Page 48 of Once a Villain
Marguerite’s brow creased. “Are you all right?” she asked Aaron. “You seem out of sorts today.”
“I—” Aaron shook his head. “Sorry.”
Marguerite searched his face for so long that Joan was afraid she might recognize that Aaron wasn’t her son. She only said, though, “All of this is so much harder without Nick, I know. But you had to get him out. Eleanor would have killed him if he’d stayed here—she almost did. And you can still do good work without him.”
Aaron glanced at Nick, his expression difficult to read. Marguerite caught the look. “Whoareyour friends?” she asked Aaron curiously.
“Best that you don’t know. I trust them, though.”
To Joan’s relief, Marguerite seemed to accept that. “Well then... What is it you wanted to tell me?”
Aaron tilted his head in question.
“You and Nick have been searching for a way to get to the Queen,” Marguerite prompted. “You said that Nick had found it. My love, this is why we arranged to talk here. You were going to tell me what Nick found....”
A way to get to the Queen.
The realization dawned on Joan in slow-motion horror.Gran had sent them to find Aaron’s and Nick’s counterparts, and now it seemed they’d been in possession of something important. Something that could be used to get to Eleanor. But the counterparts weren’t here anymore.
Aaron’s eyes were wide. He was clearly still shaken by the revelation that his counterpart had been helping rather than harming humans, and now he’d realized what Joan had. The counterparts had had plans of their own to get to Eleanor. Plans that had been derailed now....
“I—I—” For all that Aaron had told them to keep lying to his mother, Joan could see how much it was weighing on him.
“Aaron...areyou all right?” Marguerite said.
“Just a headache,” Aaron managed. “From speaking to Cassius Argent, no doubt.”
“You said you received a message, authenticated by Nick’s ring,” Marguerite prompted.
“Yes, of course,” Aaron said. He flicked a look at Joan, muted panic in his eyes. He had no idea what the message was, or how to find it.
It occurred to Joan that there’d been a ring tied to Nick’s execution notice. She’d put it in her pocket—hadn’t liked the idea of leaving it, unnoticed and uncared for, on that desk. Had there been a message with it? There’d been papers all over the desk. Joan hadn’t even looked at them.
She retrieved the ring now. It was smooth and seamless, the square signet plain black without adornment. She swallowed hard. It wasexactlylike the ring Nick had worn in the timeline she’d first met him in.
Nick drew a sharp breath. He’d gone pale. “May I?” He held out his hand.
Joan passed the ring to him, unsure why he wanted it. As she did, she noticed for the first time that there were scratches on the black metal that might have been numbers. If she squinted, the scratches might have said 317. Couldthatbe the message?
Nick flicked his thumb against one edge of the signet. To Joan’s surprise, the piece opened, revealing a tiny hidden compartment.
“How did you see that mechanism?” Ruth said to Nick wonderingly. “That hinge was completely invisible.”
“My sister has a ring just like this.” Nick’s head was low, and Joan realizedwhyhe’d paled. He hadn’t seen the ring last night; he’d been distracted by the photograph of his own battered face. Now, though, he had to be wondering why his sister wasn’t in possession of her own ring. Wondering if something had happened to her in this timeline. He took a deep breath, and Joan could tell he was trying to focus on the task. “There’s a piece of cloth inside,” he said. “And a bit of plastic.” The cloth was a tiny scrap in the ring’s hollow, discolored with something rust-like that almost looked like blood. Nick extracted the plastic piece nestled beside it.
“It’s a projector,” Aaron said. Like the one they’d used last night to watch Nick’s faked execution.
Joan’s lips felt dry.A way to get to the Queen, Marguerite had said. Could that bit of plastic hold the key to accessing Eleanor? They’d been talking about the prospect of confronting her again, but it felt so much more real suddenly.
“Wonderful.” Marguerite didn’t seem to notice how flustered they all were. “Shall we watch the message?”
Aaron placed the plastic piece in the aisle between the seats. Then he stood back and waited.
Jamie coughed. “Password.”
Aaron looked like a deer in headlights. He had no idea what his counterpart’s password could be. “I—I don’t—” he started. And then he hesitated, and said uncertainly: “Clavis aurea?”
It was fortunate that Marguerite was watching the plastic tag and not Aaron, because he couldn’t hide his clear surprise when a swath of empty space transformed into a small brick-walled room. The password had worked. The playback had started.
