Page 92 of Once a Villain
“It’s above their pay grade.”
“Right.”
Joan could tell Aaron was worried despite his words, and so was she. Eleanor was unpredictable. For all they knew, there’d be guards waiting for them as soon as they left the stadium.
They took a different route out, just in case—a curving path around the arena. Joan’s breath hitched as she realized that they were going to pass the viewing room where she’d seen Nick die.
She found herself stopping in the corridor just outside the room. There were still marks on the packed-dirt floor where Aaron had dragged her from the window. Through the viewing slots, the sand was bright white under the moonlight. The arena seemed smaller from this angle.
“A part of me can’t believe he’s gone,” she admitted to Aaron. “I think I saw him as some kind of superhero. As if a fall like that couldn’t have killed him.”
She took a step into the room without really intending to. As she did, an oddity caught her eye—a smear of reflected light on the brick wall beside the window. She glanced over her shoulder. Aaron was standing in the dark doorway, watching the corridorfor guards. The hairs rose at the back of Joan’s neck. There was no source to the light.
She walked slowly toward it. There was an odd depth to it, as though it wasinsidethe wall. As she reached it, a shadow moved inside that depth. Joan recoiled. And then she drew a sharp breath as she finally realized what she was looking at.
“Whatisthat?” Aaron said. He joined her at the wall, peering at the thing.
“It’s...” Joan shook her head. There was a hole in the wall about the size of her own hand. And inside—instead of the arena—she could see an illuminated room. Far inside, where the arena’s stands should have been, there was a stone wall, eaten away by the elements and by time. Joan stared. She knew that wall. She’d been in that room a couple of years ago, on a walking tour of London’s Roman ruins. “It’s the basement of the Guildhall Art Gallery,” she said to Aaron. “It’s their exhibit of Londinium’s amphitheater.”
“What?”
Joan swallowed. “This is a tear in the timeline. It’s showing usourtimeline.”
Aaron’s mouth opened and closed. “How is that possible?”
“I don’t know, but I can feel the tear,” Joan said. The familiar sense of corruption and decay. And she could see the jagged edges of it now, faintly in the moonlight.
Aaron shuddered as if her words had made him aware of his own sense of it. “But Eleanor closed all the tears when she locked down the timeline. I saw the one above the stadium close. Ifeltit close.”
Something disturbing occurred to Joan then. She toed at themarks on the ground. She’d dug in her shoes when Aaron had tugged her to safety. She took a step to the left so that she was standing on that mark. Then she reached for the wall.
Aaron stopped her with a hand to her arm. “What are youdoing?” he said, alarmed.
“It’s all right,” Joan reassured him. She hadn’t intended to touch the thing. Only to check its position. She knew for sure now, though. She’d been standing right here when Nick had died. She’d been touching the wall right here.
“Joan?”
Joan swallowed, looking up at him. He was so beautiful, even with the lack of sleep and all the stress he’d been under. “There’s something I haven’t told you.” She’d never told anyone but Ying Liu. A reflexive wave of fear ran through her, even though she knew Aaron would never hurt her.
He saw the shiver and took her hand, shifting her away from the tear and into his arms. “What’s going on?”
Joan searched for the words. “There’s something wrong with my power.”
“In what way?” he said softly.
“I—I thinkImade this tear in the timeline. I’ve done it before. I mean, I was never certain it wasme. But seeing this here...” This was where she’d been when Nick had died. Her power often came out in moments of desperate emotion. It had to have been her.
Aaron peered down at her, searching her face, his own expression a mixture of doubt and confusion.
“Sometimes, my power comes out of its own volition,” Joanexplained. “Sometimes I unmake things I don’t mean to unmake.”
“You mean it’s unreliable?” Aaron said.
“It’s worse than that.”Somuch worse. “The Grave power allows me to unmake objects. But sometimes my power goes beyond that. It tears holes in the timeline—like I’m unmaking the world itself.”
She didn’t know what she’d expected to see on Aaron’s face—repulsion, maybe, or horror—but to her relief, he just seemed troubled. “I’ve never heard of such a thing,” he said.
“I made this tear when I saw Nick die,” Joan said. “I did the same thing at Holland House when I unmade him. I did it at the café near Covent Garden. And I think in the Oliver garden, when we spoke to my grandmother... I don’t have any control over it.”
