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‘Quiet,’ he hissed. ‘You’re the one who can’t be trusted! You’re the enemy of the Court!’

As they reached the entresol above, Joan’s legs went shaky. Up here was the Gilt Room where the Olivers had died, and—‘Open it.’ Eleanor gestured at the library door. A square had been cut out of the wood, and someone had installed iron bars.

Aaron lifted a heavy wooden latch from the door. Joan’s first impression was a dizzying familiarity. The room had been stripped of books, but she knew this long gallery space as well as her own home. She’d met Nick here. She’d kissed him here.

‘Joan!’

Joan turned fast. ‘Nick!’

She scrambled to get to him and only realised that her leash had been cut when she fell to her knees in front of him. He was chained by the wrist to a heavy ring embedded into the wall. He was still in the black T-shirt from the Wyvern Inn, although his jacket was gone, leaving his neck vulnerable and his muscled arms bare.

‘Are you okay?’ Joan said hoarsely. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Hey,’ Nick murmured. He knelt up as best as he could, and Joan swallowed hard, relief hitting her whole body, all at once. He was here. He was alive.

The door slammed behind them. Joan turned just as the heavy latch fell, locking her and Nick in. She pushed back up and ran to the door. ‘Aaron—’ she started, but Eleanor stood outside the door alone now, watching through the door’s barred window.

‘I dismissed the blond boy,’ Eleanor said. Her eyes bored into Joan. ‘He’s a pretty one, isn’t he? Maybe I’ll keep him.’ There was a challenging note in her voice, as if she wanted Joan to react.

‘Leave him alone,’ Joan blurted, and then wished she hadn’t. Eleanor had already messed with Aaron downstairs. If she thought Joan cared about Aaron’s welfare, maybe she’d hurt him too. She swallowed. ‘Why are you doing all this?’

‘All this?’ Eleanor said.

‘I know you’re planning something!’ Joan said. ‘I know!’ Joan thought again of the statue of Eleanor as queen. The terrible vision through the window had to be part of it. Joan took a guess. ‘I saw the world you want to make.’

‘You saw what?’ Eleanor’s eyes widened. The hairs rose on the back of Joan’s neck. Eleanor hadn’t exactly confirmed it, but her expression had changed from mocking to raw, as if she’d momentarily dropped a veil. ‘We caught Nick outside an Ali seal,’ Eleanor said slowly. ‘You broke the seal? You saw something in that tear in the timeline?’

Joan drew a breath. Tom had guessed right when he’d said that the jagged wound in the world had been a tear in the timeline itself.

‘What did you see?’ Eleanor demanded.

Joan had a vivid memory of unbearable dissonance; of something tearing—viscerally—like tissue paper under her fingers. And then that terrible world had appeared. The terrified man, and the monster who’d killed him. The onlookers too afraid to protest …

‘I saw a police van with Court livery. I saw a Court Guard step out of it.’

Eleanor gripped the bars, pressing closer, her expression full of yearning—as if Joan had just given her something precious. She lowered her voice, soft enough that it was just for Joan; soft enough that Nick, still chained to the back wall, wouldn’t hear. ‘You saw a world where monsters reign. A better world.’

‘Better?’ Joan had a flash of the bodies in the van, and her stomach lurched. ‘I saw hell!’ she whispered. She could hear the horror of it in her own voice.

I’ve seen the end of everything that matters, Astrid had said.

The yearning melted from Eleanor’s face—replaced by the complicated expression from earlier. What was it? Not cruelty, but pain. And an old, old anger. ‘You saw the world as it should be. As it will be when I’ve remade it.’

Joan searched her face and found only conviction. ‘You didn’t see what I saw.’ If Eleanor had … ‘Go and look at the tear for yourself! Go and look at that world!’ Maybe Eleanor would understand then. Monsters stole human life, but only a few days from each person. Most of them didn’t go around killing people. ‘There were human bodies piled in a van! Fifteen of them! Twenty!’ Not even monsters would want to live in a world like that.

‘It’s already in motion,’ Eleanor said. And now the pain and anger were in her voice too. ‘That timeline is coming.’

Joan found herself glancing back at Nick. He was chained to the back wall—too far away to hear this whispered conversation. But he was watching, his gaze steady. He would have stopped it, Astrid had said. He was already on the path. But you stopped him. Joan clenched her fists. ‘No.’ She turned back to Eleanor. ‘I’m going to stop you.’ It came out solemn as a vow. She didn’t know how she’d do it—she was locked in a cell, a mark of execution on her arm. And Eleanor had authority in this world beyond anyone but the King. But Joan knew one thing: she herself had removed the hero from the world. That meant she was responsible for fixing this.

Eleanor’s knuckles whitened where she was gripping the bars. ‘You never understood. You still don’t. You were always the one who had to be stopped, Joan.’

Joan blinked at her, confused. ‘What?’

Eleanor just shook her head. She released the bars. ‘I’ll be back when I’m ready for you.’ Then she turned, and Joan heard her footsteps fading as she made her way through the entresol and back down into the house.

twenty-five

Nick was chained in place by one wrist. They’d put him just under a picture window that looked out onto the Dutch Garden. Joan knelt on the parquetry floor in front of him.