Page 138 of Once a Villain
Eleanor opened her mouth and started to say something, andthen stopped herself. “Yeah,” she said heavily. “Because of me.”
Joan hadn’t expected her to say that. “And because of the King... ,” she acknowledged.
Eleanor closed her eyes for a second. “You know, I almost did it. I almost won. I beathim. If I could have just subjugated the timeline too, everything would have worked out.”
Joan ran a hand over her face, a shudder running through her. Every time she had a little feeling for her sister, Eleanor horrified her anew. “Yeah, you made a real winner of a timeline.” She closed her eyes, sick of her suddenly. Sick of dealing with everything Eleanor had put them through. “How long do you think we have? Before the world falls into the void?”
“I don’t know,” Eleanor said. “Days. Weeks, maybe.”
Joan left her there and went over to check on the others. They had cuts and bruises, but nothing worse. To her relief, Frankie and Sylvie were still safe in their padded bags—they hadn’t been injured at all.
Joan found herself looking around again. Was it her imagination, or did the sky seem lower than it had before? Was the void closer?
She followed the line of the house’s foundations. They seemed so sad to her now: that beautiful house reduced to ridges in the ground.
Near the wall line, the tear that had been in the Breakfast Room was a creepy black spot in the field. How many more holes were speckled in ordinary places like this, visible now without their Ali seals?
And soon, the whole world would be lost. There wouldn’t even be remnants like this.
A wave of homesickness hit Joan then. If only she could have seen Dad, one last time. She suddenly wanted desperately to walk through the front door of her own home and hug him.
She blinked back tears, walking deeper into the field. After a minute, she heard footsteps. She knew before she turned that it would be Aaron and Nick.
“Can I see that cut?” Nick asked her gently.
“Cut?” Joan twisted and found a thin cut in her side—maybe from flying glass. “Oh.” Disturbingly, it was in the same spot where Lucien Oliver had cut into her with a sword.
“Let me see,” Aaron said, frowning.
“It’s fine,” Joan said, but she let them look. Warmth rushed through her as Aaron parted her sliced dress with his thumb.
“Hmm,” Aaron said, and it really must have been fine, because he just smoothed down her dress again.
He and Nick stood between Joan and the others. And it was strange, but here in the darkness—out of earshot of the others—it almost felt like the three of them were alone again.
Joan swallowed around the sudden lump in her throat. “I wish we’d had more time together,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t break the bond.”
“It sounds like Eleanor reinforced it,” Nick said, his voice a reassuring rumble. “It probably wasn’t possible.”
“I suppose. But...” Joan looked down at her feet, frustrated. “I know I made a window back there—I revealed the true timeline. But I’ve made deeper tears than that before. IknowI have. I’ve made tears that showed the void itself. I torerealholes at the colosseum, at the pub, even in the van. There’s more power inside me. I can feel it. I can almost access it. I just...” She just couldn’t quite get to it now—when she needed to the most.
“Joan... ,” Aaron started, and then he stopped as if he’d realized something.
“What is it?” Nick asked.
Aaron blinked at him, and then at Joan, an expression passing over his face that Joan couldn’t quite read. “I think I understand,” he said to her slowly. “I understand why you couldn’t access your full power at the Court.”
Joan tilted her head in question.
“You’re right,” he said. “Youhavetorn deeper holes before.Realholes. You do have it in you to break that bond.”
“But I couldn’t,” Joan said.
Aaron smiled at her, small and a little fragile. “I know. Because you didn’t have the right trigger. But I see it now. I see the pattern. You can tear holes in the fabric of the timeline itself, revealing the void. Your mother couldn’t do that. Not even theKingdid that. Butyoucan. I know what triggers your full power to come out.”
The odd note was still in his voice, and Joan felt a tug of unease out of nowhere. “What causes it?”
Aaron took a few steps back, glancing over at the ruins of the Breakfast Room before returning his gaze to her. “There was a tear in the Holland House bedroom—where your grandmother died. One in the library where you unmade Nick and lost him,and at the arena where you saw him die. You tore a hole in the pub when you thought you’d lost him too.”
