Page 37 of Once a Villain (Only a Monster #3)

The jubilee was the first gloriously sunny day since they’d arrived—another reminder of Eleanor’s attention to detail. She’d

never have held her jubilee on a rainy day.

The entire Oliver household left early in the morning to join the festivities. Even humans had the day off, according to Tom—except

for the prisoners and gladiators competing in the arena, of course.

Outside, the pavement was sunbaked. A breeze pushed lazily at the trees. Flower sellers strolled by with baskets of fresh

red roses, their perfume filling the air with spring.

Above them, more roses were displayed in vases on windowsills, and petals were scattered on the pavement.

Over two weeks of planning and scouting, Joan had walked this route half a dozen times, but the growing crowd added an element

of unpredictability that made her stomach churn. In a few hours, these streets would be heaving. Already, guards on horseback

stalked down the middle of the road, ordering people to stay on the pavement.

The colosseum wasn’t in sight yet, but on the map, it stretched from Cheapside almost all the way to the London Wall, far

larger than the original historical version. It now accommodated fifty thousand people, at least, and Tom had said that every

seat would be filled today.

Aaron hated crowds, and the jostling was getting to him. He kept flicking looks at Joan, and even Nick—making sure their necks and throats were still covered.

Nick himself never got jostled; the crowd parted as he walked, people’s gazes following him as if they’d sensed a charismatic

presence among them. He’d often reminded Joan of an old-fashioned king, although he’d never seemed aware of that quality in

himself. Joan felt it, though, when someone shoved past her. Nick shifted protectively closer to her, and she saw the path

ahead miraculously clear.

Most of the people in the crowd were human, their own pendants naked on their necks. And everyone—human and monster—wore roses,

woven into buttonholes and pinned into hair and on lapels.

“We need roses too,” Joan realized. Or they’d stand out.

“I’ll get some,” Ruth said. She was getting antsy—Joan could see it.

“Don’t steal them,” Joan whispered.

Ruth twisted her mouth in a you’re no fun way, but she dug into her pocket for some coins. Aaron’s counterpart had kept plenty of cash in his desk drawer, and they’d

divvied it up between them.

A minute later, she was back with a bunch of roses, thorns shaved from their long stems. The guys put theirs in buttonholes,

and Ruth put hers in her hair.

Joan wound her own rose into her scarf, ending with the flower against her neck. She found herself thinking, as she did, of

the Grave symbol: the silver rose.

After the King had erased the Graves, he’d forced Eleanor to wear a new sigil—a thorned rose stem without the flower. A reminder, always, of what he’d done to her family.

Joan still hadn’t seen any of the Graves here, but she’d been thinking of them more and more. The last time she’d scouted

this route, she’d considered walking a few streets farther to London Bridge.

Maybe she’d have seen people wearing silver pins.

Maybe she’d have seen Mum—if Mum was still alive here. Would Joan have recognized her? Or had she been disappeared, like Dad

maybe had?

At the thought of Mum, a familiar pressure of emotion started. Joan pushed it down automatically, but a curling thread of

sadness, of hurt persisted. She’d always been able to contain these feelings, but lately they’d begun to leak, like steam

from the edges of a lidded pot.

She had to keep containing them, though. Because the truth was, the Graves would probably be gone again in the new timeline. And

if she thought about that too much, she really wouldn’t be able to bear it.

She glanced at Nick. They’d never resolved their disagreement about what kind of world to create when they seized control

of the timeline from Eleanor. Nick hadn’t wavered from his desire to intentionally mold some kind of utopia—where monsters

and humans lived together in peace.

Joan, though, hadn’t been able to reconcile that with the idea of molding people to create that world.

The others had argued for reverting the timeline to what used to be here—or as close as they could get. It had been five against one in the end. Everyone against Nick.

Pressed against Nick’s side now, Joan wished she were more comfortable with her own position. Maybe Nick had been right. She did want peace, desperately—a negotiated peace, where people were persuaded rather than forced. But what

if that wasn’t even possible? What if Nick’s way was the only way?

Nick must have sensed her unease, because he tucked her closer now. “It’s going to be okay,” he said—soft enough in the loud

crowd that it was just for her. “We’ll be back home soon. We’ll be okay.”

Joan nodded. That couldn’t come soon enough for her. Ahead, threads of smoke drifted above the colosseum. “Are they burning

bodies?” she said. “Already?”

Tom looked up. “Not bodies,” he said. “On jubilee days, they burn scented oils and dried flowers in the Queen’s name. Not

just at the colosseum, but in homes.”

Now that he’d mentioned it, there was a slight fug of sweet oils under the stronger scent of burning wood. And something else.

“Is that incense?” Joan asked.

“They’ll have incense burning all day,” Tom said with a nod. “To mask the smell of blood.”

Joan took that in with a shiver. She found herself giving Tom a second glance. Jamie seemed completely comfortable around

him now. Joan herself still had doubts, but Tom’s growing feelings for Jamie were undeniable. No matter where he was, his

gaze always turned back to Jamie.

“Glad we didn’t bring Frankie and Sylvie,” Jamie said. “This is chaos....”

They turned the corner onto the A4—the old Roman Road.

Eleanor had widened and straightened the street, transforming it into a long parade route.

Joan heard her breath hiss out as the now-familiar statue of Eleanor came into view at the end of the road.

She was a tower of gleaming white marble, her mouth curled into a cruel smile.

Rose petals flooded the road all the way to her plinth.

“All hail the eternal Queen,” Nick said dryly.

The creepy thing was that everyone around was clearly in awe of Eleanor. Humans, wearing pendants, scattered rose petals as they made their way up the road to the colosseum—where

hundreds of people would soon be killed in Eleanor’s honor.

The humans would have to sit in the highest levels of the stadium, Tom had said. But tickets were free for them, as they were

for everyone else.

Joan dragged her eyes from her sister’s statue. Beyond it was the vast white wall of the colosseum itself. From here, it was

a cliff—three levels with recessed arches running along the exterior. Just like the colosseum of Rome, each arch contained

a marble figure, staring down at the people approaching.

“Who are they?” Joan wondered.

“All the members of the Monster Court,” Tom said, and Aaron grunted, sounding surprised.

“So many of them,” Joan said.

“They don’t all rule over the same periods,” Tom said. “A hundred statues representing the Court from prehistory to the end

of time.”

“Speaking of,” Ruth said. She nodded at an entrance ahead, at the clock embedded above it. Almost eight o’clock.

As the crowd streamed into the stadium through its dozen gates, Joan and the others headed to a small, innocuous door where a flight of stairs led down.

If they’d gotten everything right about today, Eleanor would enter the imperial box about three hours from now. Not a recording

of her—as everyone in the crowd would believe—but Joan’s sister in the flesh.

The box itself was its own separate building, with a single underground entrance, heavily protected by Eleanor’s most loyal

guards.

They’d needed another way in.

On Finn’s carefully drawn map, the substructure of the colosseum was a world of its own, a labyrinth of chambers and passages.

A shiver of primal fear ran down Joan’s spine as they descended now into the dim, cave-like underbelly of the colosseum. It

was cold down here after the sunny street above. A gamey smell permeated: wild animals and the musk of unwashed, frightened

bodies. Animals growled from the depths beneath their feet. Lions, Joan guessed. And maybe bears.

The path was dimly lit with electric lamps along brick walls. Above, the ceiling arched over them. Joan felt like she was

walking into a catacomb. And it felt incongruous that they were in an ancient building, still in use. One that wasn’t even

supposed to be here anymore.

They reached the vast first chamber, crowded with stagehands tending to a mass of platforms and electrified pulleys that would lift animals and people directly into the arena. Some were small—intended to launch a single gladiator. Others could have fit twenty people or more.

An armed guard emerged from the mass. “Where are your credentials?” he snapped at them. “You can’t just walk in here!”

“We’re here to see— Ah!” Aaron said as a man with a rugby build hurried up to them, shooing the guard away.

“Lord Oliver!” the man said. “I’m the trainer you spoke with—Carvel. I believe you wanted to inspect the Oliver gladiators?”

Carvel was a man of about thirty. He wore a huge Dracula-like collar in black leather that protected his neck completely and

made his heavy gold pendant seem redundant. He was what Tom would have called a high-ranked human , Joan guessed. The top number of his pendant—the amount of life left—was 42 years, 3 months, 2 days. The largest number Joan

had seen in her time here. The second number was 30 years, 3 months, 2 days. The years of servitude remaining.

The trainer gestured for them to follow. “This is such an honor, my lord! We’ve missed your visits down below!”

Aaron inclined his head stiffly, back in full Lord Oliver mode.

Carvelled them past stall after stall of wild animals: an elephant, a tiger, a bear. Joan’s stomach roiled at the thought