Page 33 of Once a Villain (Only a Monster #3)

Nick’s hand brushed Joan’s again as they walked along the hall to the library.

If Eleanor gave me that choice again, I’d choose you again. Every time.

He’d been telling the truth in the garden, she knew. He still loved her, like she loved him. She put a hand over her face,

feeling overwhelmed suddenly. He loved her. Her uncertainty about the future receded slightly. She’d wanted this so much for so long....

“All right?” he murmured. He tugged her closer, and Joan gave in to the urge to press her face to his shoulder for a second,

breathing in the warm scent of him.

Everyone was in the library when they arrived, looking exhausted, huge circles under their eyes.

“ Finally! ” Ruth said, when she saw Joan and Nick. “You missed all the excitement!”

Nick choked, and Joan’s face heated. She could still feel the sweep of his thumb against her cheek, the warmth between them

as he’d leaned closer. “Oh?” she managed.

“Well, not that much excitement,” Jamie said. “I just remembered something of how the King planned to lock the timeline. And then Tom and I connected a few dots.” He didn’t seem as animated as Ruth.

Nick pulled up a chair beside Joan’s, the wooden feet scraping against the floor.

“Please don’t scratch the parquetry,” Aaron said. His posh voice drew everyone’s gaze. He was standing at the back of the

room, hands in his pockets. His gray suit was still crisp and ironed, and Joan wondered, absurdly, if he’d time-traveled since

she’d seen him in the garden. How did his clothes always seem freshly pressed? “In this world, that floor is worth more than

you,” Aaron said to Nick.

Nick’s blink was slow, almost puzzled, but it was Ruth who spoke. “We’re making plans to save humanity, and your focus is

the parquetry ?”

“We can save the world and the floor at the same time,” Aaron said. “Surely.” He stepped over to the seat opposite Joan’s,

lifting the chair with exaggeration so that it wouldn’t scrape.

With Aaron facing her, Joan found herself overly aware of Nick’s solid frame; of the way he was frowning a little, turning

over Aaron’s insult in his mind.

Aaron himself was glaring at the floor. What had he heard of their conversation in the garden? His jibe at Nick had been much nastier than his usual style. At that thought,

the unsettled feeling from the garden returned, bubbling like nausea in the pit of Joan’s stomach.

Jamie cleared his throat.

“Go on,” Joan said. “What did you remember from your time at Court?”

Jamie sat down between Aaron and Tom, who shuffled slightly to make room for him.

He leaned forward to answer. “The King was the first person to leash the timeline,” he said, “but the truth was it was never truly under his control. Some part of it was always trying to return itself to its original shape—that of the true timeline.”

Joan nodded. She’d known most of that already.

“When I was the Archive,” Jamie continued, “the King was searching for a way to tighten the leash. To take complete control

of the timeline. He wanted to cage it so tightly that it could form no shape but the one he’d made for it.”

Joan had often perceived the timeline as an unwillingly leashed creature, with a mind of its own. She thought of the men imprisoned

on the bridge, forced to curl over in too-small cages, and she shivered. “He found a way?”

“Yes, but...” Jamie swallowed visibly. “He was never quite ruthless enough to go through with it.”

“Not ruthless enough?” Nick said. Between their seats, his hand curled into a fist. Joan covered it with hers and felt him

draw a slow breath. “What was the method?”

“In order to leash the timeline,” Jamie said, “to cage it so tightly that it couldn’t move, the King would have had to weaken

it first. To push it to the very brink of collapse. Only then could he have fixed the cage around it.”

The hairs rose at the back of Joan’s neck as she thought of the tears in the sky, the void inside them, threatening to consume

the word. “You think Eleanor has been weakening the timeline on purpose ?”

“When I saw those tears, I thought they were a byproduct of Eleanor pushing the timeline too far from true.

But now I think she wants to do what the King never dared to.

I think she wants to force the timeline to the very edge of failure, to the point where the void itself is on the cusp of consuming it. She

wants to break the timeline’s will. And when she has it on its knees, she’ll take complete control of it.”

“But... this timeline is so damaged. It seems like she’s destroying it.”

Jamie shook his head. “Once caged, the timeline will stop fighting to return to its original shape. At that point, it should

be able to redirect its energy toward healing itself. The tears will be fixed, and the timeline will be fixed too. Fixed in

place forever in the shape—the cage—Eleanor makes for it.”

Aaron looked pale. “So where does that leave us? Why hasn’t she already done it? It sounds like she could act at any moment.”

“Just before I brought you all here,” Jamie said, “I told Tom what I remembered of the King’s plans. I told him that there

had to be a reason why Eleanor hadn’t already locked the timeline. It was clear to me that it wasn’t quite weak enough for

her to take control yet. And... she could wait until the tears get worse on their own. But I remember her well enough to know she’ll want more control than that. She’d

rather do something to push it over the edge. And...” He flicked Tom a look, and Tom twisted his mouth unhappily in response.

“Tom figured it out.”

Ruth looked at Tom. “You broke the cipher?”

Tom’s giant body didn’t quite fit in the library chair; the wooden arms were a too-tight squeeze. He’d ended up perching on the end of the seat, forearms resting on the desk for balance. “Not the cipher,” he said. “But I think I understand Eleanor’s plan to lock the timeline. And where she’ll be.”

Joan sat up straighter. “Where?”

“There’s always a great spectacle on the day of the jubilee,” Tom said. “The Jubilee Games, they call it. But this year, they’re

planning an unprecedented showcase. The biggest and bloodiest spectacle ever displayed at the Londinium colosseum—human captives

versus gladiators. Animals versus humans—you get the picture.”

“Blood sports,” Nick said flatly. “Executions.”

“Yes,” Tom said.

Joan folded her arms around herself. Nick’s counterpart had fought in the arena as a gladiator. She could hardly bear to think

of it—a crowd cheering and jeering as he was forced to fight for his life. To kill.

“What does that have to do with Eleanor’s plan?” Ruth said.

“Don’t you see?” Jamie said. “Hundreds—maybe thousands —of humans are going to die who wouldn’t have died in the previous timeline. All in one day, in one place. Those deaths will

distort the timeline so far from its true shape that it’ll reach breaking point. The timeline will be weak enough, finally,

for Eleanor to take full control.”

Joan shivered at the thought. Jamie had said that the King had never been ruthless enough to go through with fully caging

the timeline. Eleanor was that ruthless, though.

“We were told that Eleanor never makes public appearances,” Ruth said. “That she never appears anywhere in person.”

“She’ll be there at the colosseum.” Jamie sounded certain. “She’ll have to be. She can’t lock the timeline from the Monster Court—she’ll need to be out in the world, as close as she can be to the epicenter, when the timeline weakens. She’ll be right there, watching and waiting.”

“When is the jubilee?” Ruth asked.

“In two weeks’ time,” Tom said.

“Two weeks ?” Joan tried and failed to suppress a wave of fear. You’re running out of time , Gran had said, but Joan had expected to have so much longer to prepare.

Eleanor herself was a long-game thinker. She’d put years into planning her revenge on Joan and Nick, and on the King. She

must have made plans and backup plans here.

“We have to slow this down,” Joan said. “We need more time to make proper plans.”

“Well... ,” Ruth said. “Aaron still has those travel tokens.”

Joan swallowed. Aaron had 150 years’ worth of tokens. She didn’t want to use them, but they had to be realistic. They needed

time and space to plan and think.

But Jamie shook his head before Aaron could respond. “Traveling back won’t buy us more time. When Eleanor locks the timeline,

she’ll lock it all at once. Wherever we are, whenever we are, the timeline will freeze into place. Just like when she created this timeline.”

Joan remembered—the new timeline had swallowed the old in an instant, head to tail. She took a breath, and tried to think

like Gran would have—and God , she wished so badly Gran were here. “All right. So... we’re pretty sure Eleanor will be at the Jubilee Games in two weeks’ time. And we think she’ll be at the colosseum.”

She didn’t hear the nervous shake in her voice until Nick put a warm hand on her arm. His touch was solid as always, and calming.

“Tom... ,” she said. “I assume you’ve been to the colosseum before—that you know it?”

“Never had the stomach for blood sports,” Tom said. “All those humans and animals...”

“ I’ve been to the Londinium colosseum,” Aaron interjected. His eyes flicked to Nick’s hand on Joan’s arm and then away. “I once

traveled back to see it at its height.”

“That’s a four-thousand-year round trip... ,” Nick said slowly.

“Something like that.” There was a needle in Aaron’s voice. “It was quite filthy really. Londinium was a backwater—at the

very outskirts of the Roman Empire. I couldn’t wait to get home.”

“Is there a point to this sweet reminiscence?” Nick ground out.

Aaron’s expression barely changed, but Joan registered his glint of satisfaction. He’d wanted to get a rise out of Nick. For

all his frosty exterior, he seemed more heated than usual underneath right now.

Tom shifted his weight. “Let’s stick to relevancies. In essence, we need to physically get to her.”