Page 85 of Once a Villain
Nick shifted his weight. Eleanor’s mention of Joan seemed to have gotten to him. Joan’s chest tightened. Standing up there, alone with Eleanor, he looked so much like the Nick she’d first met in the Holland House library. The boy with the dark eyes and solemn smile. Joan hadn’t known then that they were soul mates of a kind—that they’d been together in the true timeline.
“You were with her in the original timeline,” Eleanor said, echoing Joan’s thoughts now.
Joan shivered at the malicious note in her voice. She was starting to feel unnerved. Eleanor had made no move to drop the shield, and the writhing shadows of the void above were moving faster, as if getting restless.
“Every timeline since that first one has yearned for that original shape,” Eleanor said. “That’s why you and Joan kept meeting each other, in timeline after timeline.” Her tone was almost intimate now, as if she’d forgotten their audience. “But all that will change when I lock downthistimeline. The timeline will lose all memory of its previous iterations. It won’t yearn for anything but the shape I make of it. This will be the first and last—the only—timeline, and all resonances of the true timeline will be lost. I wonder if you’ll still feel the same toward herthen? Will you still care for her?”
“Nothing you do will ever change how I feel,” Nick said. Joan hadn’t been eager to kill Eleanor, but Nick tilted the gun slightly now, drawing attention to it again. “Go on,” he said toher. “Lower the barrier. Try to lock the timeline.”
For some reason, Eleanor smiled at that. Joan felt a wave of deep unease. Why was she smiling?
“Iaskwhether you’ll feel the same,” Eleanor said, “but the truth is you won’t feel anything at all.”
“No!” Joan heard herself say. She didn’t know what Eleanor was up to, but she felt a thrill of fear. What had she meant bythat??
“I made and remade you,” Eleanor said to Nick. “Until the timeline held no power over you. I needed you to kill the King. And you did. You didsucha good job for me. And I don’t know who told you that I had to remove the barrier to lock the timeline, but it really isn’t true.”
Joan’s stomach dropped. Jamie had theorized that the seal would have to come down, but it had only been a guess. If it wasn’t true, then this was already over.
Nick was already reacting. He shot at the barrier. The bullet stopped in midair, as if caught in a gel, and Nick made a frustrated sound. He pulled the short sword from his scabbard instead. With both hands on the hilt, he shoved it into the barrier. And—Joan gasped—the blade started to penetrate. It was slow—as if Nick was pushing through thick rubber—but the sword was moving.
Eleanor backed up farther, eyes on the sword.
“You have no power over me,” Nick said to Eleanor. “And neither does any time magic.”
“I detached you from the timeline,” Eleanor agreed. “You’re a free agent. A catalyst of change. And you’re right—Idon’thave any power over you. But I have power over the rest of the world.”
She snapped her fingers, and Joan started back. A whole swath of the audience was gone—at least ten thousand people in the upper stands. The humans. They’d all vanished from their seats.
Joan felt a chill go through her. She had the sense that Eleanor had sent them into another time. Easy as breathing.
“The truth is, I can’t lock the timeline while there’s a free agent in it,” Eleanor said. Another snap of her fingers, and iron spikes rose again in the arena, sharp and lethal as sharks’ teeth.
Horror rushed through Joan as she understood Eleanor’s intention. “No!” she shouted.
“You shouldn’t have come here, Nick,” Eleanor said. “Because I couldn’t lock the timeline while you were still alive. I need you dead.” This time, Eleanor didn’t snap her fingers. The balcony under Nick’s feet was just gone—like the people in the stadium. Pushed into another time.
A scream started in the back of Joan’s throat, and then there was suddenly a hand over her mouth, muffling her as Nick fell.An impossible distance—an unsurvivable distance—to the arena below, where the metal spikes were waiting.
Something gritty and sharp crumbled under Joan’s fingers. Her power was coming out. She’d been touching the stone wall, and her power was instinctively trying to get her to Nick.
For a moment, the crowd was near silent—seemingly in disbelief. And then a roar started, rising and rising and rising until the sound felt like a physical thing, thrumming through Joan’s body. The monsters were cheering, Joan realized. They’d seen all this as a show. As entertainment.
Sick to her stomach, Joan fought, trying to see Nick’s body on the ground, but the surviving humans in the arena were still clustered around him. She couldn’t see where he’d fallen.
She didn’t need to see his body, though, to know that he was gone. She could feel the timeline shifting as the great beast quieted on its leash.
Above, the sky swallowed up the jagged hole, as if it had never been there. Eleanor’s timeline was cementing into place. Nick’s death had sealed it.
Joan’s throat ached, and she realized she was still screaming into someone’s cupped hand. That same someone pulled her bodily now, turning her away from the arena.
Joan blinked up. It was Aaron, his beautiful face tight and shaken. His lips moved, the sound consumed by the crowd:We have to go!
She killed him, Joan screamed. The words ground in her throat like shards of glass, but she still couldn’t hear herself over the roar of the crowd.He’s dead!
A sudden, horrifying image flashed into her mind—of Nick’s head, dark with tar, spiked on a turret. She turned blindly back. They had to get him out of there. They had to protect his body from whatever sick indignities Eleanor might still inflict on him.
Aaron clasped Joan’s waist, tugging at her. She resisted.We have to get to him!she shouted. But Aaron was stronger than she was. He dragged her into his arms, and then pushed her toward the open door.
