Page 117 of Never a Hero

‘I didn’t think it was possible either,’ Jamie said.

Joan bit her lip. Jamie had only mentioned the tear at Covent Garden. Hadn’t he seen the other one? Maybe not. The library had been full of smoke when he’d broken in. ‘There was another tear at the guard house,’ Joan said.

And apparently none of the others had seen the tear at Holland House. Now they all looked dismayed. Ying actually frowned, and Joan’s stomach churned.

‘This didn’t happen at the end of the previous timeline?’ Joan asked Ying. ‘There weren’t holes in the timeline?’

‘I have never heard of holes in the timeline outside of pure theory,’ Ying said. ‘Outside of stories.’

‘What do you think this means?’ Jamie asked his father. ‘I’ve only ever heard of it in one story.’ For a moment, his expression was almost childlike. ‘Finis saeculorum.’

Joan tried to translate that. Finis: Final? Saeculorum: What did that mean? All the monsters seemed familiar with it, though. Aaron made a soft sound. Ruth screwed her face up sceptically.

Tom reached for Jamie’s hand. ‘You’re worried about that? It’s just a story.’

‘What is it?’ Joan said uneasily. She’d once thought that the hero was just a story too.

She checked on Nick now. He’d turned to listen, head tilted, so that she could only see the edge of his face. His dark hair fell over his eyes.

It was Aaron who answered her. ‘It’s called the End of Ages. It’s about a kid who tears through the timeline, trying to find his lost parents. But instead, he tears the timeline apart. He falls into the void, and so does everyone else—every moment in history, every person who’d ever lived, are lost.’

Ying’s hands rose in a calming manner. ‘It is just a story.’

But Joan’s stomach twisted. How had the boy torn apart the timeline in the story?

‘We did see holes in the timeline, though,’ Nick said. ‘A fairytale didn’t cause that damage. So what did?’ Joan’s stomach twisted again. Nick added: ‘Do you think it confirms the theory that there are weak places along the timeline? That these holes have been torn in weakened areas?’

Ying took a breath, visibly trying to regain some equilibrium. ‘It’s possible,’ he acknowledged.

‘Then we just have to find other weak places in the timeline!’ Nick said, sitting up. ‘We can narrow down where Eleanor might be. We can find her!’

For a moment, Ying’s gaze was pitying and old, and Joan remembered something Aaron had once told her: Everyone goes up against the timeline. It was a lesson every monster had to learn themselves; every monster tried to fight fate at some point, and every monster failed.

‘You can try to stop Eleanor,’ Ying said to Nick. ‘But Astrid is among the strongest of the Lius. If she says that Eleanor’s success is inevitable, then it is inevitable.’

‘How can you say that?’ Nick said. ‘Inevitable?’ He didn’t sound angry exactly, but at his raised voice, Ying’s eyes widened very slightly. And Joan wondered suddenly if Ying had been at the Liu house during Nick’s massacre. Did he remember it? Was some part of him as afraid of Nick as Liam had been? ‘Humans are going to suffer in that timeline, and we can still stop it! It hasn’t even happened yet!’ Nick said.

Those same words had come from Joan’s mouth last time. And she had changed the inevitable. She knew it was possible. It had to be.

Nick was right. Joan’s dad, her friends, her human family were not going to live in a world like the one they’d seen. A world of tangled bodies and terrified bystanders. ‘We have to do something!’ Joan agreed.

‘It is not that I wish it to be true,’ Ying said to Joan, to Nick. ‘It’s that I know it to be true.’ He sighed. ‘We must take the long view—we may have more freedom to act in the new timeline. And I promise you that the Lius will remember what has been done. We will carry the knowledge with us.’

‘We may have more freedom to act?’ Nick said. ‘You don’t even know that! And you just said there’d be many deaths!’ Ying’s eyes widened more.

Jamie interjected. ‘Listen,’ he said heavily. ‘We all had a long night and not much sleep.’ To his father, he said, ‘We should get some rest.’

Ying nodded slightly and stood. Tom and Jamie took that as their cue to stand too. Ruth followed and then Aaron. Only Nick looked reluctant to leave. His jaw was set tight. Joan could read his expression completely for the first time in a while. He was going to do something about Eleanor, even if that meant doing it alone.

Joan took a deep breath. Whatever happened, he wouldn’t be alone.

She hesitated, though, as they all headed across the courtyard to the door.

‘What is it?’ Aaron said. When Joan had hung back, he had too.

The others were almost at the tea shop. ‘I’ll meet you outside,’ Joan said to him. There was something she still needed from Ying.

thirty-three

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