Page 43 of Once a Villain
“Old school friends,” Aaron lied. “They came to watch the executions.”
Marguerite was clearly surprised by the addition of more guests. “I’ll ask for a larger table!”
“Nah, we can all squeeze in,” Ruth said. She and Jamie slid onto Cassius’s bench with Frankie. “You must be Aaron’s mum!” she said. Aaron gave her a warning look, and Ruth smirked back at him. “Any funny childhood stories about him?”
“Well, he was averyclever child,” Marguerite said. “He once—”
Aaron coughed. “Let’s not get into that.” He beckoned a waiter who hurried over with a basket of warm bread and a notepad to take their orders. “The duck,” he said to him, with a cursory look at the chalked menu board.
“Uh...” Cassius was clearly taken aback by Aaron’s haste. “The steak.”
“Vegetarian pie,” Marguerite said.
As the rest of them ordered, Joan realized that she and Nick wouldn’t be eating for ages. Her stomach growled, and she suppressed a sigh.
“Well!” Ruth said brightly. “Good to see more wolves disposed of! Down with those humans, hmm?”
“They’ve been an irritant these last years,” Cassius agreed. He took a slice of bread and buttered it.
“That last breakout at Newgate was beyond the pale,” Marguerite said.
Jamie made a curious sound.
“You didn’t hear about it?” Marguerite said. “Ah, well... the Court’s been keeping the attacks quiet. Rather embarrassing when humans get the better of time travelers.”
Beside Joan, Nick shifted his weight. Marguerite seemed to have forgotten that there were two humans behind her. Or perhaps she didn’t care.
“So tell us,” Cassius said to Aaron curiously. “Howdidyou capture Nick Ward? Everyone’s been wondering....”
Aaron hesitated. He had no idea.
Ruth saw that he needed help. “Iwant to know where the namewolvescame from.”
Cassius turned an unctuous smile on her that made Joan’s skin crawl. He was the kind of guy who enjoyed explaining things to pretty girls, and Ruth had clocked it. “Well...” He leaned back in his seat. “After Ward escaped the arena, he started breaking out humans from prisons, and he always left a wolf symbol behind. He became known as the Wolf, and followers were wolves.”
“The arena?” Ruth said.
Cassius tilted his head; this, it seemed, should have been common knowledge. Ruth projected wide-eyed ignorance in response.
“Ward was a gladiator for years,” Marguerite said. “He fought under the Oliver banner. You didn’t know?”
Joan’s stomach turned over. She remembered the token she’d found at the Serpentine Inn—a ticket to fights at the arena. Had Nick’s counterpart been forced to fight there?
“Aaron’s father plucked him from the slums when he was a boy,” Cassius said. “He was trained from childhood.” He looked wryly at Aaron. “Say what you will about your father, but he had an eye for gladiators. Ward was the best fighter your family ever had.”
“Mm,” Aaron said noncommittally.
“Such a shame that he escaped his pen,” Cassius said.
“And then no one could find him,” Marguerite mused. “Until Aaron caught him.”
The words struck Joan as familiar.You’ve been remarkably difficult to find, a guard had told her and Nick once. The guard had arrested them, and when they’d escaped, he hadn’t seemed ableto find them again—even with the benefit of time travel. Nick and Joan had never been in the time and place he’d expected them to be.
Joan chewed her lip. Eleanor had said something similar last night too.... She’d told Aaron that—even with all her power and her oversight of the timeline—she couldn’t always anticipate the wolves’incidents of rebellion, as she’d called him.
Joan glanced at Nick now. Eleanor had detached him from the timeline, and Joan was beginning to suspect that the timeline behaved strangely in his vicinity as a result. That it fluctuated more than usual when he was around.
Had Nick’s counterpart had the same quality? Had the timeline fluctuated more in his presence, making the wolves’ attacks difficult to predict?
