Never a Hero, page 28
Tom settled the mask back onto her face. “We have him,” he said gently. “We have you both.”
Twenty-Seven
Joan slipped in and out of consciousness. She jerked awake when a gust of wind hit her face. She was lying on her back on something soft. A blanket, maybe? It was dark, but there was enough moonlight to make out Nick beside her. He was unconscious, shadowed bruises blooming on his cheekbones. From the sound of hooves and the jolting movements around them, they seemed to be in a horse-drawn trailer of some kind.
“Nick,” Joan mumbled.
“It’s all right.” Ruth’s voice. “Don’t worry. Nick’s safe. You’re both safe.”
“No,” Joan mumbled. She started to sink back into the darkness again. He knows, she tried to say. He knows what we are. He broke a chain with his bare hands. But she couldn’t get her mouth to work.
The next time Joan woke up, Nick was awake too. He wasn’t beside her anymore. He was sitting on a rattling bench, facing her. They were in a different vehicle, Joan realized—one a little more comfortable. A carriage.
The side windows showed low brick buildings and a dark sky. There was no view of the driver from in here.
Joan struggled to sit up. She was sore all over from sitting in cramped positions and from being jolted around on the bench. Nick’s expression didn’t change as he watched her efforts; his gaze was hard. The bruises on his face had darkened. He must have been in pain too, but he wasn’t showing it. He lounged back in his seat, as if the ride were completely comfortable.
Joan was almost afraid to ask the question. “Where are the others?”
“Why are you saying it like that?” In the dull light, Nick’s bruises made him look dangerous. Someone who’d been in a fight and would fight again. “You think I did something to them?”
A thread of fear ran through her. How long had she been unconscious? Her heart pounded painfully. She flashed on an image of washing Gran’s blood from under her fingernails. “Did you?” she blurted.
“They’re in another carriage,” Nick ground out. “Alive,” he added, in answer to whatever look was on Joan’s face. “We changed vehicles and split up to avoid detection.”
Joan’s chest still felt tight. “And when we meet up with them again?”
Nick gave her a long look. Joan felt as if he were seeing right inside her. “He must have been really something if you’re afraid that a single human could hurt all those monsters with all those powers.”
He had no idea. Legends had been built around him. He’d been a bedtime story to frighten monster children.
“I thought . . .” Nick’s jaw worked for a moment. “When you told me what monsters were . . . When I understood what they were . . . I thought that at least I still understood you. But I didn’t understand anything, did I? You said that we needed to protect humans. But someone was protecting humans already. And you killed him.”
You’d killed my family, Joan wanted to say. But there was no excuse for what she’d done. He was right. He’d protected humans, and she’d removed that protection.
In her mind’s eye, Joan saw him catch Corvin’s fist. Catch the hilt of Lucien’s sword.
Nick seemed to know what she was thinking about. “When that man tried to hit you.” There was a flare in his eyes for a moment. “When he tried to hit you, I knew how to stop him. I think I could have broken his arm. I knew where the bone was weakest. I knew how much pressure it would have taken to make it snap.”
“Nick . . .”
“I know how to get out of this carriage,” Nick said. “I know to wait for an acceleration—to make it harder to chase me. I know where to kick the door and how hard. I know how to jump to prevent injury.”
“You’re not a prisoner.” Joan heard her own voice crack. “If you want to leave, you can leave.”
“I suppose if I don’t, you’ll ask an Argent to make me forget all of it,” Nick said. “Forget what I saw. Forget what you told me.”
That thought hadn’t even occurred to Joan, and she was horrified by how tempting the idea was. For just a moment, she let herself imagine Nick’s face slackening until the betrayal eased from it. As though she could click undo, undo until he was the version of himself who’d kissed her in the library again.
And then her stomach dropped as if she was going to be sick. “No. I wouldn’t do that.”
“Why not?” he said. “You’ve done it before.”
He didn’t even know the extent of how he’d been manipulated. Eleanor had unmade and remade him before Joan had. Monsters had meddled with his life more than he knew.
The carriage turned. Between buildings water shone, black as oil. Where were they? Nick turned to watch their progress. “Truth is,” he said, “I’m not sure the Argent power would work on me again. I can feel how I’d break it. I know how.”
He shifted his weight, and Joan flinched. He turned back to her, registering the movement. “You’re so afraid of me,” he said. “I didn’t understand it before. Why would you—a monster—be afraid of me? But you knew what you’d done. You knew from the moment you met me.” He frowned, remembering. “You touched my neck the first time we met. Did you steal time from me?”
“No,” Joan blurted. She couldn’t believe he’d think that of her, but then . . . Joan had also asked that of Ruth when she’d first learned the truth. Did you ever steal life from my dad? she’d said to Ruth. From me?
“You were testing me,” Nick said, realizing. “You were checking to see if I was still him.”
“You weren’t,” Joan whispered.
“No,” Nick said flatly. “I’m not him. I don’t remember anything he did.”
Joan’s heart tugged at the aching loss of him again. “What are you going to do when this carriage stops?” It occurred to her, with horror, that he might just be waiting to get back to the others. Was he going to kill them all? Joan had a flash of Ruth, of all of them, lying dead. She wouldn’t have time to warn them.
Nick’s eyes narrowed, as if he’d guessed what she was thinking. “Something terrible is coming,” he said. “We both saw it—in that tear in the timeline. That world can’t exist.”
Joan barely dared hope. “You’re going to help me stop it?” Astrid had said he’d have stopped it last time. Could he stop it now that he had some of his abilities back, if not his memories?
“We’re going to work together,” Nick said. “We’re on the same side until we stop her. But after that . . .” Moonlight played across his face, making the shadows around his eyes darken. “After that, our paths will diverge.”
Joan swallowed hard. The carriage turned, suspension rattling over uneven ground.
“You said you loved him,” Nick said. He wasn’t quite looking at her, and that blank note was in his voice again. “In that previous timeline, you told him you loved him before you killed him. Was that true? Was any of it true? Did you ever care about him?”
He didn’t need to say the rest. Did you ever care about me?
Joan’s eyes felt hot with unshed tears. I still do, she wanted to say. I don’t think I’ll ever stop. “Would it change anything if I did?”
The shadows flickered over Nick’s face again. “I suppose not.”
They were silent for the rest of the drive.
Eventually, the carriage drew to a stop. The windows showed only darkness and fog, but Joan had the impression of a busy street outside, of early-morning workers. The air smelled of herbal medicines and fish and brine. She guessed they were near some docks, although she couldn’t have said if they were north or south of the river.
Footsteps came around the carriage, and the door opened, revealing Tom’s ruddy face. Tom had changed clothes; he was in a rumpled dockworker’s shirt with heavy trousers and a low cap. Behind him, there was a nondescript brick building with a heavy black door. “We’re here,” Tom said.
Joan tensed herself for Nick to make a move. But he just jumped out and thanked Tom with apparent sincerity.
“Go get those injuries checked out,” Tom told Nick. “There’s a doctor waiting for you.”
Nick walked on toward the building, hands in his pockets, without looking back. When he reached the door, he pulled it open without hesitation. Joan felt a shiver of unease, watching him enter.
“He’ll be all right,” Tom said to Joan, following her gaze. “We checked him out earlier too. Those bruises are superficial.”
“Tom . . .” Joan needed to tell him that Nick was dangerous. That he’d broken the Argent power.
But if she said that, what would Tom do? What would happen to Nick? Would they try to lock him up? Kill him? Nick would fight . . . Joan saw in her mind’s eye a massacre like the one at Holland House.
No, not yet, she decided. Nick had promised to be on their side for now. He’d keep his word. He always had before.
But afterward . . . After they’d stopped Eleanor . . .
Well, the boathouse would need to be cleared out, for one thing. And the Wyvern Inn. Joan had been so stupid to take him to monster places.
“Joan?” Tom said, and Joan realized that she’d been staring at nothing. “You should get checked out too.”
“I’m fine,” Joan said. She wasn’t hurt. “I need to talk to you.”
“Jamie and Ruth are grabbing something to eat. Go find them, and I’ll join you. We can talk then.”
“Tom—”
“Eat,” Tom said. “You’ll need it. I think it’ll be a long session with the prisoner.”
“The prisoner?” Joan said.
“We captured Aaron Oliver when we freed you.” Tom’s heavy jaw tightened. “He’s been working with her. We’re going to interrogate him until he tells us everything he knows.”
Twenty-Eight
The sky showed a hint of pink, and Joan felt a disoriented lurch. Was it sunset or dawn? Dawn, she reminded herself. They’d been in the carriage at night, and now morning was coming.
She ran a hand over her face. She couldn’t untangle her emotions. She’d kissed Nick, and then Eleanor had torn them apart. Again. No . . . Joan couldn’t blame Eleanor this time. Joan had done something unforgivable, and Nick had found out. That was the plain truth. The question was, would he keep his promise? Would he remain on their side until Eleanor was stopped?
Early as it was, the street sounded like a fish market. “Eels!” a woman called out as she walked by, a heavy bucket on her head. She adjusted her thick shawl. “Eels! Eels! Live eels!” The bucket shook with the fury of its contents. Farther up, another woman shouted: “Fish! Fish! Sweet as cream!”
The carriage had brought them to a narrow cobbled street. In Kensington, the air had smelled of horse manure and bitter smoke. Here, near the docks, that distinctive stink was joined by wafts of rotting fish and sewage, and the faint scent of something more pleasant and familiar. Something Joan couldn’t quite place. . . .
She looked around. The shop opposite displayed dried roots and herbs in glass jars. Chinese characters were daubed on the window. “That’s Chinese medicine,” she said, surprised. She recognized the faint scent then as incense—joss sticks.
Amid the cacophony, she caught a few familiar words: Hăo de. Hăo de. Okay. Okay. Through the gloom, she made out two men carrying wooden planks on their shoulders. They had Chinese faces and queue braids. Joan felt her mouth drop open. This really was the nineteenth century. And some part of her—the monster part that loved history—just wanted to keep walking, to explore.
“This is the outer edge of Chinatown,” Tom said. “Where the early sailors settled.” He nodded to the west. “The Regent’s Canal Dock is that way.”
“We’re back in Limehouse?” Joan took in the black door in front of them. “This is the boathouse,” she realized. The street was narrower in this time, and the roller door of the future was a wooden door here. The building itself was still the same clay-brown brick, though. Still the same height.
Joan took a deep breath as she reached for the door handle. Nick had gone in barely a minute ahead of her, but she was hit by a sudden fear of what she might find inside.
To her relief, though, there was no sign of violence when she opened the door—and no sign of Nick. A ginger cat lay stretched out just inside the doorway. Joan bent to pat it as she walked in. From a mezzanine above, someone whistled a trill—the Hathaways’ private language.
The interior layout was very different in this period. In the twenty-first century, the boathouse would be a series of rooms. Here, there was a single large space with a mezzanine balcony that wrapped around the walls. Arched brick alcoves ran under the mezzanine. Some held dark stacks of what might have been dried fish; others, wooden beer barrels and filled burlap sacks. Joan could just make out mosaic artwork on the second-floor walls: phoenixes and hounds.
At the far end of the room, several wooden tables held whole steamed fish and pots of rice and fresh bread on boards. Joan spotted Ruth and Jamie—and Frankie on Jamie’s lap—among the people quietly eating.
“Joan!” Ruth stood up as Joan reached her, and dragged her into a hug. “Oh my God! I was so worried! When that Oliver boy caught you . . .” She squeezed harder. “I could have killed him!”
Joan hugged Ruth back. “Can’t believe you broke into a guardhouse.”
“You’d have done the same any day.” Ruth pushed Joan back gently. “You sort of did do the same in that other timeline.” She stuttered the words other timeline as if she still hadn’t quite gotten her head around the idea.
“I . . .” Joan paused as she took in Ruth’s clothes. “What are you wearing?” Jamie had on a lightweight shirt and trousers—he looked like the Chinese men outside. Ruth was in a black vinyl catsuit.
“It’s a rescue outfit,” Ruth said with dignity.
“Seriously?” Joan bit back a smile in spite of herself.
“It was an integral part of the plan.”
“You don’t like late Victorian clothes?”
Ruth wrinkled her nose. “All those blousy blouses and buttons. Anyway . . . I’m not the only one—notice Jamie hasn’t shaved his head to fit in here?”
“I have a wig for outside,” Jamie said peaceably.
Joan pulled Ruth into another hug. At the back of her mind, though, she found herself doing the math—to get here, Jamie, Ruth, and Tom had to have taken hundreds of years of human life between them. And Joan’s feelings were a confused mess of gratitude at being rescued and horror at the cost. And love. Joan loved Ruth so much. She loved her family so much. She couldn’t reconcile it.
Did Astrid ever feel like this, she wondered. Like she was being torn apart?
“Here.” Jamie put some fish into a small porcelain bowl. “Bread or rice?”
“Rice,” Joan said. But she knelt by Jamie’s chair. “I need to tell you something.” Jamie’s smile faded. Joan’s tone must have hinted at what she was going to say. “You were right,” she whispered. “She’s back.”
Jamie put the bowl down as if afraid he’d drop it. “You saw her?”
“I spoke to her. Her name is Eleanor.”
“Eleanor?” Ruth looked blank, but Jamie was suddenly gripping the table’s edge, knuckles bone-white.
“You’re sure her name was Eleanor?” Jamie whispered, and Joan nodded. Jamie breathed something that might have been a prayer or a curse.
“Who’s Eleanor?” Ruth looked between them.
“Ruth,” Jamie said, almost gently.
Ruth’s blankness lingered for a moment longer, and then her eyes widened slowly. “No.” She turned to Joan, shock filling her face. “Eleanor of the Curia Monstrorum?” she whispered. “The most feared and ruthless member of the Monster Court?”
“The most feared?” Joan said. From Ruth’s and Jamie’s reactions, she was starting to understand that Eleanor was even more dangerous and formidable than she’d realized.
It hit her that Ruth and the others had barely missed Eleanor—Eleanor had left the library just moments before they’d arrived. As if she’d known the rescue was coming. A thread of uncertainty ran through Joan at the thought. She tried to shrug it off. The important thing was, they’d all escaped.
“She told me she’s going to create a new timeline,” Joan said. “The one we saw, where monsters rule.”
Jamie closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “We need to get everyone together,” he said. “Tom should hear this.” As Joan went to stand, he stopped her. “Eat something, though,” he said. “We might not get another chance for a while.”
The last thing Joan wanted was to eat. Her stomach was churning from her conversation with Nick; from the way he’d looked at her when he’d realized she’d chosen monsters over the hero. “Did you see Nick come in?” she said.
“He’s fine,” Jamie said reassuringly. “The doctor’s checking him out. But he seemed fine.”
“Jamie—” Joan started.
She was interrupted by commotion from the door—raised voices and heavy boots. She turned fast, half anticipating guards. Or—worse—Nick. Had he changed his mind? Had he started an attack?
But it wasn’t Nick. Tom was marching a blindfolded boy into the room. The boy’s hands were cuffed behind his back. His blond hair glowed even in the dim light.
Joan’s heart clenched.
Aaron.
She pushed herself to her feet. As she did, a man with white-blond hair rose from a nearby table. He was dressed for the 1890s—although not for the docks—in a slim frock coat and an embroidered silk vest. He made his way over to the front door, smoothing down his coat with a finicky elegance that reminded Joan of Aaron.
Tom pulled Aaron out of the man’s way, clearing the door for him. But to Joan’s shock, that elegant man didn’t reach for the door. Instead, he grabbed Aaron’s neck and shoved him into the wall. Aaron’s head thudded back with a sickening thump.
