Page 127 of Never a Hero

‘That’s a mourning dress, by the way.’ Aaron nodded at the black dress draped over Joan’s arm. ‘For someone grieving.’

‘What? This is?’ Joan looked down at the crinkly fabric. ‘Oh.’ She should have realised. She’d liked it for its classic cut; she hadn’t been thinking of the historical context of black.

‘It’s fine,’ Aaron said. ‘I mean—’ He hesitated. And then, as if he couldn’t help himself, he grabbed a pale plum dress from the rack next to him and offered it to her. ‘Just another option,’ he said. ‘If you don’t want to look like a widow.’

Joan lifted it to her chin and looked in the mirror at the end of the aisle. The dress hadn’t seemed like much on the rack—she wouldn’t have given it a second glance. But as she held it up, it seemed to transform. It was two dresses in one: a plum-coloured underdress with near-opaque ivory gauze over the top. The plum provided a hint of colour, and the gauze wasn’t fussy—as Joan might have guessed—but mysterious.

She turned back to Aaron and was surprised again to find him looking at the mirror too—at her reflection—his expression curious, almost wondering. When she caught his eyes, though, he ducked his head.

‘This place has a surprisingly excellent selection,’ he said. ‘If we were here under different circumstances … Well …’ He neatened his tie, although it didn’t need it.

‘I like the dress,’ Joan said. ‘Looks like I just stepped out of the 1920s.’ As she spoke, she was hit with a sudden intense rush of yearning out of nowhere—as if her body had just realised that it wasn’t mired anymore. She caught her breath, shaken with it.

Distantly, she sensed Aaron closing the gap between them, concerned, but she couldn’t hear anything but the roaring in her ears. She caught sight of herself in the mirror again, the dress still under her chin, and that was all it took. The bright light from the Portelli window darkened, plunging the room into twilight. Aaron’s voice cut off like a stopped recording. Joan tried to control her panic. She hadn’t had a fade-out since Corvin had cuffed her wrist.

Focus on your senses, she told herself. That was what Aaron had taught her. But she couldn’t feel anything at all—not the temperature on her skin, not the breath in her lungs. Was she even breathing?

In the darkening room, Aaron leaned closer. He was saying something to her. Joan tried to read his lips. Eyes wide and worried, he clasped her hand, and Joan concentrated on the curl of his elegant fingers around hers. She couldn’t feel his touch, but she could faintly feel the warmth of him, like cold winter sunshine. She focused on that warmth.

Aaron’s voice began to seep into the silence. ‘You’re still holding the dress,’ he was saying. ‘Can you feel it?’ He sounded calm but tight, as if he was suppressing some emotion. ‘It’s cold in here. Can you feel that?’

Joan blinked down at the dress he’d picked out. It looked very soft—the gauze must have been silk. She could just barely feel the texture of it. She frowned, concentrating.

Slowly, the room brightened back to afternoon. Aaron’s hand solidified over hers. He tightened his grip, and Joan felt an unexpected electric charge run through her as he did. A shot of desire. She swallowed. Her whole body felt jangled and confused.

‘That’s better,’ he murmured. ‘I can see you’re coming back.’

She found her voice. ‘I’m here,’ she managed, and was relieved to hear herself at normal volume. This was where she wanted to be, she told herself. Right here, in this time.

Aaron closed his eyes for a moment, and his shoulders went down too, as if he’d been scared. When he opened his eyes again, he searched her face. ‘Has that happened before?’

Joan should have told Gran, she thought again. As soon as these fade-outs had started. ‘Almost every morning before that cuff was put on me,’ she admitted, and Aaron looked shocked. ‘I’m still learning to control it,’ she explained. ‘You taught me how to focus on my senses. I’ve been doing that.’

Aaron looked appalled. ‘I taught you?’ he said. ‘You’re saying this happened in front of me? And I taught you as it happened?’ His hand tightened on hers, and they both realised at the same moment that they were still touching. Last time that had happened, Aaron had snatched his hand away like she’d burned him. This time, he released her gently. ‘You should have been taught control as a child!’ he said. ‘Before you could travel!’ He turned sharply, looking over the tops of the racks, and Joan realised he was searching angrily for Ruth. No one seemed to be nearby, though. Joan could distantly still see Nick in the equipment room, and Tom—a foot taller than everyone else—over at the jewellery cabinet.

Joan had forgotten how angry Aaron had been last time too. ‘The Hunt records said I couldn’t travel,’ she explained. ‘Ruth didn’t know. I didn’t tell my gran when this started happening.’

Aaron looked troubled. He swiped a hand over his mouth. He started to say something, and then seemed to think better of it.

‘Thank you,’ Joan added. ‘For this time. For last time.’ She’d been using his lessons almost every morning for months. She had the weird thought then that this was a side of her that only Aaron had seen. She’d never have been able to admit to Nick how strong her craving for travel really was. For Aaron, though, the morality of time travel just wasn’t a factor.

‘If that’s happening every day, then what I taught you last time wasn’t enough,’ Aaron said seriously. He retrieved his clothes and hat from the table. ‘After this is all over, we need to do something about it.’

After this? Joan opened her mouth and closed it again. She didn’t even let herself hope. The truth was, whatever happened after this, Aaron would have to stay away from her. His mother had been executed for sheltering someone like Joan. And if Ying was right—that Joan was a member of an erased family—then the King himself would still want her dead. After this, Aaron would go back to the Olivers, and Joan would still be on the run.

Movement across the market caught her eye: Nick striding from the equipment room.

Aaron followed her gaze. ‘You know … when you were questioning me, I told you that I wasn’t sure what I’d seen in the library. But I did see it. I saw the tear in the timeline.’

Joan turned back to him. ‘You saw what I did?’ She heard the crack in her own voice. She hadn’t imagined she could feel worse about that moment, but knowing Aaron had seen it was somehow worse.

‘I saw what happened in the previous timeline,’ Aaron said, tilting his head slightly.

Joan dropped her gaze. Aaron had seen her kiss Nick in the other timeline. He’d seen her unmake Nick. She’d already felt ashamed, and now the feeling redoubled. She’d betrayed Nick twice, and Aaron had witnessed it both times. She could imagine what he thought of her—the Olivers valued loyalty above everything else. Fidelis ad mortem.

‘Joan,’ Aaron said. She forced herself to lift her chin, to meet his eyes. To her surprise, the disgust she’d expected to see wasn’t there. ‘You told me that you and I worked together last time to save our families,’ Aaron said. ‘That we succeeded … I saw the decision you made at the end. I saw how hard it was.’

Joan swallowed again. Things had been so much clearer before she’d entered the monster world. ‘I think I made a bad decision with the Argent power just now,’ she admitted. ‘We shouldn’t have done that to him.’ The more she thought about it, the worse it seemed. She’d begged Liam to take the compulsion off Nick the first time. It’s just wrong, she’d told him. It was still wrong. And she’d warned Liam that compelling Nick would only make things worse for all of them. That seemed just as true now.

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