Page 87 of Only a Monster

It felt as though they were at an impasse. They were pressed tightly against each other, neither of them moving. There was a distant shout. Then another shout—more urgent.

‘Someone’s discovered your break-in,’ Nick said.

‘I should kill you,’ Joan told him. For her family. She sounded as raw as Nick had. Do it, she told herself. Kill him.

Nick shifted again, this time careful not to jolt the sword wound. And Joan had the sudden absurd thought that if she just stood on tiptoes she could kiss him. ‘You won’t,’ he whispered, that shadow of agony still in his eyes. ‘You don’t want me dead yet. You want to kill me before I kill your family.’

There were running footsteps now, getting closer and closer. Joan and Nick stood there in that lethal embrace, tucked tight against each other.

‘Maybe I’ll kill you twice,’ Joan whispered.

Nick’s mouth lifted, wry. ‘Not even your King could manipulate the timeline as much as that.’

The footsteps drew closer. Perhaps four rooms away. Three rooms away. Nick slowly lowered the knife. For a second, they were just standing there, Joan’s hand still cupped around Nick’s neck as though she were going to kiss him, Nick’s hands loose by his sides.

Do it, Joan told herself. But she couldn’t. She just couldn’t. She heard herself make a helpless, pained sound.

‘Joan,’ Nick said. And the guards were coming, but he was staring down at her, intense and desperate, as if they were the only two people in the world. ‘You know this is wrong,’ he whispered. ‘Look around you. They steal from humans. That’s all they do.’

Joan shook her head.

‘Last time I saw you, you told me you’d come after me,’ he whispered. ‘That you’d try to stop me. Please, Joan. Don’t. Just stay away from me.’

Joan wanted to hold on to him. She released his neck, letting her hand drop to her side. ‘You’re a hero and I’m a monster,’ she whispered. ‘There’s only one way that story ever ends.’

Nick took a deep breath. When he spoke, his voice shook. ‘I know.’

And then he slipped through the door and was gone.

Joan stumbled through the palace, trying to stay out of the way of the guards. Her body felt too alive everywhere she’d been pressed against Nick.

Without the light from Aaron’s phone, it took her ages to navigate through the chapel in the dark, and to find the hidden door behind the cabinet. She had to keep shaking off flashes of memory—how Nick had dropped his knife before she’d dropped her hand. How raw his voice had been. By the time she found the door catch, she was shaking.

Ruth was waiting for her. She grabbed Joan’s hand and pulled her through. And just in time. Another guest entered just as Joan scooted inside.

‘Hey ho!’ the other guest said, cheerfully. She was a middle-aged woman dressed in robes and a gold headdress. ‘Dumping your host gift too?’ The woman took a small vase from her robes and placed it onto a shelf. ‘I arrived a bit late.’

Joan couldn’t find an answer. She was relieved when Ruth spoke. ‘Uh. Yes,’ Ruth said a little artificially. She leaned against the cabinet, covering the click of its closure with a cough. ‘Yes, we arrived late too.’ She patted one of the vases on the shelf.

‘Goodness,’ the woman said. ‘Where did you get that old thing?’

The vase next to Ruth was ancient: cracked and repaired. The woman’s vase was in the same style, but glossy and new.

Joan looked around slowly. The room was full of artifacts—people’s gifts for the King. Vases and necklaces. Bolts of cloth. Bracelets, urns, statues. Hundreds and hundreds of artifacts. Museum pieces from all of history.

You know this is wrong, Nick had said. Look around you.

‘Where did you get that vase?’ Joan heard herself ask the woman.

‘What, this?’ The woman shrugged. ‘A little market in Babylon.’

‘Babylon?’ Joan said. The hairs rose at the back of her neck. Babylon had been at its height nearly four thousand years ago. A return trip to Babylon would cost nearly eight thousand years of human life. Joan stared at the woman. She looked so ordinary. Like someone’s mum. Had she stolen that much human life to go to a party?

Joan thought about the stone statues breathing fire in the next room. The butterfly chandelier. All the marvels here. It occurred to her that they were probably future technology. Human technology, stolen by monsters. Was that what Nick had seen when he’d walked in? All these stolen things?

‘Joan,’ Ruth said urgently. Joan blinked at her. The woman was on her way out the door, sparing a moment to give Joan a puzzled look over her shoulder.

For the first time, Joan wondered what would happen if she and Ruth were on the opposite sides of this. She quashed the thought as soon as it had risen, surprised at herself. She could trust Ruth with anything. And Ruth could trust her. Always.

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