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It was so hard to talk about the other Nick. Joan pressed her nails into her palms. They felt rough. She opened her hands again. Her nails were torn. When had that happened? Had she clawed that hard at the barrier? ‘I knew the hero,’ she told Ruth. ‘He and I met before I learned what he was; before he learned what I was. I had feelings for him.’

Ruth trained her gaze on Joan. ‘You had feelings for the guy who killed our family?’

It sounded even worse when Ruth said it like that, but Joan nodded. ‘I found out later that he and I were together in the zhenshí de lìshi. The true timeline.’

Emotions flitted over Ruth’s face. Joan could almost read each thought. But the true timeline is also just a myth. Then understanding dawned. Ruth said, ‘Some people believe that those who belonged together in the true timeline are soul mates. That the timeline will always try to bring them back together.’

Joan nodded. ‘When I got home after the summer, in this timeline, there was a new guy at my school.’

‘You met him again?’ Ruth breathed.

‘He didn’t remember me. He didn’t remember the other timeline. And then he was caught up in that attack.’ Joan’s voice cracked.

Ruth’s eyes widened. Her gaze flicked to where Nick had last been, and then back to Joan. ‘Oh, Joan,’ she whispered.

Joan hadn’t even said the worst of it. ‘There’s more. I … God, Ruth, I hated him after what he did. I wanted to kill him. I would have. But … it wasn’t like I thought. You know how the stories go: Once upon a time, there was a boy who was born to kill monsters. A hero. But that wasn’t right. That was never his destiny. A monster made him into the hero.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t know why she did it,’ Joan said. But she found herself thinking again of that statue. Semper Regina.

‘You keep saying she,’ Ruth said. ‘Who—’ Then her gaze turned again to the empty space on the other side of the seal.

‘That thorned stem is her sigil,’ Jamie said. ‘She’s back. And she has him again.’

Ruth’s eyes widened with understanding.

‘We have to get out of here!’ Joan said shakily. ‘We have to get Nick away from her!’

And Aaron … Was Aaron working with her? Did she have Aaron too? Joan had to get them both away from her.

‘I know there’s more to all of this,’ Ruth said. At Joan’s questioning look, she arched her eyebrows. ‘Why isn’t he the hero in this timeline, for one thing. How are our families alive again?’ She shook her head as Joan opened her mouth. ‘Let’s get out of here first.’ Ruth looked toward the back of the room—where the tear in the timeline was still submerged in the table. ‘That thing back there is making me want to throw up.’

Tom came up with the idea of tying their jackets and jumpers together in a loop for Ruth to use as the portal frame. Then he dragged two chairs from the back of the room and set them some ways apart. He slung the tied-together clothes over the backrests, creating an open hoop they could all step through.

‘You’re up,’ he told Ruth. He looked dubious. Joan was too.

Ruth was exhausted, head drooping and shockingly pale.

Tom flicked a worried look at Jamie, who was flagging too, although he was trying not to show it. He’d tucked himself in the farthest corner from the tear, and most of his weight was on the wall.

Ruth caught the look. ‘Help me up.’

Joan and Tom helped her stand, and then shuffled with her to the makeshift frame. Ruth gripped the cloth hoop and squeezed her eyes shut.

Jamie came over too, with some apparent effort. ‘How will we know if you open a portal? When you opened it from the other side, the view through the frame changed.’

Joan pointed at the floor. Outside, the room was darkening, but here in the seal, it was still early morning. The edge of the seal was demarcated by a ruler-straight line where the light changed. ‘That line of light will break when the seal opens,’ she said.

She pulled out her phone for good measure. She flicked on the flashlight and aimed it through the eye of the hoop and onto the floorboards beyond. The light didn’t penetrate past the barrier. As soon as the floor lit up, though, they’d know for sure.

She saw idly that Gran’s etched marks were still on the floor. She’d almost forgotten they were there: the opportunity symbol. Why would Gran have used that symbol here? Joan couldn’t imagine what she’d been thinking.

She shrugged off the thought, focusing back on Ruth; on the line of darkness.

Minutes went by. Nothing happened except that Ruth got paler and paler.

‘You opened it in flashes last time,’ Joan said, worried. ‘You didn’t try to keep it open continuously.’