Page 26 of Never a Hero

Signposts.

‘It’s a trail?’ Nick said. He’d already spotted a third tile—just a black dot from here—on a wall in the alley.

Joan looked up at him uneasily. In the twelve hours or so since the attack, he’d figured out how to recognise monsters by their clothes and hairstyles, and now he knew how to find a monster place.

The cold knowledge of that cleared her head; she hadn’t realised how foggy with tiredness she’d been. She couldn’t take Nick into a monster inn. It wasn’t just the danger that he represented; he would be in danger, surrounded by people who could kill him with a touch.

‘You should wait out here,’ she said. ‘I’ll go in and fetch my gran.’

Nick searched her face, and Joan felt the searing heat of his attention suddenly. ‘Why?’ he murmured, almost to himself. ‘Because … humans aren’t allowed inside?’ He was too insightful at every turn. ‘All these things you’ve been telling me …’ Joan could see him recalling her reluctance to explain. ‘Am I a risk to you? Could you be punished for telling me about this world?’

Joan’s stomach churned. Am I a risk to you? Memories flashed: Nick, standing among the bodies of the monsters he’d killed. Joan kissing him and then unmaking him. ‘I’m a risk to you,’ she reminded him. ‘You were dragged into this because of me.’ His mouth compressed. He hadn’t liked it when she said that earlier. It was true, though. ‘You’d be in danger in there,’ she explained. ‘You’ve already seen some of those powers. You’ve seen the people who use them.’

Nick was silent for a long moment. ‘Do you think the attackers have given up on looking for us?’

Joan thought of the hard-faced men in the garden with Aaron. ‘No,’ she said.

‘Then shouldn’t we stay together?’ Nick said. ‘We’ll be safer if we can protect each other.’

Joan hesitated. The truth was, she didn’t want to leave him out here—what if attackers found him while he was alone? They’d already killed Margie. If she was with him and something happened, she could at least fight for him.

‘How would anyone in there even know I’m human?’ Nick asked.

That was a good question. If Gran had designated the Wyvern Inn as safe, then it wouldn’t be a place that Olivers frequented. But still … ‘Some people have the power to differentiate humans from—’ Joan checked herself before she said monsters. ‘From not humans. They need to be close to use their power, though. Close enough to see the colour of your eyes.’ What else could she tell him? ‘They all wear a sigil. A mermaid.’ She had a flash of the dark tattoo on Aaron’s flank, barely visible through his rain-soaked shirt. She swallowed. ‘Sometimes, it’s hidden.’

‘It’s a rune?’

‘It’s not magic,’ Joan clarified. ‘It’s a family emblem.’

Nick’s eyes flared with understanding, and Joan knew he’d put that together too. That different families had different powers. He was too smart, she thought again uneasily.

‘So,’ Nick said slowly. ‘Don’t get too close to anyone with a mermaid sigil. Or no sigil.’

This wasn’t him, Joan reminded herself. The other Nick had been forged and trained over years and years. His family had been killed over and over and over before he’d even begun to hate monsters.

‘Don’t worry,’ Nick said to her seriously now. ‘We’ll take care of each other. We’ll both be careful.’

And how long would they even be at the inn? Just long enough to find Gran. Joan bit her lip. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Let’s stick together.’

The tiles took them on a winding path. Eventually, they hit a dead end on a raised walkway. Joan looked around. There was nothing here but an office building. She leaned over the walkway’s wall.

‘That is the Queenhithe Dock,’ Nick confirmed, looking down too.

‘It’s smaller than I was picturing.’ Joan had imagined a proper dock full of boats. But this was just a square of brown water, cut into the land between buildings. It was silted up, its dirt base exposed by the low tide. It must have been out of commission for centuries.

‘Could the inn be down there on the foreshore?’ Joan wondered.

But the last tile on the wall pointed up, not down. What was it pointing at?

The office building continued for several levels. Joan went over to the building’s glass doors. In her experience, doors to monster places were plain black with a sea serpent symbol. But the only sign here was painted on the door: Employees Only.

Through the glass, Joan could see a big yellow-walled lobby with sleepy office workers in business suits carrying coffee cups and water bottles. Farther in, there was a flight of stairs and, around the corner, the edge of a reception desk.

‘Should we go inside?’ Nick seemed doubtful.

Joan was doubtful too. The workers had the air of people who wished they were still in bed. She would have bet the money in Corvin’s wallet that they were all humans, starting their day at the office. ‘Maybe we missed a tile,’ she said.

Footsteps sounded. A security guard emerged from around the corner in the slow stroll of someone doing an everyday patrol. He scowled when he saw Joan and Nick. ‘This is private property. You need to move on.’

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