Page 32 of Never a Hero

They ate and walked. Farther in, they passed stalls with handmade knives and golden coins, thin as wafers. One vendor had only compact mirrors on his table, their golden cases intricately decorated with family sigils and enamel numbers. As Joan walked by, he lifted one of the compacts with a flourish of demonstration. She caught the number on the case as he flicked it open: 103. To her surprise, the glass inside wasn’t a mirror. The vendor tilted it to show a glimpse of blue sky, and then a glimpse of greenery.

‘It’s a tiny Portelli window,’ Nick realised. ‘A portable one. The number must be the year: AD 103.’ He looked at the other compacts with a little yearning. Joan wanted one too, but the price tags ranged from 1,000 to 5,000—depending on the year—and Joan didn’t have that kind of money, in human or monster currency.

They kept walking. Joan was tense at first, bracing for someone to use the word monster or to talk about stealing human life, but the conversations around them were comfortingly mundane: the weather outside, which stall sold the best jewellery, gossip about other families. Joan slowly relaxed. Monsters didn’t routinely talk about being monsters any more than humans talked about being human.

‘Let’s keep an eye out for my gran,’ she whispered to Nick. ‘She’s not Chinese—she’s from the other side of the family. Bright green eyes and white hair—usually in a bun.’

‘What’s she like?’ Nick asked Joan curiously.

Joan was startled by her own emotional response; her feelings were hopelessly tangled. She’d have done anything for the Hunts—she’d have died for them. But at the same time, they were monsters who stole human life for their own amusement. Joan had barely begun to process how angry she’d been at them since learning that, how horrified. And at the same time, she loved them so much still. She couldn’t explain any of that to Nick.

‘She’s … practical. No-nonsense. But loyal.’ Gran had died trying to protect Joan last time. Joan pushed away the memory of Gran’s blood all over her hands. ‘She’ll do everything she can to get us out of this.’ That, at least, Joan was sure of.

Joan finished the potato and spotted a bin at the feet of a vendor. ‘Okay if I throw out the box here?’ she asked the man.

‘Course, love,’ he said. He was thickly muscled with olive skin and a fuzz of close-cropped dark hair. In front of him, there were trays of bright fruit skewers threaded with fresh cherries and strawberries and pieces of candied apple. They reminded Joan a little of the candied hawthorn sticks Dad liked to get from the Chinese grocery.

‘Could I get two cherry sticks?’ she said impulsively. She kept her eyes down. She couldn’t imagine an Oliver selling fruit sticks at a market, but you never knew. As the man reached for the cherry sticks, though, she saw a tattoo on his wrist: a pink-petaled flower. She didn’t know that family sigil, but it wasn’t a mermaid.

Joan risked looking up. ‘Seems busy,’ she ventured.

‘Lot of new faces in town.’ With a neat twist, the man wrapped the stick ends with paper napkins and passed the fruit to Joan with some coins. ‘Bounty hunters from all over.’

Joan stiffened and felt Nick tense up beside her. ‘Bounty hunters?’

The man shrugged. ‘Nothing official, but there’s a rumour going around about some dangerous fugitive on the loose. Everyone’s in town trying their luck. All under the radar, of course.’ He misread her expression. ‘Don’t worry, love. The fugitive’s marked and mired. If a bounty hunter doesn’t get her, the guards will.’

If the situation had been less tense, Joan would have laughed at the idea that she was dangerous. She didn’t even have a power anymore. She found a monster banknote—a twenty, not too big, and she hoped not too small—and put it down next to a stack of napkins. The market at the Serpentine Inn had been a place to buy information as well as food and goods. Maybe this market was the same. ‘Love a bit more of that gossip,’ she said.

There was a long pause, and the man’s expression cooled. ‘Like I said, it’s nothing official. Are you buying more food? That’s all I sell.’

Joan tried again. ‘Anyone around here who does like to gossip?’

‘No,’ the vendor said shortly. He slid the note back to her. ‘Now, off you trot.’

‘Worth a try,’ Nick murmured as he and Joan walked away.

‘I’d better keep that gold mark covered,’ Joan whispered back. She was glad of her long sleeves.

She offered Nick one of the skewers. He had to be wondering what she’d done to make all these people come after her. What criminal act. He only smiled at her, though. And, for the first time, Joan wondered if he was feeling the same bone-deep trust for her that she kept feeling for him.

‘Cherries are my favourite,’ he said, almost like an admission. ‘Like those Bakewells you were going to give me.’ He bit a cherry off the stick, and red juice stained his bottom lip. He licked it off. ‘Almost feels like you know me.’

A frozen second seemed to pass before Joan forced her own smile. ‘Funny, that.’ The Bakewells had been deliberate, but the cherries were a slip-up. Get it together, she told herself. She couldn’t make mistakes like that.

They passed a room just off the main market. The door was ajar, revealing a circle of people knitting together, backdropped by the Queenhithe Dock in the early morning. The view wasn’t of the present day; the buildings were low, with thatched roofs.

‘Tudor times.’ Nick looked wistful. ‘I wish those windows were doors. The places I’d go …’ He turned to Joan, awe lingering, as if some of it was for her. ‘Have you been there? Have you been to Londinium?’

The places I’d go. For a second, Joan could imagine it clearly—the two of them travelling together, exploring London through time.

‘I—I don’t travel,’ she said. The desire was an ever-present hunger inside her, but time travel was fuelled by human life. She knew how Nick would feel if he learned the truth of that. It wouldn’t be awe.

Too late, she realised that she’d fed that hunger in herself with the too-vivid fantasy of travelling with him. She braced herself for the market sounds to mute; for the light to dim. Her senses had dulled like that almost every morning this week. But to her relief, the fade-out didn’t start.

Joan pictured the golden winged lion hidden under her shirtsleeve. They’re both mired, the military man had said back at Nick’s house. The girl’s wearing a cuff. Joan’s desire to travel was still inside her, but with this cuff on, maybe that didn’t matter. Maybe she was safe from fade-outs.

‘You don’t time travel?’ Nick seemed puzzled. ‘You can but you don’t?’

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