Page 120 of Never a Hero

Joan swallowed hard at the kindness in his tone. ‘Then what damaged the timeline if it wasn’t me?’

‘I do not know,’ Ying said. He tilted his head, considering. ‘You told me yourself that you reverted that necklace to ore. Where did that happen?’

Joan was thrown by the question. ‘In one of the bedrooms of Holland House.’

‘There is no tear in the timeline there,’ Ying said.

Joan took that in. She’d also used her power in the boathouse without apparent consequence. And at the Wyvern Inn. ‘Maybe the Alis came in after me, and sealed up any tears.’

Ying shook his head. ‘Only four Ali seals have ever been ordered by the Court.’

‘Four?’ Joan said.

‘The Chicago Café in Covent Garden was sealed in 1993,’ Ying said. Joan blinked at that. She’d used her power there in 1993. Surely she’d torn that hole in the timeline. Ying went on: ‘The former location of the library at Holland House was sealed in 2053.’ And that had to have been Joan too. ‘There is also 17 Rainery Road, Sheffield, sealed in 2003. And St Magnus-the-Martyr Church on Lower Thames Street, sealed in 1923.’

Whatever Ying believed, Joan had to have made those tears in Covent Garden and Holland House, but what was the one in Sheffield? What was the one on Lower Thames Street? She’d never used her power in either of those places. Then again, maybe she just hadn’t done it yet …

Joan bit her lip. She needed to figure this out. But she needed something else from Ying first. She looked up at him. ‘I know that I already owe you a favour,’ she said.

‘The information about the Graves requires no payment,’ Ying said gently. ‘I am sorry that the King did such a thing.’

Joan looked at him.

‘You need something else?’ His eyebrows lifted slightly. ‘The Lius are never owed two favours from a single person,’ he reminded her.

‘But this is a new timeline,’ Joan said, hoping. ‘One for each?’

Ying gave her one of his almost smiles at that. ‘What do you need?’

‘Is there a trustworthy member of the Curia Monstrorum?’ Joan asked. ‘Someone loyal to the King above anything. Someone unimpeachable.’

‘Conrad,’ Ying said.

Ice ran down Joan’s spine just at the name. Conrad. Ying had been unhesitating in his answer, but Joan pictured a man whose gaze had felt like the cold bite of winter. A man with eyes as pale as the dawn. Last time, Conrad had come after her—intending to execute her—when he’d learned of her power. His name alone had shaken Ruth and Aaron to the core.

The others wouldn’t like this idea, but the truth was, to fight a member of the Curia Monstrorum, they needed another member on their side. ‘Conrad,’ Joan said, nodding. ‘I need to send him a message.’

Joan walked back out onto Narrow Street. It had started to rain in big heavy drops. The others were waiting just outside the tea shop, splotches falling around them. Tom had found an umbrella somewhere. He held it carefully over Jamie, but no one else seemed too bothered by the water.

‘What was all that about?’ Ruth said to Joan. She took a step closer then. ‘What happened?’ Her forehead creased, and Joan wondered what her own expression was showing.

Of course Ruth could tell something was wrong—she and Joan had known each other their whole lives. Your family, Ying had said. The Graves. No, Joan thought. This was her family. Ruth was her family.

She shook her head. ‘Nothing,’ she said. But she found herself swallowing around a lump in her throat. Keep it together, she told herself. This wasn’t the time to think about the Grave family. ‘I found out something that might help. Ying gave me some locations of Ali seals: St Magnus-the-Martyr Church on Lower Thames Street, and 17 Rainery Road in Sheffield. Do they ring a bell?’

‘17 Rainery Road?’ Nick straightened, looking disturbed and confused. ‘That’s my childhood home. Why would he give you that address?’

Joan stared at him. She’d blown a hole in the timeline when she’d unmade and remade Nick—at Holland House. But Nick had been unmade and remade before that—in the home he’d grown up in.

That meant that three of the seals on Ying’s list were accounted for. Only one was still a mystery …

‘What is it?’ Aaron asked Joan.

‘What’s going on?’ Nick said.

‘I think I know where Eleanor is going to change the timeline,’ Joan said. ‘Where and when.’

thirty-four

---