Page 5 of Once a Villain (Only a Monster #3)

They hurried through the back door, emerging onto a narrow lane bordered on one side by dark shops, and on the other by the

rear wall of the pub.

A signpost reading Ravencroft Market pointed north. Last time, the Serpentine Inn had been something like an Inn of Court—a complex of housing and shops. That

seemed true in this timeline too.

Joan followed the sign, walking quickly. All she could see, though, was the receptionist’s face, his slight frown. “Do you

think that receptionist recognized me from the poster?”

“Shit,” Aaron hissed, stopping in his tracks. In two long strides, he was at the pub wall, tearing something from the brick.

Joan glimpsed her own face before Aaron viciously crumpled the paper and shoved it into his pocket.

Joan drew a sharp breath. There were more posters all over the pub’s back wall. Strangers stared at her, terrified, furious,

pleading. Wanted for... Executed for...

“That picture didn’t look that much like you,” Jamie said to Joan reassuringly.

Maybe he was right. There’d been something off about the illustration—as if the artist had drawn Joan from a secondhand account. “They should have commissioned a Liu,” she said, and Jamie quirked his mouth. He could have drawn a photo-accurate version.

“They got your eyes wrong,” Aaron agreed, sounding serious. “And your mouth is more...”

Joan waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. “More what?” she said. To her surprise, he reddened a little in the darkness.

“It looks enough like you,” Nick said tightly.

From the outside, the Ravencroft Market looked just as it had in the previous timeline—above a grand arch, the name was carved

in stone, surrounded by birds and curling leaves.

At the entrance, a map, rendered on a metal plate, showed the internal structure of the building. It was shaped like a wheel,

with a central hub and corridors jutting out like spokes. The corridors seemed to be accommodation, and the center circle

a covered market.

Joan pulled out the cardboard envelope with their room key. The receptionist—Ronan—had written Corridor 1, Room 14 on the front.

As they walked in, the flooring changed from stone to a black-and-white mosaic of ravens, surrounded by feathered twirls.

An encircled number 1 appeared at intervals between the birds—the corridor number, Joan guessed.

It was a long corridor, and it ended up ahead in a huge circular space, with a great dome above it. Black ravens had been

worked into the glass. At night, it was dour, but during the day, it must have been magnificent—reminiscent, maybe,of the

Reading Room at the British Museum.

“Our room must be up there.” Nick indicated balconied mezzanines on the floor above. He examined the numbered doors along the mezzanines. “They’re organized like a street of houses. Odd numbers at the left; even on the right.”

They found a tightly coiled wrought-iron staircase, and hurried upstairs. “Room fourteen...,” Aaron murmured as they reached

the next level.

A swell of sound from below made them all pull back against the shelter of the wall. Half a dozen people were tottering through

the corridor toward the market, chirping high, tipsy laughs. Most had tattoos on their hands and arms: griffins and elm trees.

“I thought the Griffiths and Argents were enemies,” Joan whispered.

“They are ,” Ruth murmured. “They hate each other even more than the Olivers and Hunts.”

“It’s because Argents train themselves to resist Griffith power,” Jamie said. “They’re practically immune.”

One of the Argent girls playfully pushed a Griffith boy, making him laugh.

Ruth made a face. “Oh, that is unnatural .”

“The alliances must have changed,” Joan whispered. A thought occurred to her. “What if the Olivers and Hunts actually like

each other in this timeline? What if we’re allies here?”

For a second, Ruth and Aaron had identical horrified expressions. Aaron broke first. “I think this world is bad enough without creating even worse scenarios,” he said severely. And then—apparently to prevent further speculation—he tromped down the corridor toward their room.

Joan started to follow him, and then hesitated, thinking again of the receptionist’s expression. Had he clocked her? Instead of following Aaron, she went to room 2 and knocked. “Cleaning service!” she called.

What are you doing? Aaron mouthed from the other end of the corridor. Joan listened at the door. No sound. She knocked again. “Cleaning service!”

Ruth came over, unrolling her soft leather case of picks. Within seconds she’d picked the lock.

“That’s someone else’s room!” Aaron whispered, jogging over.

“Is he always like this?” Ruth asked Joan.

Aaron was always like this. It had driven Joan mad when they’d first met, but she didn’t mind his voice of caution anymore. It was

a good reminder to be careful, to be vigilant.

“I think this will be safer,” Joan whispered to him. “If the receptionist sends guards,we’ll hear them knocking at the other

door. We’ll have a chance to slip out of here.”

Aaron’s mouth had been open to argue, but now he just sighed. “Fine.”

Joan cracked the door. The room was dark and smelled of dust. She slipped inside cautiously, and the others followed.

When they all were in, she slid the dead bolts home and released a breath. She didn’t feel safe—more like an animal that had

found a temporary burrow, surrounded by predators on all sides.

Nick found a switch, illuminating a living room and a short corridor that presumably led to a bedroom and bathroom.

Aaron toed an embroidered silver tree on the lush black carpet. “Looks like an Argent lives here.”

“An Argent with...” Joan looked around. “...Gothic taste.” The wallpaper was luxuriously textured, overpainted with

dark illustrations of carnivorous plants. Mounted animal heads stared at her with glassy eyes: a raven, a black bear, a wolf.

One whole wall was a painting of a man with a pale face and a black beard that ended in a pencil-tip point. His clothes were

sixteenth century, a huge white ruff and a jaunty feathered hat. “Do you think that’s the owner?”

Ruth struck the man’s pose under his portrait, hands on her hips, head tilted. “What’s weirder? Sitting in an apartment with

a giant portrait of yourself or hanging out with a bear’s head?”

“Nothing wrong with trophies on the wall,” Aaron said. “And an oil of an ancestor.” He assessed the room critically. “You

know, I don’t mind this. The overpaint on the wallpaper is a little much. But in general...”

Ruth made a face at Joan, and Joan spread her hands. The painting and mounted animal heads both creeped her out. Most of the

time, she understood Aaron’s taste, but not this.

Aside from the Gothic living room, there was a kitchenette here—tiled black to match the aesthetic. Jamie opened the fridge.

“Empty,” he said. In his jacket, Frankie was still sleeping, her head against his shoulder; he stroked her furry forehead

with his thumb.

There was an empty wastebasket on the kitchen counter. “Whoever lives here hasn’t been back in a while,” Joan said.

Nick had vanished to check the other rooms. He reappeared now. “No one’s here,” he confirmed. “The bedroom has a window escape.

Not sure about any other exits.” He eyed the wolf head, mouth downturned.

“Lights off for a second?” Joan said, walking over to the curtained living room windows. She was pretty sure this room faced

the main street, and she didn’t want the lights to give away their presence here.

Ruth flicked the switch, and darkness blanketed the room. There was a sliding door. Joan found the catch and stepped out onto

a high-walled balcony.

Outside, the air was damp and the cold stuck to her lungs. Joan raised herself on tiptoes to peer over the balcony. The street

was surprisingly close. Not an easy climb down, but not a neck-breaking height. She went back in, pulling the door and curtains

closed behind her.

“There’s a balcony,” she said. “So we have a couple of exits if someone breaks in.” She scrubbed her hands over her face tiredly.

“All right,” Nick said. “So we’re in a dystopian London, but we have a roof over our heads. Now what?”

They had to fix this timeline. They had to find Eleanor and stop her. But before they could do anything, there were pressing

needs. “We need food,” Joan said into her hands. “Warmer clothes.” All of them were still wet from the downpour.

“If we’re going to base ourselves here, we’ll need money,” Ruth said. “Prince Poshling is going to run out of travel tokens

soon enough.”

“Let’s see what we can find in this apartment,” Joan said. “Cash. Anything we can sell or trade at the market downstairs. Nothing remarkable or memorable.”

“So now we’re thieves as well as squatters,” Aaron said. “I know you didn’t call me that,” he added to Ruth.

They spread out through the apartment to do a quick search for money and sellable items.

“How many tokens do you have left?” Ruth asked Aaron as she shook out the sofa cushions and shifted furniture, looking for coins.

“Three,” Aaron said. “A hundred and fifty years.”

Joan had been wrestling with a stuck drawer under the oil painting, and now her finger caught on the underside as she wrenched

it open. She shook the sting from her finger, wishing she could shake off Aaron’s casual tone in the same way. He had a hundred

and fifty years of human life in his pocket, and he was talking about it like it was spare change.

Nick had heard it too; he’d been working through the kitchen, but now he stilled.

“I don’t want to use the other tokens,” Joan blurted. The words sounded loud in the small room. She hadn’t even meant to say

it; it had just come out.

And now everyone stopped. For a second, the dynamics seemed to shift between them, from five people in the room to three monsters

and two humans.

Then Aaron said: “Okay.”