Page 111 of Never a Hero

‘But … I don’t understand,’ Ruth said. ‘How did you change the timeline?’

Joan forced herself to say it. The worst thing she’d ever done. ‘I used that power on Nick.’ She could feel Nick’s eyes on her, but she couldn’t bear to return his gaze.

Ruth made a soft sound as she took that in.

‘There’s something I don’t understand,’ Nick said to Joan, casually, as if he hadn’t noticed anyone else’s reaction, as if Joan’s words hadn’t made him feel anything at all. ‘Why didn’t the timeline stop you? The timeline shouldn’t have allowed it, right?’

Silence followed while they all processed what he’d said. In the pause, the canal washed against the platform in soft sloshes. Inside the building, faint chatter and laughter sounded from the Lius and the Hathaways.

Aaron answered first, the words tentative. ‘The timeline should have stopped you, Joan,’ he agreed. ‘Didn’t it try to resist you?’

Joan still had nightmares about that moment. It was hard now to deliberately put herself back into the memory.

How had she unmade Nick? She’d kissed him, and then she’d poured her power into him. He’d begged her to stop. And then … And then, she’d woken up, sick and depleted, in her bedroom at Gran’s house, in this new timeline.

And that was it. That was all she remembered. ‘It was like the timeline just let me do it,’ she said to Aaron. ‘I can’t explain it.’ As she said it, she felt a curl of unease. Why hadn’t it stopped her? It really should have.

‘Do you think that Eleanor could change the timeline like that too?’ Ruth said.

‘I don’t know,’ Joan said, feeling that unease again.

‘Well …’ Aaron looked troubled. ‘Eleanor’s a Nightingale. So, if that’s the plan, she’ll need someone else to do it.’

‘An ally with the same power as Joan’s?’ Ruth suggested.

‘More likely a prisoner.’ Aaron’s mouth flattened. ‘The few people who manifest that power are marked for death by the Court. But … it’s possible Eleanor kept one of them alive for herself.’

Joan shuddered, remembering Aaron’s account of the man in the cage. Was Eleanor keeping someone like Joan prisoner? She felt Aaron turn toward her; he’d registered the tremble. His expression was still tight, but to her surprise, he smoothed his face into something more reassuring when he caught her eye.

‘Marked for death?’ Ruth hissed out. She’d gone pale and pinched with worry. Joan wanted to talk to her about it—about how scary this had all been—but this wasn’t the time.

‘Well … however Eleanor does it,’ Tom said, ‘the way I see it, she has two problems to solve. She has to figure out what to change. And she has to figure out how to get around the resistance of the timeline.’

‘Eleanor talked like her plans were already underway,’ Joan said. You saw the world as it should be. As it will be when I’ve remade it. As a member of the Curia Monstrorum, Eleanor wielded almost infinite power. She controlled Court Guards; she could have people executed at her whim. Joan felt sick. ‘How are we going to stop her? We don’t know where she is. We don’t know what she’s going to change—what event or person.’ She avoided looking at Nick. ‘I wonder,’ she said, feeling out the idea as she spoke, ‘if we should just go to the Court.’

There was silence after she said it.

Aaron spoke first. ‘To what end?’

‘To turn Eleanor in.’ It seemed so obvious suddenly that Joan wasn’t sure why she hadn’t thought of it before. But the others didn’t seem to think so. Aaron and Ruth for once were in accord, both frowning. Jamie and Tom exchanged unsettled looks.

‘Who would we tell?’ Jamie asked.

‘Any other member of the Court,’ Joan said. Was it such a terrible idea? It made sense to her. The Court was full of powerful people; they ruled the monster world beneath only the King. Eleanor was just one member. ‘She’s working against the King, right? She’s trying to change the timeline—isn’t that blasphemy? Isn’t that treason?’

‘Joan.’ Ruth was clearly trying to sound reasonable, but she looked appalled. ‘The Court is full of vipers.’

‘Involving the rest of the Court is too much of a risk,’ Tom agreed. ‘We don’t know how far Eleanor’s influence goes. What if this is a coup? What if she’s turned other members of the Court against the King? We wouldn’t know who to trust.’

Joan looked out onto the unmoving canal water. The view that Astrid had seen as precious and ephemeral. ‘We can’t let this happen,’ she said. ‘We can’t let her create that world.’

‘You’re right. We can’t.’ It was Nick, sounding steady, and Joan took a deep breath. The other Nick would have stopped this. He wasn’t here anymore, but this Nick was. Joan was. Jamie, Tom, Aaron, and Ruth were. ‘We need to figure out who or what Eleanor is targeting,’ Nick said. ‘Who or what she wants to change. Once we know that, we’ll know where to find her.’

‘How do we figure that out?’ Joan asked.

‘We should talk to the Lius,’ Tom said. Tension was still tightening his voice. ‘They’re the scholars of the timeline.’

‘Most of the scholarship isn’t officially recorded,’ Jamie said, thoughtfully. ‘We’d need to speak to one of the scholars directly.’

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