Page 95 of Once a Villain
Joan felt the breath leave her lungs as she thought again of the tear they’d seen in the colosseum wall.
She looked at Aaron. He nodded at her slightly, encouraging her to tell them. Joan swallowed. She already missed the intimacy they’d had when it had just been the two of them.
“I need to tell you something,” she said.
She told the others about the tear she and Aaron had seen in the colosseum wall. About her suspicion that she’d caused it. About the other tears she’d made in the world.
“That shouldn’t be possible—whether it was you or not,” Jamie said slowly. “Once the timeline is locked into place, there shouldn’t be any more tears.”
Tom had already jumped ahead. “Unless the timeline isn’t locked....”
“You think Eleanor got it wrong?” Ruth said. The hope in her voice was countered by a note of doubt. “As in... we still have a chance to fix this timeline?”
“I don’t know,” Joan said.
“But only Nick could have killed Eleanor,” Jamie said. “He was the only one free of the timeline’s constraints.”
“Aaron has a theory.” Joan folded her arms around herself, and Aaron’s weight shifted toward her, as if he wanted to touch her. Joan opened her mouth, and then couldn’t bring herself to voice it.
Aaron stepped in. “What if Nick isn’t dead? What if that’s why the tear opened up?”
“Not to be crass,” Tom said softly, “but we were in the stands when he fell. He’s dead.”
Nickwasdead. Joan knew it. She could sense it. He wasn’t in the world anymore. She stared at the floor, feeling hollowedout—she’d cried so much today, and now she was starting to feel numb. She found herself taking a couple of steps to sink down onto Ruth’s bed. Sylvie blinked up at her from the pillow and yawned.
Aaron went over and offered her a mug. “It’s just hot water,” he said apologetically.
Joan shook her head. “I’m all right.”
He settled beside her, a comforting warmth. It was so like how they’d sat on his bed just a few hours before that Joan found herself thinking again of the message they’d found in the ring.
The love note, and also the note that had come before it.You have what you need.
When Joan had touched the ring, there’d been a jolt, as if the timeline had taken notice. As if there’d been something important about that ring. Now she wondered... Could the message have been about the ring itself? There’d been something inside it—something other than the message. A piece of bloodstained cloth. What hadthatbeen?
And where was the ring now? The last Joan had seen of it, Nick had been wearing it on a chain around his neck.
Aloud, she said slowly, “I know people can’t be in the same time twice. Is that true for objects too?”
Jamie seemed puzzled by Joan’s non sequitur. “It depends. Why?”
“I don’t know,” Joan said. But she felt like she almostdidknow. Like there was something on the tip of her tongue. “When we went to the rookery, Nick’s sister was wearing the same ring as Nick. The exact same ring, with the same flaws. Hers was onher finger, and Nick’s was around his neck.”
“Thatisodd,” Jamie conceded. He gave Joan a strange look, and she realized that she’d been so deep in her thoughts that she was barely making sense to the others.
She tried to explain the feeling. “Nick was wearing that ring when I first met him—when he was a monster slayer. And when I first touched it here inthisworld, it was like the timeline—” She searched for the right words. “It was like the timeline sat up and paid attention. Like it was interested in the ring. Or in me touching the ring.”
“Have you slept at all?” Ruth said to her, frowning. “You look exhausted.”
“No, I felt it too,” Aaron said. “I felt it when you picked up the ring, Joan. Like there was something strange about it.”
“I don’t understand,” Jamie said.
“I don’t either,” Joan admitted. “But... do you remember the message inside it? Nick clearly expected Aaron’s counterpart to stop Eleanor. He said:You have what you need.We thought it was a reference to the cipher, but what if it was talking about the ring itself? The actual object?” As she said it, she had the strange feeling that she was right.
Tom looked doubtful. “We’ll never know. We couldn’t decode the cipher.”
Joan looked at Aaron. Did he want to tell them?
