Page 89 of Only a Monster

When she re-emerged, Aaron put a finger to his lips. And then Joan could hear something—footsteps in the far distance. Voices. ‘Guards,’ Aaron murmured into her ear.

After that, they walked in silence.

Tom took them to a wooden gate at the very edge of the palace, where two stone walls met. The gate was small and unadorned—more like a passage out of a back garden than a palace.

Tom drew the iron bolt quietly and pulled the gate inward. They all retreated instinctively from the gaping mouth. On the other side, there were silhouettes of buildings and a wide street. The moonlight seemed to barely touch any of it. Nothing was moving.

Joan felt a sick swoop in her stomach, as though she were standing on a high wall. There’d been something awful about the view of the frozen Thames, but now she realised that the horror of it had been mitigated by the window between.

Beside Joan, Aaron put his hand over his mouth as if he were going to be sick.

‘There’s nothing there,’ Ruth whispered. ‘It looks like there’s something there, but there’s nothing there. It’s a void. All those silhouettes are just shadows.’

‘I know,’ Tom said. His gaze was averted; he couldn’t even look at the view.

Joan could feel it too—the horror of it. Her stomach roiled. Her skin crawled. She had the feeling that if she stepped across the threshold, she’d fall and fall and fall forever.

She tried not to think about that as she passed Aaron the hammer and nails to free her hands. Then she started to work on the rope. She made a loop with it, the size of the gate. As she tied the ends together, Aaron seemed to understand what she was doing. He lined up one of the nails at the left top corner of the gate’s wooden frame. At Joan’s nod, he tapped it with the hammer.

They all stopped then, listening. Joan held her breath. There were no urgent voices. No running footsteps. No sounds at all. Joan counted to ten. Then she nodded at Aaron again. He moved over to the other corner and tapped in the other nail.

Then he helped Joan hang the rope around the gate. Earlier in the night, they’d needed a long rug to cross the stretch of snow between them and the archive. But Joan hoped that here a rope would be good enough. And she hoped it would be easier for Ruth to manage.

‘I don’t know about this,’ Ruth whispered. ‘I can’t even feel the Hunt power. It’s like—’ She hesitated as if she wasn’t sure how it felt. ‘It’s like it’s burned out of me. The Hunt power isn’t supposed to open gates like this.’

‘Close your eyes,’ Joan whispered, ‘and try. Just try. One more time.’

Ruth hesitated again. Her eyes were sunken with fatigue; her skin was almost grey. But she touched the rope with the flat of her hand and closed her eyes. Nothing happened for a long moment. ‘I can’t—’ she started to say, and then something flashed on the other side of the gate. Joan heard Aaron gasp.

For a second, the moon had been smaller, and in a different part of the sky.

Ruth must have felt it. She opened her eyes. Frowning with concentration, she pushed the rope against the wooden frame, straining. There was another flash, and this time it lasted long enough for Joan to see the buildings grow and shrink on the other side of the road. There was no way to know what year she’d seen.

Ruth was already exhausted. ‘I can’t keep it open,’ she said.

‘Okay,’ Joan said. ‘Okay. We’ll have to jump across during the flash.’

‘You must be joking,’ Aaron whispered. ‘If the gate closes while we’re crossing . . .’

‘If Conrad finds us . . .’ Tom whispered back.

Aaron squeezed his eyes shut for a second. ‘All right,’ he said in acknowledgment. ‘All right. I’ll go first.’ He stepped up to the threshold of the rope.

‘Get ready.’ Ruth’s face was strained with concentration. ‘Now.’

The gate flashed open and Aaron hurled himself through. And then he was gone, and there was only the shadowy city on the other side.

‘Did he make it?’ Ruth whispered.

‘Yes,’ Joan whispered back, even though she hadn’t actually seen him get to the other side. The flash had been too brief. She needed to believe that he’d made it. She needed to believe that he hadn’t disappeared into a void.

‘I’ll go next,’ Tom said. He stepped up to the threshold, Frankie in his arms.

Joan put her own hand up against the rope, willing her own Hunt power to activate. She couldn’t feel anything of it. Her Hunt power had failed years ago. But she couldn’t just stand here while Ruth burned herself out.

‘Get ready,’ Ruth said to Tom. Then, almost as fast: ‘Go.’

The gate flashed again. And then Tom was gone.

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