Page 136 of Once a Villain
She let her mind turn to herself and Aaron and Nick—to the precious moment they’d had together in the library. To everything that had been taken from them. That might still be taken.
Sadness and pain ripping through her, she ordered the bond: “Be unmade!”
The Grave power answered her as it never had before, rolling out in waves that shook the whole house—far more violently than the earlier attacks.
Around the room, velvet hangings exploded into silken threads and then curled up again into cocoons. Brick melted to clay, smearing down the walls like blood. Wood panels turned green and sprouted leaves. To Joan’s frustration, though, Eleanor’s bond with the timeline remained stubbornly intact.
She dug deeper, pouring out power. By the wall, Eleanor gestured with her hands. Nothing happened. The murmurs from the Court rose to true fear as they realized that even Eleanor was being neutralized.
Everything seemed affected—except for the people themselves. Underfoot, rugs fluffed up into unspun wool and puffs of flossy cotton. Leather wallpaper sprouted fur.
Water dripped from the ceiling as the plaster was unmade too, until—with a terrifying crash—the ceiling fell, and then the roof beyond that. Everyone stumbled back from the falling furniture and raining dust. Joan looked up and felt a snapping sensation—a thousand elastics breaking. And suddenly, the sky was full of writhing shadows.
Behind her, Jamie gasped. “You broke the Ali seals!”
Shehad. She’d torn open the seals that had been hiding Eleanor’s broken timeline. And they hadn’t only been in the sky. She’d broken one at the far end of the room—shadows whirled there, by the fireplace. Joan shuddered at the sight of them. This world really was falling apart.
ButstillEleanor’s bond with the timeline hadn’t torn. Everything else was unraveling, but not that.
“Why are you even fighting?” Eleanor said hoarsely. “You have to know it’s pointless! Just give up!”
“Yougive up!” Joan snarled back. She was starting to shake. Why couldn’t she tear away that bond? She had the capacity to break it—she could feel it inside her. She just couldn’t access the deepest well of her power.
Eleanor attacked her again, and again her power fizzled at the source. “Don’t just stand there!” she screamed at the Court. “Stop her! Kill her! Do whatever it takes!”
Joan pushed harder and harder. She felt the timeline thinning around her, and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to find something more inside her.
Eleanor made a sudden shocked sound, and Joan’s eyes flew open. Had she done it?
No. To her disappointment, the ghostly bond was still tight around Eleanor’s waist.
The room seemed oddly lit, though, as if someone had opened a curtain, spilling in sunshine.
Joan followed Eleanor’s gaze.
To her confusion, the sunroom behind her was completely intact again—the glass whole, with morning sun shining sweetly through an open curtain. It took Joan a long second to understand that she wasn’t seeingthisroom. The last blast of her power had created a window showing another timeline—just like the one Mum had created at the Grave house.
And in that window, there was another Joan.
The other Joan sat in an overstuffed chair in the sunroom, a book folded around itself. She had shoulder-length hair and a serene expression that changed to confusion as she caught sight of Joan and the devastated house around her.
With a jolt, Joan realized that the counterpart could seethem, just like they could see her.
Joan’s counterpart spotted Eleanor then, and her expression shifted from confusion to pure, shaken horror. “Eleanor!What’s happened!” She scrambled up, dropping the book. “Is thatyourblood?”
Eleanor’s mouth dropped open. From her shock, this had to be Joan’s original self. Eleanor’s actual sister. And once again, Joan felt the cogs of the timeline turning. It seemed she’d been in this house in the true timeline too. She always came back to this house.
“I need to get you to a hospital!” Joan’s counterpart said. “Don’t worry, I’ll—” But as she took a step toward her sister, she vanished—as abruptly as she’d appeared—as if she’d been nothing more than a soap bubble all along.
Eleanor’s mouth was still open, as though she’d been about to reply. She stared in the direction of the sunroom, her expression raw.
Mum had told Joan that Eleanor had never been able to create windows like this. It struck Joan then that this might have been the first time Eleanor had seen her actual sister since the King had erased the Grave family.
As Joan wondered that, Nick gasped out, “Joan!”
Someone hadfinallymade it past his defense line. Joan stumbled back, taken by complete surprise. She had a split second to see that it was Conrad, his face and hair moonlight-pale, his strange, glass-like eyes trained on her. He had a gun, already pointing toward her.
Conrad shot at Joan before she could react. The split second seemed to stretch and stretch. Joan could see Nick’s hand reaching, desperately trying to stop Conrad. She could feel Ruth, turning a moment too late.
