Page 50 of Once a Villain (Only a Monster #3)

like that around her. She crawled into his arms, and he gasped softly, as if he’d been underwater until he’d had her close

again.

Joan must have fallen asleep in his arms because when she opened her eyes again, she was in a bunk, alone, the privacy curtain

closed. Aaron must have put her in there. The pillow smelled of his expensive soap.

She opened the curtain and found him up and making tea with proper tea leaves and a strainer. Outside, the view was a dawn

sky. From the even breaths around them, the others were still asleep.

“Where did you get that tea?” she whispered.

“At the inn’s market. Got some toiletries and clothes too.” He gestured at Joan’s tracksuit and his. “We can’t wear this to the Argent house.”

Joan padded across the cold floor to him, and he tugged her close.

“Are you okay?” he whispered.

Joan looked up at him. His beautiful face was watchful. The question had felt layered. He still wasn’t sure if he should have

slept with her last night.

“With this ,” she said, gesturing between them. “ Yes. It’s the only thing that happened yesterday that made any kind of sense. Everything else...” She shook her head.

He kissed the top of her head. “I think today will be a trial too,” he murmured.

“Getting in before the crowds?” Cassius Argent said. Like last time, he reminded Joan of a frog with his overlarge goggling

eyes. The boorish boom of his voice echoed as he accompanied them through the Argent house, his ill-fitting jacket flapping

as he walked.

They were in Westminster. Outside, the not quite Victorian building had been bleak: charcoal-colored brick and tiny windows.

Inside, the aesthetic was pure Gothic. The walls were black wood, covered in trophies: stags and bears. Joan was afraid to

look too closely, in case any of the heads were human.

“You’re expecting crowds?” Aaron said.

“The trophy room’s a nice little earner,” Cassius said with a smirk. “Of course, most visitors don’t get personalized tours.

And the humans ”—he said the word with rough contempt—“are asked to use the outside staircase. They don’t come into the main house at all.”

Aaron stared at him. Joan could almost feel him holding back the strength of his glare. He disliked Cassius so intensely that

Joan was surprised Cassius hadn’t picked up on it. But then, Cassius did seem self-absorbed.

Cassius glanced at Joan, his gaze tracking down to the scarf around her neck—supposedly hiding her pendant. In truth, they

hadn’t replaced the one that Aaron had broken last night. “That’s the girl you had at Execution Dock... ,” he said to Aaron.

“She’s pretty. When you tire of her, send her my way. I’ll trade you a good worker for her.”

A muscle jumped in Aaron’s jaw. He’d lost his battle with his glare, and his expression was now more dangerous than Joan had

ever seen it. He fought to maintain an even tone. “I will not.”

Cassius hadn’t registered Aaron’s tone. His attention was still on Joan. “You’ll be better off with me,” he said to her. “Lord

Oliver likes humans, but he doesn’t keep them around for long. He’ll tire of you soon enough. And then...” He touched the

back of his own neck almost mockingly.

Joan swallowed down her own contempt of Cassius. She wanted to insult him back, but she was aware that he was more dangerous

than he seemed. Tom had said he was powerful enough to control monster minds as well as human ones.

“Ah,” Cassius said as he reached the top of the stairs. He strode to the end of the corridor and gestured extravagantly at

the room beyond. “Here we are! The famous Argent trophy room!”

Joan followed him into a large room that must have once been a ballroom. As she crossed the threshold, she stumbled to a stop. She didn’t know what she’d expected—maybe a casket, maybe something far more horrifying, like Nick’s tarred head on a stake—but she’d never imagined this.

It was a frozen zoo. Around the room, lifelike animals were in postures of attack: bears roared, lions and wolves clawed at

the air, stags bucked. Some of the animals were long extinct—Joan spotted a snarling saber-toothed cat, a huge auroch, a mammoth.

The walls were covered with more animal heads: wolves, tigers, deer. There had to have been hundreds of them.

“The heads on the walls are stuffed, but the ones on the floor are all in stasis,” Cassius explained. “It’s a facet of the

Patel power—they can freeze things in a moment in time. We paid them rather a lot to set this up. But it was worth it. It

preserves the bodies without damaging them. These trophies will be like this forever.” He gestured. “And here’s what you came

for.”

Joan followed his gaze, and the room tunneled into a sickening swirl. The centerpiece of the room was a re-creation of the

colosseum arena, set up like a diorama in a museum.

In the middle of it was Nick . He stood, blank-faced and lifeless as a waxwork, in his gladiator costume. Two lions and a bear had been posed in a semicircle

around him, as if attacking him.

A wave of nausea rolled over Joan as she realized strangers had had their hands on him. He’d been cleaned up—someone had washed

off the blood and sweat and dirt from the arena. They’d posed him in this disgusting room, manipulating his arms and legs

to make this obscene display. Evenin death, he was being humiliated. Joan put her hand over her mouth. Was she going to be

sick?

Aaron touched her waist gently, and Joan took a deep breath. From here, she could see the thin chain that had held Nick’s signet ring. The ring itself wasn’t visible—it must have been tucked under his tunic.

Cassius beamed. “Better than a waxwork!” He walked into the diorama, toward Nick. “I really thought you’d executed him a couple

of weeks ago. It was most confusing when he returned to the arena yesterday.”

Aaron exchanged a look with Joan. She could see him calculating how to answer. “I thought so too,” he said carefully. “I killed

someone . Maybe a lookalike.”

“Or maybe this is the lookalike.” Cassius gestured at Nick. He seemed displeased by the possibility that he might not have the real Nick

Ward in his trophy room. “We’ve been speculating that the boy in the arena was just part of the show. He doesn’t quite look

like the gladiator, does he? No scars.”

“The guy I killed had scars,” Aaron said. “Joan, careful —” he added as Joan took a step toward Nick.

For a second, Joan had no idea why he’d said that. She drew a breath to ask, and then a small fly swooped in front of her

and stuck in midair, unmoving.

“Spoilsport,” Cassius said to Aaron, chuckling. To Joan, he said: “Yes, do be careful where you step, or you’ll be stuck in

the stasis too. You’ll be part of my zoo.”

Joan stared at him. He must have walked into the diorama along an invisible safe path.

Cassius added to Aaron, “Fun thing is, some of the animals are actually alive in there. At least, the lions are. Not sure about the bears.” He turned back to Joan. “Well, come on, sweetheart. Can you guess how to get in? Were you watching me?”

He’d swiped away his footprints as he’d walked in. Joan couldn’t see them. But there was a solution right here:sand covered

the floor—to mimic the arena, Joan supposed. She bent to pick up a handful and tossed it toward the diorama. Some of the sand

stuck in the air, like the bug had. But more of it fell, revealing the beginning of the path.

A flash of irritation from Cassius. “Do you know how expensive that will be to clean up?” He strode back, grabbing Joan’s

arm, his other hand rising to strike her. She shook him off, and then Aaron was there, standing between them.

“If you touch her again... ,” Aaron said. It was soft, but Joan suddenly realized that Aaron—usually ice cold—was struggling

to control his temper.

Even Cassius heard the dangerous note this time, and he seemed thrown by Aaron’s reaction. He clearly hadn’t expected the

cruel head of the Oliver family to defend a human from correction. “Well... ,” he said slowly. “I hope you don’t mind if

I leave you. I have rather a busy morning. We’ll be opening the doors to the public in about an hour. I suppose”—he looked

at the suspended sand with distaste—“that I’ll have to send in someone to clean this up first. Please excuse me.”

And then he strode out and was gone, and it was just Aaron and Joan in here with Nick.

Joan released a breath as soon as he was out of sight. “Probably should have waited till he left to do the sand thing,” she

admitted.

“Oh, fuck Cassius.” Aaron craned, looking into the diorama. “Is Nick wearing the ring?”

“I can see the chain.” At least they hadn’t stripped Nick of his things.

Joan and Aaron worked together to reveal the full path through the stasis. When they were done, they’d managed to get within

three paces of Nick. He stood there inside the stasis, unnaturally still behind the veil of suspended sand. He’d been posed

as if he was fighting, his short sword raised, and his shield tight against his body.

Joan swallowed. He was close—touchably close—but there was no way to get to him without being trapped by the stasis.

“There must be a way to turn off the stasis,” Aaron said. “Like a button in here...”

“Cassius said the lions were alive,” Joan said. She glanced over her shoulder; their open, snarling mouths were barely three

feet away. If they turned the stasis off, she and Aaron would be lunch.

“Maybe you can try unmaking it,” Aaron said. “Just the section where Nick is.”

“I don’t know if I can just do a section.” Joan glanced over her shoulder again.

“Well... if all the sand drops at once, run .”

Joan reached out a little nervously—thinking not only of the lions but of the bug that had hit the stasis and been trapped

there. What if her hand got stuck? Don’t think like that , she told herself. She reached farther, picturing the stasis vanishing under her touch.

She felt it when it gave way—sand poured over her hand, pooling on the ground.

“It worked ,” Aaron said. “And the lions are still in their stasis. Each creature must be individually frozen.”

Nick was still upright, so some of the stasis around him was still intact, Joan guessed. She pictured him frozen in an ice

block that she’d half melted away.

There was no sign of injury on him—the tunic must have been covering his wounds. He was clearly dead, though. He stood there,

utterly and unnaturally still, expression absent of everything that had made him Nick .

Tears stung Joan’s eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she said to him. “I’m so sorry this happened. I miss you so much.” She felt Aaron’s

hand warm on her back, and she took a shaky breath. “We can’t leave him here to be stared at,” she whispered to Aaron. He

needed to be buried properly. To be able to rest in peace. If she couldn’t give him anything else, she had to give him that.

“We can’t take him with us,” Aaron said gently. “Not today. The Argents would know it was us. We can give him some dignity, though.” He reached for Nick’s neck, as gently as he’d spoken to Joan. To Joan’s surprise, he removed not the necklace

that held the ring but the numbered pendant at his throat. Aaron pocketed it with a slight grimace. He’d hated those pendants

from the moment they’d arrived here.

Nick looked better without the numbers—marginally more himself. Joan swallowed hard. She stood on tiptoes to take off the

finer chain that held the signet ring. She was careful not to touch his skin—some part of her just didn’t want to know for

a fact that he was cold.

She unclasped the chain and then tugged the ring from under Nick’s tunic. As the black metal brushed her fingers, the timeline seemed to shudder, as if a gust of wind had blown into the room.

“What was that ?” Aaron whispered.

“I—I don’t know,” Joan said. “But it happened last time I touched the ring too.” She pulled the ring from Nick’s neck now,

dropping it into her palm.

And then, to her shock, Nick shuddered.

Aaron startled back, and Joan steadied him before he fell into the stasis behind him. Or maybe she was steadying herself.

She could feel herself shaking.

Had that really happened? Had she imagined it? Did she just want Nick to be alive so badly that she’d hallucinated movement?

Nick’s chest inflated with a gasping breath.

“ Nick! ” Joan put her hand on his chest. His heart thumped under her palm, and a sob of relief and shock tore from her throat. She

turned to Aaron, shaken. “You were right!”

Nick was alive.