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‘I know how you think,’ Eleanor said to Joan. ‘You always have a backup plan. To defeat someone like me, you’d want another member of the Curia Monstrorum. So you sent for Conrad.’

Joan wet her dry lips. She didn’t nod, but Eleanor was right. It was disconcerting to be so known so thoroughly by someone who’d been using that knowledge against her.

Eleanor turned to the King. ‘And I know you. I’ve had a long time to observe you. You’d never trust any member of the Court with a job like this. Joan called for Conrad. You should have let him come in your stead.’

‘And why is that?’ the King said.

Eleanor leaned closer. She was still pinned to the ground like everyone else, but she didn’t seem to care. ‘Why do you think you’re here?’ Eleanor said to him. Behind her, the tide was rising. Tied-up rowboats rocked with the waves.

The King still emanated amusement. ‘You know why I’m here.’ He looked at each of Eleanor’s allies. ‘Mariam Ali,’ he said. ‘Joseph Nightingale. Adriana Portelli. Shalini Patel …’ He named all of them with the heavy note of a death sentence. ‘You should have kept your oaths to me.’

‘You think you came here to execute us,’ Eleanor said.

‘Of course,’ the King said.

‘No,’ Eleanor said so seriously that Joan shivered. ‘I’m going to undo what you did. I’m going to bring my family home. Right here, on our own territory.’

Joan stared at Eleanor. She was starting to see it now. Eleanor had lured the King here, just like she’d lured Joan. She was going to unmake him, like Joan had unmade Nick.

Eleanor guessed what Joan was thinking. ‘No,’ she said to her. ‘Unmaking him would bring our family back. But I want more than that. I want to create a new timeline that will keep them safe forever. And for that, I need what he has.’ She looked the King dead in the face without any hint of discomfort or pain from the glare of his presence. ‘Complete control of the timeline.’

A feeling of indulgence from the King. He didn’t seem to have realised that Eleanor was serious. ‘You’d have to kill me to take control,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ Eleanor said. ‘You’re here for your execution.’

thirty-eight

‘Really?’ the King drawled as Eleanor drew a knife from her belt. Joan had the impression that he’d allowed her to draw it. Maybe he had so much power that he thought this mild excitement was worth entertaining. ‘What are you going to do with that?’ he said. The feeling of bright light was so intense now that Joan flinched from him and saw the others wincing too. Even Eleanor looked away. ‘The truth is,’ the King said, ‘I can’t be killed. Not by you and not by nature. I’m so entwined with the timeline that we’re essentially the same entity.’

Were they? Joan’s impression was still of the timeline as a separate creature, unwillingly leashed to the King.

‘I can’t kill you by my own hand,’ Eleanor agreed. She held up the knife. It was exquisite: silver-bladed with gold roses worked into the hilt. More roses and leaves curled up the flat of the blade. ‘Only someone unbound from the timeline can do it.’

Joan drew a sharp breath at that. Eleanor threw the knife on the ground. It lay gleaming, close to Nick, but just out of his reach. Nick took an unthinking step toward it

‘Nick,’ Joan said uncertainly.

Nick’s eyes widened as if he’d only just realised that he’d taken that step. He tilted his head, clearly unsure how he’d overcome the King’s compulsion. Then, very slowly, he bent to pick up the knife.

The King stared at Nick, disturbed, as if he was looking at something uncanny. He lifted a hand in a lazy gesture—to disarm Nick, Joan guessed. When Nick didn’t drop the knife, the King took a step toward him and repeated the gesture. Still, nothing happened.

‘I couldn’t kill you by my own hand,’ Eleanor told the King again. ‘So I made someone who could. Someone who’d be free from the timeline; free from you. I made a monster slayer to kill a monster king.’

The King shot her an alarmed look. He gestured again. This time, Joan felt him drawing power from the timeline. It didn’t come easily—the great beast dragged at its leash. The King gathered what he could and threw it at Nick.

‘No!’ Joan strained, trying to free her feet.

But the King’s power washed over Nick without effect.

The King stared, clearly taken aback. He was so perturbed that his radiance actually dimmed. For a moment, Joan could almost see his face. He was handsome, younger than she’d expected, and strangely familiar. Where had she seen those features before?

‘What did you do?’ the King said to Eleanor, shaken.

‘You can feel it now, can’t you?’ Eleanor said to him. ‘How Nick’s proximity alone weakens the timeline around him.’ She smiled slightly. ‘And since you and the timeline are one and the same, he weakens you too.’

The King started to move toward her and then gasped. He dragged at his foot but couldn’t seem to move it from the walkway.

‘I brought some powerful people with me,’ Eleanor said. ‘To keep you under control while Nick kills you.’