Page 47 of Once a Villain (Only a Monster #3)

Joan stepped out. Behind her, the click of the car door seemed overly loud. Rose petals still littered the path, but otherwise,

the street was empty. She drew a shaky breath as she looked up at the white statues of the Curia Monstrorum . Aaron had known what she’d needed, without her even knowing it herself.

“My mother was executed at the Oliver house,” Aaron whispered. “In the Lily Garden—you haven’t seen it. It’s at the far west

of the estate. I never did like the smell of lilies, and I really can’t stand them now, but... the night she died, I sat

in that garden for hours. I don’t even know why. I just needed to.”

Tears stung Joan’s eyes. Aaron never talked about his mother, and especially not her death. She reached for his hand, and

he took it.

It was shockingly easy to get into the colosseum this time. The building was as empty and unguarded as the street, and eerily

quiet. They walked through the cave-like space beneath the arena. The lamps had been dimmed, and it was barely bright enough

for them to see their own feet.

Joan’s breath caught as they ascended a stone staircase into the arena. The sand was concrete-pale in the moonlight, and it looked untouched now—bloodless and clean and neatly raked.

They walked over to the spot where Nick had died. Joan didn’t know what she’d expected to find—perhaps his ring. Perhaps a

scrap of clothing. There was no sign of him, though. Other than the lingering scent of incense, there was no sign that anything

had happened here.

She knelt on the raked sand, smoothing it. “You know... I think I flattened him in my mind,” she said. “When he was alive.”

She’d imagined Nick in black and white, like he was a character from an old-fashioned movie. The hero from a story.

Sometimes I catch you looking at me , Nick had said to her in the garden, like you’re comparing yourself to me. Like you’re ashamed of what you are. But I don’t see myself like that . I don’t see you like that.

She’d smoothed him out like she was smoothing the sand—from the real, complicated person he’d been. He’d been so much more

than the picture she’d made of him. And maybe she’d done that to herself too, forced herself and Nick into a false dichotomy

of monster and human .

“I didn’t see him as clearly as I should have,” Joan said, “but I want to remember him as he really was. I don’t have anything

left of him now but memories, and I want those memories to be true.”

“He loved you,” Aaron said softly. “I saw it in his eyes every time he looked at you.”

Joan nodded and felt a tear slide down her cheek. It was the last thing Nick had said to her before he’d risen into the arena.

She’d loved him too. She’d loved him desperately. “I know you didn’t like him very much.”

She looked up at Aaron and couldn’t help but bite back a smile at his soft gray tracksuit—not at all his usual style.

Joan wouldn’t have even guessed he owned comfortable clothes—not any version of him—but Aaron had found a set for himself and for her with unerring instinct, at the back of a drawer in his counterpart’s dressing room.

His counterpart seemed to love a motif—even these had the Oliver mermaid stitched lovingly on the trouser pockets.

Aaron gave her a small, wry smile back. “He didn’t like me .”

“He didn’t know you.”

“Perhaps.”

Joan swiped at her face. It hadn’t been that way in this timeline. Nick’s counterpart had loved Aaron’s, and Aaron’s counterpart

had clearly loved him back—so much that he’d overthrown his own father to keep Nick safe. Strange to think that, in this universe,

it might have been Aaron crying here in the empty arena over Nick.

She remembered again the message from Nick’s counterpart to Aaron’s. Before the numbers of the cipher, Nick’s counterpart

had told Aaron: You can get to her. You have what you need. How had they been planning to kill Eleanor? She’d never figured it out.

Joan supposed that it didn’t really matter now. Eleanor had won, and they’d lost. There was nothing more they could do.

They sat there in the sand until the chill started to seep in. And then a little longer after that. I sat in that garden for hours , Aaron had said. Joan understood the impulse.

She was deep in her thoughts when a voice punctured the stillness of the night, startling her. She stood, pulling Aaron up,

before she’d even really registered the red uniform of a Court Guard walking across the arena.

“You can’t be here! You’re trespassing!” The guard was in her mid-thirties, with severe eyebrows and a bob of hair the color

of dead grass. She started to frown as she got closer. “Lord Oliver?” she said uncertainly. “What are you doing here?” She

didn’t sound nearly as deferential toward Aaron as everyone else in this world had been. She was suspicious, Joan realized

slowly. Aaron had supposedly executed Nick Ward, and yet Nick had shown up in the arena this afternoon. Everyone had seen

him.

At the same time, it was becoming clear that Eleanor hadn’t put out an arrest warrant for Aaron. And she hadn’t publicly repudiated

him. In fact, she’d implied in front of the whole crowd that Nick hadn’t quite been Nick .

The guard seemed to conclude that all this was above her pay grade. She straightened into a more formal posture. “Lord Oliver,”

she said again, in a marginally thawed tone. “May I help you with something?” She glanced at Joan—or tried to. Aaron had put

Joan a little behind him, keeping her concealed. Joan still had a wanted poster with her face on it.

Aaron’s head tilted arrogantly now as he pulled on the cloak of his counterpart again. Joan could see it was beginning to

fit him more and more uncomfortably, though. “What was done with Nick Ward’s body?” he asked, voice hard.

Joan had the feeling he was trying to draw the guard’s attention back to him, but she suppressed a sharp breath. She hadn’t realized how much she’d wanted that information until Aaron had asked for it.

The guard must have thought it a strange question in the middle of the night, in the middle of the empty arena, but she answered.

“The colosseum is on Argent territory, my lord. I assume the Argents took custody of the body.”

“Nick was an Oliver gladiator,” Aaron said coldly. “His body is Oliver property.”

“My lord.” The guard shifted her weight. She definitely thought this was all above her pay grade now. “Lord Cassius Argent

mentioned a plan to display him in the Argent house....”

Cassius Argent’s leering face came back to Joan. At the Pelican, he’d told Aaron, If we’d caught the gladiator, we’d have put him in our trophy room .

Joan shuddered. Was Nick’s body going to be displayed among stuffed lions and stags, for monsters to gawk at and mock? She

couldn’t bear the thought.

Behind their backs, Aaron squeezed her hand comfortingly. “That will be all,” he said, waving dismissively, as if the guard

was one of his own servants.

The guard was irritated—Joan could see it—but she only nodded and trekked back across the sand.

“Cassius Argent has a trophy room,” Joan said, as soon as the guard was out of earshot. Every time she thought she’d seen

the worst of this world, she was shocked anew. “He’s going to put Nick in it like a stag on a wall.”

Aaron’s breath hissed out. “I’ll speak to the Argents tomorrow morning.”

“Do you think your standing’s changed here since this afternoon? The guard seemed suspicious....”

“I think I can brazen it out. In societies like this, people tend to mind their own business when it comes to people in positions

of authority. If I’m walking around free, then as far as they’re concerned...”

“It’s above their pay grade.”

“Right.”

Joan could tell Aaron was worried despite his words, and so was she. Eleanor was unpredictable. For all they knew, there’d

be guards waiting for them as soon as they left the stadium.

They took a different route out, just in case—a curving path around the arena. Joan’s breath hitched as she realized that

they were going to pass the viewing room where she’d seen Nick die.

She found herself stopping in the corridor just outside the room. There were still marks on the packed-dirt floor where Aaron

had dragged her from the window. Through the viewing slots, the sand was bright white under the moonlight. The arena seemed

smaller from this angle.

“A part of me can’t believe he’s gone,” she admitted to Aaron. “I think I saw him as some kind of superhero. As if a fall

like that couldn’t have killed him.”

She took a step into the room without really intending to.

As she did, an oddity caught her eye—a smear of reflected light on the brick wall beside the window.

She glanced over her shoulder. Aaron was standing in the dark doorway, watching the corridor for guards.

The hairs rose at the back of Joan’s neck. There was no source to the light.

She walked slowly toward it. There was an odd depth to it, as though it was inside the wall. As she reached it, a shadow moved inside that depth. Joan recoiled. And then she drew a sharp breath as she finally

realized what she was looking at.

“What is that?” Aaron said. He joined her at the wall, peering at the thing.

“It’s...” Joan shook her head. There was a hole in the wall about the size of her own hand. And inside—instead of the arena—she

could see an illuminated room. Far inside, where the arena’s stands should have been, there was a stone wall, eaten away by

the elements and by time. Joan stared. She knew that wall. She’d been in that room a couple of years ago, on a walking tour

of London’s Roman ruins. “It’s the basement of the Guildhall Art Gallery,” she said to Aaron. “It’s their exhibit of Londinium’s

amphitheater.”

“What?”

Joan swallowed. “This is a tear in the timeline. It’s showing us our timeline.”

Aaron’s mouth opened and closed. “How is that possible?”

“I don’t know, but I can feel the tear,” Joan said. The familiar sense of corruption and decay. And she could see the jagged

edges of it now, faintly in the moonlight.

Aaron shuddered as if her words had made him aware of his own sense of it. “But Eleanor closed all the tears when she locked

down the timeline. I saw the one above the stadium close. I felt it close.”

Something disturbing occurred to Joan then. She toed at the marks on the ground. She’d dug in her shoes when Aaron had tugged her to safety. She took a step to the left so that she was standing on that mark. Then she reached for the wall.

Aaron stopped her with a hand to her arm. “What are you doing ?” he said, alarmed.

“It’s all right,” Joan reassured him. She hadn’t intended to touch the thing. Only to check its position. She knew for sure

now, though. She’d been standing right here when Nick had died. She’d been touching the wall right here.

“Joan?”

Joan swallowed, looking up at him. He was so beautiful, even with the lack of sleep and all the stress he’d been under. “There’s

something I haven’t told you.” She’d never told anyone but Ying Liu. A reflexive wave of fear ran through her, even though

she knew Aaron would never hurt her.

He saw the shiver and took her hand, shifting her away from the tear and into his arms. “What’s going on?”

Joan searched for the words. “There’s something wrong with my power.”

“In what way?” he said softly.

“I—I think I made this tear in the timeline. I’ve done it before. I mean, I was never certain it was me . But seeing this here...” This was where she’d been when Nick had died. Her power often came out in moments of desperate

emotion. It had to have been her.

Aaron peered down at her, searching her face, his own expression a mixture of doubt and confusion.

“Sometimes, my power comes out of its own volition,” Joan explained. “Sometimes I unmake things I don’t mean to unmake.”

“You mean it’s unreliable?” Aaron said.

“It’s worse than that.” So much worse. “The Grave power allows me to unmake objects. But sometimes my power goes beyond that. It tears holes in the

timeline—like I’m unmaking the world itself.”

She didn’t know what she’d expected to see on Aaron’s face—repulsion, maybe, or horror—but to her relief, he just seemed troubled.

“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” he said.

“I made this tear when I saw Nick die,” Joan said. “I did the same thing at Holland House when I unmade him. I did it at the

café near Covent Garden. And I think in the Oliver garden, when we spoke to my grandmother... I don’t have any control

over it.”

Aaron must have been able to feel her tension, because his hand smoothed over her back comfortingly. “It doesn’t make sense,

though,” he murmured. “Even if this has happened before, it shouldn’t be possible now. Eleanor said that when she locked the

timeline, every other timeline would be wiped away as if they’d never existed. And yet...” He nodded at the tear Joan had

made, with its view of the ruins.

The tear was such a small thing—the size of Joan’s hand. “So what are we saying?” she said slowly. She couldn’t have called

the feeling inside her hope—it wasn’t strong enough to be hope. “That maybe Eleanor didn’t lock the timeline as she thought? Maybe we can still repair it?”

And then the full implications hit her like a storm. I couldn’t lock the timeline while you were still alive , Eleanor had said to Nick. I need you dead.

She heard Aaron’s breath hitch. His beautiful features were frozen, pale as the sand outside. He clutched at her, almost reflexively,

just like he’d reached for her in sleep. Then he released her.

“He can’t be alive,” Joan heard herself say. “He couldn’t have survived that fall.”

“Then how is this tear here?”

“I don’t know,” Joan said.