curtains drawn. The crackling hearth made the space cave-like, all the sounds from beyond the bedroom dampened.
Joan had thought that they’d snipe at each other some more, but their attention had turned to her. Side by side, they were like soldiers guarding the door. A matched set, almost the same height. Two different kinds of beauty:Nick’s dark and classical; Aaron’s pale and ethereal.
In the silence, Nick took off his jacket and unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt. Aaron’s posture was formal. The firelight had warmed his hair to golden.
The air felt strangely charged. Maybe it was the assumptions of the people outside the room, but Joan was overly aware of the canopied bed between them.
Aaron released a breath, and his shoulders lowered. Joan hadn’t realized that he’d still been holding his father’s posture. Now, with the curtains closed, he loosened slightly. “I wasn’t expecting all of this....”
“I take it that you weren’t the head of family inourtimeline,” Nick said to him.
Aaron snorted and ran a hand over his face. “Emphatically not.”
“This timeline is so different from ours,” Joan said. She could see why things had been different for the Aaron of this timeline.HerAaron had been disinherited after his mother had defied the King’s commands—she’d tried to help a member of the Grave family escape slaughter by the King. But in this timeline, the King didn’t exist, and the Graves had never been erased. Aaron’s position and reputation would have remained intact.
That didn’t explain, though, how Aaron’s counterpart had wrested power from his father. Joan couldn’t imagine her Aaron being ruthless enough to take down Edmund Oliver.
Out of nowhere, a chill rippled through her. What would Aaron have been like—born and raised in a world like this, with his inheritance assured? How different would he have been? Joan had a feeling that she didn’t want to know.
There was something more pressing to think about in any case. “We need to talk about what my grandmother said. Wehaveto stop Eleanor. She told us to find people using the mark of the wolf. She said they could help us.”
Nick closed his eyes, and Joan saw the weight of responsibility on him. She felt it too.
“Joan,” Aaron said. “I know what your grandmother said, but...”
“But?” Nick echoed. He opened his eyes again, expression sharpening to suspicion. “Don’t tell me—a few people called youmy lord, and you liked it? Now you want to stay in this timeline?”
Aaron’s expression in response was hard to read. Joan had the strange feeling that Nick wasn’t wrong exactly. Not quite on the mark, but not completely wrong. Aaron’s answer, though, was firm: “Obviously, the timeline must be restored.Butour only lead is dead. What exactly are we supposed to do?”
Gran had told them to find people using the mark of the wolf, but not how.
“Wait...” Joan shook her head, trying to clear it. They hadn’t been thinking straight. “Ronan’snotdead—not to us. We can just travel back in time to find him.” It wouldn’t even require much fuel;Joan could take a day of life from herself and go back to yesterday. Why hadn’t she thought of that earlier? She opened her mouth and then stopped. Aaron was shaking his head.
“I thought you could feel it too,” Aaron said.
Joan felt a thread of unease at the look on his face. “Feel what?”
“Something’s blocking us from traveling to the recent past. I sensed it as soon as we arrived in this timeline. It’s like there’s a—” Aaron searched for the word. “A wall.”
A wall? What? Joan closed her eyes, feeling for the timeline with her inner monster sense.
Sometimes, the timeline seemed like a force—a buffeting wind. Tonight, though, Joan’s impression was of a great beast with a mind and will of its own. She could feel it in the room with them—its presence as real as the heat of the hearth.
Joan imagined traveling back to yesterday—or last week or last month. To fifty years ago. She imagined finding Ronan. Andnowshe could feel it. To her, the resistance felt like a stubborn force of will; the great beast itself was denying passage. Joan pushed, and it pushed back with enough force that she felt the jolt of it.
Unnerved, she met Nick’s gaze and shook her head. Her stomach swooped down at his clear disappointment.
“I think our counterparts are blocking us,” Aaron said. “If they’re occupying the past, the timeline wouldn’t allow us anywhere near them.”
Joan folded her arms around herself. She had a feeling that Aaron’s theory wasn’t quite correct, but she didn’t have any other explanation. “I wonder if we can get back in touch with Gran somehow.”
“We have to fix the timeline—with or without your gran’s help.” Nick’s dark eyes were so determined that Joan was reminded of the strength of will of the timeline itself. It hit her belatedly thatNickhad once used the wolf symbol—when he’d been a monster slayer. His people had had wolves tattooed on the backs of their necks,where monsters would see them if they tried to steal time.
And Joan wondered suddenly... Did he have a counterpart here too?
