Page 68 of Once a Villain (Only a Monster #3)

had a few moments to grasp the situation.

Now she strode in, the faint sheen around her hinting at a personal Ali shield. Her sheer power was so immense now that the

air crackled with it. Eleanor locked eyes on Joan, her hands rising, and Joan felt a rush of cold fear.

“Get down!” Nick called out sharply.

Joan flung herself to the floor, and so did the others as a blast rocked the room—far stronger than Mariam’s.

Mirrors exploded; wood splintered. Aaron swore and pulled Joan close, into the shelter of his body as chairs and lamps flew through the air, just missing their heads, and smashed against the walls.

Faint screams sounded from upstairs, and then there were running steps as guests fled the house. Joan risked a quick look

around. Jamie and Tom were clustered on the floor with Ruth, arms over her head, protecting her, looking scared but uninjured.

Frankie and Sylvie were still safe behind their little fort.

Only Nick was on his feet—the huge wave of power had washed through him as if it hadn’t been there.

“ Nick! ” Joan said.

Mum had told them not to hesitate, and Nick didn’t. As Eleanor raised her hands again, he lunged with his sword, striking

hard. At the arena, he’d struggled to push a blade through Eleanor’s shield, but this time he threw the full force of his

weight behind it, and the sword speared past the obstruction.

Joan had the impression that Nick had aimed for Eleanor’s heart—and that the shield had deflected the blow slightly. Eleanor

cried out in agony and shock as the blade impaled her shoulder with a horrible crunching sound.

Blood bloomed around the wound. Nick gripped the sword’s pommel with both hands and shoved the blade right through Eleanor’s

body to the other side, pinning her to the wall.

Joan gasped at the shocking brevity of it all.

Nick had stopped all those monsters—with Tom’s help—in less than a minute.

This was how he’d killed monsters when he’d been the hero, she realized.

He’d been immune to their powers, and almost superhumanly fast and strong. And now he had Eleanor at his mercy.

Nick drew a knife to finish the job.

Joan wanted to turn away. Eleanor was her sister . Aaron seemed to know how she felt. He took her hand. “It ends now,” he murmured, and Joan nodded. All these lifetimes, all

the pain caused by Eleanor, and it was going to end right now, right here. She gripped Aaron’s hand and forced herself to

watch. To see it.

Nick thrust the knife at Eleanor—aiming at her heart. This time, though, the blade bounced off the shield. Nick tried again

and it bounced again. He grunted in frustration, and Aaron cursed loudly in the silence.

Eleanor’s laugh was tight and pained. “You should have had better aim the first time,” she gritted out to Nick. “You caught

me off guard, but I’ve bolstered the shield now.” She raised a hand again.

Aaron covered Joan’s head again, all of them anticipating another earthquake-like blast. This time, though, the room barely

rattled.

Eleanor swore and tried again. Picture frames shook and chair legs wobbled. Eleanor let her head fall back against the wall

and panted, trying to catch her breath.

They seemed to be at an impasse. Nick couldn’t break through the shield, and Eleanor was clearly struggling with the pain

of being impaled, sucking in air in tight, fast sips.

Joan got warily to her feet, helping Aaron up, and the others stood too. Joan’s legs felt shaky as she hurried to the door, shutting it and sliding the bolt home; Tom and Jamie closed the curtains and turned on lamps.

“Stop playback!” Joan said when they were done. The King froze in the sunroom, the recording paused.

Eleanor glared at him in the newly bright room. “I can’t believe I fell for that.”

“I guess it’s your turn to be predictable.” Joan walked over to face her sister.

Even in agony, with blood dripping down her side, Eleanor looked like a fairy-tale queen. Her white medieval-style gown hung

in heavy folds, and her golden hair rippled down her back. In her shoulder, the sword was a gruesome thing. It seemed half-unreal.

A Halloween special effect.

“We’ve had some experience in how much you love revenge,” Joan said. She glanced at the King. “What would you have done to

him if he’d been real?”

“You should be worried about what I’ll do to you !” Eleanor tried again to use her power, but this time, nothing moved at all. Blood was seeping steadily from her wound. She

squeezed her eyes shut, frustrated. “People are going to come looking for me,” she gritted out. “People much more powerful

than any of you.”

“We need to dismantle that shield,” Joan said to Ruth urgently.

They approached with caution. Joan felt like she was walking into the stasis again, past snarling lions and huge bears.

When she was close enough, she reached toward Eleanor, hitting resistance about a hand’s width from Eleanor’s good shoulder.

The shield felt as it had last time—like a strong magnetic repulsion.

As if the air itself had thickened to rubber.

Joan took a deep breath, trying not to think of the stakes; about what would happen if she failed.

Be unmade , she told the shield. She imagined it disintegrating under her hand. Nothing happened. She set her jaw. Be unmade. Beside her, she could hear Ruth trying to break through with the Hunt power too.

“You can do this,” Nick said steadily. Joan could feel him and Aaron behind her, like a solid wall.

Eleanor’s pain-dulled eyes turned to Nick, a shark sensing movement. “How are you even alive?” she managed. “You should be

dead. I thought you were dead.” Her gaze dropped to his ring then, and her mouth twisted.

Joan felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck. She’d suspected for some time that Nick’s survival had been linked to the

ring.

“Where did you get that?” Eleanor read the answer on Nick’s face. “ You didn’t—your counterpart did.” She sounded irritated. “I suppose he found some way to speak to the slayer himself, through

a tear in the timeline. Well, isn’t that a team-up?”

“What?” Joan couldn’t imagine it. But she found herself remembering how Nick—the monster slayer version of him—had returned

to her at the very end. He’d seemed so changed since the last time she’d seen him. Could he have had a conversation with his

counterpart in the interim? Had they somehow managed to transfer the ring between them—through a tear in the timeline, as

Mum had suggested? Joan shook her head at herself. She supposed she’d never know. “Are you saying that ring saved his life?”

Eleanor shifted and then winced as the blade pulled at her shoulder, frustrated and pained. “Obviously.” At their confused

expressions, she looked even more irritated. “When he fell, his thoughts were focused on his imminent landing—just as if he

were jumping in time. That triggered his travel token. But then he didn’t steer the jump. He just cried out, No. ” She said it mockingly, and Joan ground her teeth. “If he were a monster, with an ordinary travel token, he’d have hit the

ground and died. But he had a human token with an affinity for him. It tried to obey him. He asked it to take him nowhere,

and it did. It sent him nowhere . It froze him in time. To everyone in that arena—myself included—he appeared to be dead, but in truth, the ring had put him

in an unchangeable state. Not even those metal spikes could impale him.”

Nick looked shaken as he took that in, and Joan saw again in her mind’s eye Nick falling from the stands. He’d been stiff

and unmoving even as he’d fallen, she realized. The ring had already frozen him.

Then he’d seemed dead in every way—not moving, not breathing—until Joan had lifted the ring from his neck, and air had inflated

his lungs.

Joan had thought he was dead. She’d been so relieved when he’d drawn that breath. More relieved than she’d ever been in her life. And it had been

sheer luck that he’d even worn the ring in the arena. It had been sheer luck that... Her hands were suddenly shaking as

she worked on unmaking the shield.

Eleanor noticed, pouncing on the weakness. “Look at you,” she said to Joan. “Struggling with the Grave power like a child. Who would have thought you could be so diminished?”

Joan looked up at her. Even after everything Eleanor had done to them, this act of dismantling her shield, of preparing to

kill her, was making Joan feel sick. “It doesn’t have to be like this!” she said, frustrated. “Just fix the timeline yourself—we

shouldn’t have to force you!”

“I did fix it!” Eleanor snapped. “I brought our family back! I fixed your mistakes!”

Joan swallowed around the sudden lump in her throat. Eleanor blamed her for the erasure of their family, she knew.

“Remind me,” Aaron said to Eleanor, sounding ice cold. “ Why did you need to bring your family back to life?”

“The King erased them because of her! Because of the three of you ,” Eleanor said.

“Because of you ,” Aaron said. Anger flared in Eleanor’s eyes. “Oh, you don’t like hearing that?” Aaron said. “Did you forget that you informed on your own family to the King?”

“It’s a monster’s birthright to travel!” Eleanor said. “You were all trying to take that away!”

“And so you made this beautiful world where monsters could travel with impunity... ,” Nick said, jaw tight.

“I made a world where my family would always be safe,” Eleanor snapped. She raised her good hand; she must have regained some

strength, because this time she managed a true blast. Standing directly in front of her, Joan was hit full in the chest. The

impact was bruising, and she stumbled back. She would have fallen, but strong arms caught her before she could. Nick. For a long, terrible beat, she couldn’t draw a breath.

“All right?” he said worriedly.

Joan’s lungs started working again, and she painfully sucked in air. “Yeah,” she reassured him.

Inside the shield, Eleanor was panting again, eyes closed, as if she’d hurt herself as much as Joan with that blast. Her already