Page 11 of Once a Villain
And now everyone stopped. For a second, the dynamics seemed to shift between them, from five people in the room to three monsters and two humans.
Then Aaron said: “Okay.”
Joan blinked at him, thrown a little off guard. “Okay?” She’dexpected him to argue—to say:It’s a waste not to use them. The time’s already taken. You’re being unreasonable. We should at least take a vote.
But he looked up at her, gray eyes serious. “Do you want me to give them to you?”
Joan didn’t want to touch them. “No.”
“Okay,” Aaron said again, as if that was reasonable. It wasn’t, though, she knew.
“All right,” Ruth said slowly. She looked between Joan and Aaron, as if she’d registered something that Joan hadn’t.
Joan felt off-balance, despite Aaron’s easy agreement. She concentrated on the newly opened drawer.
She found a small stash of coins and banknotes with Eleanor’s profile, crowned in roses—the official currency, she guessed. She pocketed it and kept rummaging, feeling something hard at the bottom of the drawer.
“What’s this?” She’d retrieved a domino-like object, off-white and heavy. Had it been carved from bone? There was a date on one side—April 13—and a letter,V. She turned it over and found an etched image of a stadium that looked like the Colosseum of Rome.
Jamie came over to look. “It’s an old ticket to the arena. Not worth anything.” He pointed to a scratched strike through the stadium image. “It’s already been used.”
“Arena?” Joan repeated. The caged men on the bridge flashed into her mind. “Damnatio ad gladium,” she said slowly. “Damnatio ad bestias.” Those words were familiar.... She’d heard them before, in history classes.
“Condemnation to the sword, and condemnation to the beasts,” Jamie said. “They were punishments of ancient Rome. Criminals were forced to fight against gladiators. And afterthosebattles, the lowest-worth prisoners were forced into the arena with lions and bears.”
Joan fumbled the bone ticket back into the drawer. Eleanor had brought back medieval displays of heads on spikes, and now, it seemed, she’d brought back Londinium’s colosseum too. More ancient cruelties.
Jamie took a book from the shelf above Joan’s drawer.Crown History: Volume 1. He flipped through it, spending a fraction of a second on each page, his expression turning grave. “It’s an official history,” he said to Joan. “It lays out some basic laws.”
“Laws like what?” Joan was almost afraid to ask.
Jamie’s mouth twisted. He recited what must have been a passage from the book:
“Each human must give fifty years—or a full life term, if that term is smaller—to the monster family in whose territory they are born. This time may take the form of life or labor, or a combination of both. In exchange, humans will receive housing in the family’s territory, a salary, and a pension if applicable.Families may educate or train any human in their territory, at their discretion, and may designate certain high-value humans as labor-only or labor-mostly. At all times, humans must display two numbers: the amount of life they have left to live, in years, months, and days, and the amount of time still belonging to the family.”
It was too much. The cages, the heads on the turrets, the curfew, the man being beaten on the bridge... Joan’s thoughtsswirled in a nauseating mess of fear, guilt, anger. This world existed because of her. For a long moment, she couldn’t find the words. “We can’t let this world stand,” she managed. “Wehaveto fix the timeline.”
“How?” Jamie said.
Joan blinked at him. Wasn’t it obvious? “We have to kill Eleanor, like Nick killed the King.” Despite everything, the words felt wrong in her mouth. Eleanor was her sister. Joan might not remember her, but she was Joan’s own blood.
But Joan didn’t see any other way. Eleanor had molded Nick into a weak point of the timeline—a place where history could be changed—so that he could kill the King. Surely that meant he could kill Eleanor too. And that should givethemcontrol of the timeline.
Jamie’s dark eyes were gentle. “I don’t think it’ll be that simple.”
Joan looked down at the embroidered carpet with the elm-tree symbol of the Argents. She suspected Jamie was right. Eleanor was smart—and she played a long game. She’d spent years planning the King’s murder. She had to have spent just as long figuring out how to protect herself.
Joan caught sight of Nick then. He was standing in the kitchen, both hands on the counter, expression sick with guilt. Joan pushed away from the wall, unable to bear the misery on his face. “I’ll see if there’s anything in the bedroom we can sell,” she managed.
The black hallway carpet was so lush and soft that Joan’s footsteps were completely silent. She tried to calm her mind, but she kept seeing Nick. He’d barely been able to look at her sincethey’d arrived here.I turned you against each other, Eleanor had said.It worked, didn’t it?
Joan swallowed down the lump in her throat.Valuables, she told herself firmly. She had to focus on that. The bedroom at the end of the hallway was very dark. She found the light switch, and blinked when it illuminated not ceiling lights but dim lamps around the walls. The glow was as soft as candlelight.
Opposite the bed was a walk-in closet, almost as large as the rest of the room. The clothes inside it seemed to belong to a man—the one in the living room portrait, maybe.
Joan flicked through sixteenth-century shirts and doublets, looking for tie pins, cuff links, pearl beading, gold buttons, anything sellable. Finding nothing, she turned, and was surprised to see a shard of light, like a sunbeam, in the middle of the closet. It stood at a not quite horizontal angle, dust motes floating within.
It hadn’t been there when Joan had walked in.... She glanced at the window, half expecting to see a crack in the curtains with daylight pouring in. But it was night outside, and the curtains were firmly shut.
