Page 66 of Never a Hero

A familiar gold cylinder was placed into Aaron’s hand. He flicked it open with a lazy jerk of his wrist.

‘No!’ Joan slammed her power at the seal again and again. She could feel the flame of power inside her, straining against the barrier. It was manifesting, but she wasn’t strong enough to break the Ali seal. She visualised the flame leaping higher and higher. She visualised the seal dissolving under her hands. But still, nothing happened.

Aaron stepped into Nick’s space and went to take his arm. Before he could react—before Joan could—Nick’s hand shot out. He planted his palm in the centre of Aaron’s chest as if to shove him back. Joan gasped, terrified for Aaron suddenly.

But Nick didn’t push; he stood there, hand splayed, his dark eyes full of intent. For a beat, Joan couldn’t make sense of the frozen tableau, and then she remembered again—Nick couldn’t fight.

Aaron’s expression flickered from fear to confusion, and then to something Joan couldn’t quite read. His breath hitched as the restraining guards grabbed Nick’s arms again.

‘Jamie?’ Tom said suddenly.

Joan was aware then that Tom had been saying Jamie’s name over and over, and that Jamie had been absolutely silent in response. She turned, and the hairs rose on the back of her neck.

Jamie stood beside her, eyes wide. He was staring—not at Nick or Aaron, but at the closest guard. At his winged-lion pin.

‘Jamie?’ Tom said again. ‘What’s wrong?’

The word wrong seemed to echo in the small space. And something was wrong. Jamie was trembling—more afraid than when he’d seen the jagged hole in the air; more even than when he’d seen Nick outside the Wyvern Inn.

Jamie opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He tried again, and this time he managed to speak. ‘I know that sigil. A rose stem without the flower.’

The thorned stem? Joan had seen it at the Wyvern Inn—etched on Corvin Argent’s chop; as a curve on the guards’ pins. She’d assumed it had signified a special class of guard.

Outside the seal, Aaron’s voice rose. ‘Let’s go, then. She’ll want to question him herself.’

She?

Out of nowhere, Joan’s heart stuttered. ‘Where have you seen that sigil before?’ she asked Jamie slowly.

Jamie turned to her. His eyes were black with fear.

Cold washed over Joan. She had a flash of the bronze statue on that strange London street. Semper Regina, the plaque had said. Always Queen. The face on that statue had been familiar … Joan was already shaking her head when recognition finally dawned.

In the previous timeline, a mysterious woman had stepped into Nick’s ordinary world and altered his personal history. Joan had seen some of the recordings. Nick’s family had been murdered to make him hate monsters—not just once, but over and over until his origin story was exactly as the woman had wished it to be.

‘It’s her sigil,’ Jamie whispered. ‘The woman who captured me. The woman who turned him into the hero.’

‘But we haven’t seen any sign of her in this timeline,’ Joan said stupidly. The woman couldn’t be back. If she was—No. Joan turned around and slammed at the barrier with both hands. ‘Nick! Nick!’ But Nick couldn’t hear her. He couldn’t fight. They’d compelled him not to harm monsters. And he didn’t know. Joan hadn’t told him the truth when she’d had the chance.

A guard pushed up the sleeve of Nick’s jacket, baring his wrist. Aaron laid the cuff onto Nick’s arm. Nick didn’t flinch as the metal fizzled and hissed and buried itself into his skin to form a winged-lion tattoo that matched Joan’s own.

‘He’s anchored to me,’ Aaron said. He gripped Nick’s forearm, his fine-boned hand covering the tattoo.

Nick’s eyes swept over the café, apparently casual. As his gaze passed the sealed area, he smiled—slightly—as if trying to reassure Joan and the others.

Aaron took a step, pulling Nick with him.

‘No!’ Joan screamed. She shoved at the barrier, willing it to unmake itself, but it remained stubbornly intact. ‘No!’

Then, between one blink and another, Aaron and Nick were gone.

twenty

Joan stared numbly at the empty space where Nick and Aaron had been. Where the guards had been. ‘We have to go after them,’ she managed. But she had no idea where they’d gone. They could have been anywhere in the past; anywhere in the future. She shook her head. ‘She can’t be back,’ she whispered. The woman from the other timeline couldn’t have Nick again. Aaron couldn’t be working with her this time. Joan didn’t want to believe it.

‘Who are you talking about?’ Ruth said. Exhausted as she was, her green eyes glinted razor-sharp. She wanted answers, and she wasn’t going to wait any longer for them. ‘Who’s she?’

‘Someone I thought was gone,’ Joan managed. ‘Someone I thought …’ She couldn’t finish the sentence.

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