Page 3 of Once a Villain (Only a Monster #3)

Under the stormy sky, the buildings were funereal. The only real color came from red roses planted in dusty vases on windowsills.

Back on the bridge, people had worn outfits from almost every era. Here, though, clothes were drab. Aside from the odd Georgian

suit and Roman tunic, most people were in gray or black wool, paired with a lightweight gauzy fabric that Joan didn’t recognize.

If Joan hadn’t just walked up from the Thames, she would have been lost. There was nothing familiar here—not the architecture;

not the street signs with their Argent sigils.

Aaron backed up under the thin lip of an eave and grimaced at his dampening suit. “We need to find an inn.”

“My family will help us,” Jamie said. “We just have to find them.”

“We can look for them tomorrow,” Aaron said. “Right now, we have to get off the streets. It’ll be dark soon.” He didn’t have to say the rest. Joan and Nick were already breaking that stupid

curfew.

It wasn’t particularly cold, but the sky soon opened into drenching rain.

Nick walked silently, hands in his pockets, his dark hair flattened, shirt plastered to his chest. He hadn’t said much since they’d left those men on the bridge.

He was blaming himself for what was happening to them, Joan knew.

For choosing to create this world instead of letting her die.

She tried to catch his gaze, but his eyes stayed firmly on the ground. She folded her arms around herself. The distance between

them was starting to feel like a physical thing, a tightness in her chest that she couldn’t shake.

The rain emptied the streets. Every now and then, someone would hurry past, shielding their heads with coats and bags. Mostly,

though, there was no one around.

“What do you think happens to humans out after curfew?” Joan asked. The others blinked at her, and she realized it was the

first thing anyone had said in a while. “Because on the bridge, it seemed like that man was ready to die rather than get caught.”

The horror of that bridge hit her again. “Eleanor put those heads on the turrets. She—”

Jamie interrupted her. “I saw Guy Fawkes’s head on the turrets once. In 1606.”

“What?” Joan said, thrown.

“Plague year,” Ruth said, sounding strained. Her gaze was down as if she was inspecting her shoes, but Joan had the feeling

that her attention was on something else.

In Joan’s peripheral vision, a red uniform appeared. A guard, almost in touching distance. Fear rushed through her. Had they

overheard anything incriminating? Maybe not—the rain was still roaring down.

“It was a mis-jump,” Jamie said to Ruth, trying to sound conversational. “One of my first dates with Tom....” His voice shook. “We—We were aiming for 1597—we wanted to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Globe.”

The guard kept walking on, and then his uniform was swallowed by the rain.

“He’s out of earshot,” Joan said, and Jamie slumped, relieved.

“That’s why I never go to see original Shakespeares,” Aaron muttered. “One wrong jump, and you’re covered in black lumps,

trying to explain yourself to the NHS.”

“ That’s the drawback, is it?” Nick murmured, and Aaron blinked at him as if he’d only just realized they’d been talking about expending

human life.

“Another near miss,” Ruth muttered. “We have to get off the streets. Our luck won’t hold.”

Joan nodded, but for the first time she wondered if it was just luck. Surely if Eleanor had circulated their descriptions, the guards would have stopped them by now. They were a distinctive

group. But... what if Eleanor didn’t know they’d escaped? What if she didn’t have the guards out searching for them?

In her mind’s eye, Joan saw again the last moments of their battle. As the world had transformed around them, Eleanor’s power

had battered at Joan’s shield, and in the final seconds that shield had cracked. Maybe Eleanor believed it had failed completely.

As they turned the corner, Joan was jolted from her thoughts. Her too-smooth 1920s shoe caught the slick edge of an Argent

disk. She skidded, but she didn’t fall—Aaron’s hand was suddenly tight on her elbow.

“Thanks,” she said, a little mortified, her heart stuttering.

She bet Aaron had never fallen in his life.

He was almost preternaturally poised. Even the rain had just served to artistically style him; he could have stepped off this street and straight into a photo shoot for Vogue .

Joan pushed her own clumped hair from her face.

She suspected that she looked like a wet cat.

At least the rain was finally slowing. Or maybe Joan had just gotten used to it, because everyone else was still hunched.

She lifted her face; she could barely feel the falling drops. She couldn’t feel the wind swirling through her skirt.

The realization hit her like a gut punch. Her senses were blunting; she was heading for a fade-out. She took a breath, trying

not to panic. She couldn’t stop here. People would notice them if they were loitering. Focus , she told herself. She clenched her fists hard, like Aaron had taught her, concentrating on the bite of her fingernails.

Aaron frowned as if he’d seen something in her expression, and Joan realized he was still touching her. “Everything all right?”

he asked.

Half-unconsciously, Joan focused on him instead—on his warm grip, the press of his fingers on her bare skin. As she did, the

rain began to patter properly. She breathed out, profoundly relieved. The fade-out had ended. “Yeah,” she said. “Just lost

my balance.” She had this under control. She was fine.

Aaron gave her a long look before gently releasing her.

By the time they got to Covent Garden, night was falling.

The road was slick with rain, gutters puddled and gleaming under the streetlights.

This area should have been full of fancy tourist shops and pubs, but the buildings were dilapidated, their bricks chipped and paint peeling. Iron bars shuttered the windows.

A few coffee shops were still open. They passed one now—a blare of noise and light in the darkness: Jacobine’s Coffee Shop. Cheapest for miles. A man staggered drunkenly out, and opened his trousers to urinate against the wall.

“Oh, for—” Aaron hopped into the road to avoid the trickle as it crawled into the gutter. “This is beyond the pale,” he muttered.

“Why is Covent Garden so vile?”

“You’re talking about my family’s territory,” Jamie said mildly.

Aaron lifted his head, surprised. His fine features rearranged into rare contrition. “Sorry. I do like...” He paused for

a good few seconds. “I like the opera house.”

Someone less even-tempered might have been insulted, but Jamie seemed faintly amused. “I’ve always liked Kensington Gardens,”

he offered in return.

“I mean, they’re not in the same category, but—”

Nick cleared his throat, interrupting him. “We need to get inside.” He was a few paces behind them, surveying the street,

the buildings around them. Windows. Doors. Alleyway entrances.

Wind gusted, turning frigid as it filtered through Joan’s still-wet dress. “Did you see something?” The road was empty now;

the drunk man had stumbled back into the coffee shop.

“I just have a bad feeling,” Nick said. “Like guards are coming.”

Joan exchanged a look with Ruth. Gran had always taught them to trust their instincts.

“We’re a couple of minutes from the Serpentine Inn,” Ruth reassured him. “If—” She hesitated, but Joan heard the unsaid part. If it’s still here. Liu territory had changed, and so had Covent Garden. It was possible that the Serpentine didn’t exist anymore.

But when they turned into Bow Street, a vast stone building loomed out of the evening, carved lettering in the stone reading

Serpentine Inn . Around the letters, snakes projected from the eaves like gargoyles, fangs bared.

“It’s bigger in this timeline,” Joan said, awed. The last time she’d been here, the inn had been meek, hidden in an alley

and enclosed by high walls. Now it stood in plain sight on the street.

“When were you ever at the Serpentine?” Ruth made it sound like the shadiest place she could imagine.

“Me and Aaron came here once.”

Aaron’s head turned at that, and Joan’s chest constricted with the strange ache of remembering things that other people didn’t.

She and Aaron had fled here from Nick—when Nick had been a monster slayer.

Only Joan remembered that timeline now, but it was still so vivid to her.

Aaron had brought her to a nondescript door in a narrow passage between buildings. Is this your first time in a monster place? he’d asked. He’d known she was scared, and he’d tried to reassure her. Dragons need not fear other dragons.

Another gust of wind came, chilling Joan to the bone. The inn was huge now—a floor taller than its neighbors. The message

couldn’t have been clearer. Monsters didn’t need to hide anymore.

Joan stepped into a fug of warmth and woodsmoke. The flagstone floor was strewn with herbs, and the scent of crushed mint, thyme, and lavender rose as she walked, mingling with the smoke.

The place was crammed with tables full of people drinking ale and eating stew with thick slices of brown bread. Coins and

cards were piled beside empty glasses stained with froth.

As Joan and the others shuffled in, heads turned, expressions ranging from hostile to predatory.

“Well, this is even more awful than usual,” Aaron muttered under his breath.

“It was your idea to come here,” Ruth pointed out.

“Because people don’t ask questions at the Serpentine.”

“Yeah, they’ll mug us, no questions asked.”

“They’re not going to mug us,” Nick murmured. He’d come in last, and now he closed the door with a solid thunk , cutting off the cold stream of air at Joan’s back. Ruth seemed doubtful. But the patrons were already turning away; they’d

sized Nick up—with his broad shoulders and muscled frame—and decided it wouldn’t be worth it.

Joan released a breath. The dangerous undercurrent wasn’t the only difference since last time. The back wall had once been