Page 139 of Never a Hero

‘An interesting choice of location,’ the King commented. ‘I must admit, I’d quite forgotten that the erasure of the Graves started here.’ He turned back to them, and Joan’s eyes watered as she tried to keep looking at the glare of him. ‘Follow me.’ His cheerful tone felt sinister.

The word sister kept echoing in Joan’s head as she was forced with the others to shuffle out of the alley, eastward along the river. She registered, vaguely, that the wharf was cleaner than it had been in 1891. A wooden walkway had replaced the mud of the foreshore. Creepily, the dozen dock workers they passed seemed unaware of the strange procession walking by them.

Nick caught her eye. She could see how much he wanted to speak to her—away from all this. His expression was wary, though, and Joan thought about what Eleanor had said. I made him into a slayer because you loved him and he loved you. Because if he killed the people you loved most, you’d never trust him again. Because when you fought back, he’d see you for the monster you are. He’d never trust you. And it worked, didn’t it? You’ll never really feel the same about each other again.

‘We can stop here.’ The King phrased it as optional, but they all stumbled to a halt, their feet sticking again.

They’d ended up near where City Pier would one day be. Rowboats and barges bobbed in the water.

Joan tested her feet again but couldn’t move them. What did she have on her? There was a knife in the inner pocket of her jacket. She undid a button, and then felt a flare of too-hot attention from the King and the impression of brief amusement.

‘No,’ he said simply.

Joan saw then a scatter of guns and knives along the path they’d just walked. Eleanor’s people had dropped their weapons along the way.

An ancient god-king, Nick had called him. Joan had thought Eleanor and her people were powerful, but the King did seem more god than man.

‘In the original timeline, the old bridge lasted somewhat longer, didn’t it?’ the King said to Eleanor conversationally.

‘Up to the twenty-third century,’ Eleanor said tightly. ‘It was rebuilt a few times along the way.’

‘What are we doing here?’ Joan dared to ask. Why had the King moved them up the river? Just as he was still alternating between old and young, he seemed both capricious and considered. Joan couldn’t figure him out. Was he going to kill them all? Spare them? She’d never felt more off-balance, more powerless.

‘There’s a better view from here,’ the King said. He barely looked at Joan as he said it, but again his brief attention was a flare of light. Joan flinched, closing her eyes automatically.

When she reopened them, the King’s back was to them all. He pinched at the air, and Joan had the impression that he was tearing away a swath of wallpaper. Barely pausing, the King reached into the air again, and made another tearing motion.

Eleanor half gasped, half groaned. Joan stared.

Old London Bridge suddenly stood upriver—a palatial street of carved and gabled Renaissance buildings, more beautiful in life than any of the illustrations Joan had seen. The structure beneath was breathtaking too—a huge stone span with nineteen arches, each supported by boat-shaped wooden piers.

‘There it is,’ the King said, as if Eleanor hadn’t just made that agonised sound. ‘The Graves’ territory, as it once was.’

‘We’re looking at the true timeline, aren’t we?’ Tom whispered. ‘The vera historia.’

Joan understood then. The King had torn a hole in the timeline. There was no feeling of dissonance, though; no jagged edges in the air, no shadows from the void. And maybe that, more than anything, was a hint of the King’s true power.

Eleanor’s eyes shone with tears, and then Joan understood too why the King had brought them here. This spot offered a perfect viewing angle. In the original timeline, the old bridge lasted somewhat longer, didn’t it? he’d said.

The window had no visible edges. The illusion that the bridge still existed was almost perfect. The only discontinuities were cars vanishing as they reached the north and south banks. If Joan hadn’t known better, though, she’d have thought that she could walk to the bridge in just a few minutes.

Her chest constricted at the thought. She’d told herself that she didn’t remember anything of the Grave family, but there was something familiar about Old London Bridge, about the close-built configuration of the houses. She somehow knew the red-gabled roofs and white walls.

From here, she could just make out the carved arch that ran through the ground level of all the buildings so that vehicles and pedestrians could get across the bridge. And she couldn’t see what was inside that arch, but she had a vivid memory of walking under it, past shops with swinging signs charmingly illustrated with parasols and books and gloves, past slow-moving cars; being held up by wandering tourists; looking up to see balcony gardens, bright with overhanging flowers.

Now, her gaze hit the mansion in the middle of it all. The Graves’ house. Her heart stopped. It was taller than the buildings around it. And the other houses were traditional, but this was a tiny exuberant castle with square turrets and meringue-shaped cupolas and huge arching windows. Joan didn’t know where to look—at the gilded columns or at the walls and trims, brightly painted in red and green and yellow.

‘Remind me,’ the King said. ‘What did the sun dials on the roof say?’

‘Time and tide stay for no man,’ Eleanor said shakily, and Joan felt another thrum of resonance at those words. Eleanor’s gaze stayed yearningly on the house. ‘It’s not really here, is it?’ she said heavily. Her eyes shone with unshed tears.

‘This is just an echo of what was here,’ the King agreed. ‘An afterimage on a screen. The original timeline is gone. I erased it.’ He pretended to think. ‘What do you blasphemers call it? The zhenshí de lìshi? The vera historia? The true timeline?’ He added, mock-gently, ‘But what have I been thinking? You won’t recognise anyone here—this isn’t your time. You and your sister were raised in a later age.’ He snapped his fingers, and the view inside the window darkened. Joan finally saw the extent of the window—it was bigger than she’d realised. The size of a house. Inside it, the moon rose and fell, followed by the sun rising and falling too, the cycle quickening, until the image was a blur. Then the King snapped his fingers again, and it all stopped. Joan felt her mouth drop open.

The view still showed the true timeline—with its elaborate bridge—but the date seemed to have advanced to sometime in the twenty-first century. Modern cars crawled across the road.

‘Oh,’ Eleanor said, hard and breathless, as if she’d been punched.

On the walkway, people had appeared too, strolling up and down: tourists with shopping bags labelled Bookshop on the Bridge and Bridge Bakery and Drawbridge Gifts. Among them, locals walked their dogs and carried fruit and vegetables in market bags. Eleanor stared open-mouthed at a man hurrying in the direction of the Tube station. Then her eyes flicked to a girl with pink hair. Then to a man in a tailored suit. Realisation jolted through Joan. These were members of the Grave family. People Eleanor had once known. People Joan must have known. They all wore the same sigil, as a pin on a lapel, a tattoo on a bare shoulder, a motif on a shirt: a silver rose.

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