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‘Well, now that we’re all here,’ Eleanor said, ‘the show can start.’
‘Show?’ Joan said slowly. A feeling of foreboding rose in her then. ‘What show?’
‘The show that’s always here.’ Eleanor nodded at one of the guards—a man with a pink flower tattoo like the cherry seller who’d saved Joan and Nick at the Wyvern Inn. The man walked over to a space just south of the picture window—a few feet from Joan and Nick. Then he reached into the air with a pulling motion, like he was opening a curtain. There was a discordant sound. No, not a sound. A feeling. Joan was hit with a shock of nausea. The man was an Ali, she realised belatedly. He’d just opened a seal.
Around the room, the guards groaned in horror. Aaron stumbled back, and then he bent over double, retching. Nick grabbed Joan’s hand and drew her back.
Joan stared. The opened seal had revealed a tear in the timeline—like the one in the café. Joan and Nick must have been just a few paces from it the entire time they’d been here. The tear stood beyond the fireplace, and its jagged edges rent the air—Joan was reminded sickeningly of a torn shroud. Inside were the shadows of the void …
One of the guards whispered something and made a quick gesture, fingers rising and falling. Joan didn’t recognise the motion, but she guessed it was some traditional warding against evil.
‘Poor old timeline,’ Eleanor said to Joan. ‘It’s more fragile than you’d think.’
‘Why is this here?’ Joan whispered. She’d been in this room a hundred times, had cleaned every inch of it when she’d volunteered at the museum. There’d never been an Ali seal here before. There’d never been a hole in the timeline.
‘Look closer,’ Eleanor said.
‘At what?’ Joan said. But as she spoke, the shadows inside the tear seemed to shift and coalesce into shapes.
‘What is that?’ Nick said.
There was something familiar about the scene that was forming inside the tear. It was this library in the evening. And there were figures within it. Joan squinted, trying to make them out.
‘Give it a second,’ Eleanor said.
And then the image sharpened and brightened, and Joan gasped.
The figures inside the tear were Joan herself from the previous timeline—and Nick. Her Nick. The Nick she’d unmade and lost. Joan heard herself make an agonised sound of grief. She’d dreamed of him, but that didn’t come close to seeing him again. God, she’d missed him so much. She’d missed him like part of herself had been lost.
He wasn’t flat like a screen image; he was three-dimensional and real, as if he were really here, as if Joan could have taken a few steps and touched him.
‘They can’t see you,’ Eleanor said. ‘The timeline can still protect itself that much.’
The new Nick took a step toward the vision, still gripping Joan’s hand tight. ‘What is that?’
‘It’s the previous timeline,’ Joan said shakily.
‘That’s him?’ Nick said uncertainly. ‘The hero? And … you?’ He turned to Joan.
Joan didn’t know what to say. Now that the two Nicks were in the same room, she could truly see their similarities. They radiated the same earnest goodness. They both looked at her in the same way. Like they couldn’t believe she was here with them. There were differences too, though. The new Nick didn’t have the same shadows in his eyes, and the old Nick had an exhausted edge to him that Joan hadn’t remembered.
‘The timeline was always going to bring you two together,’ Eleanor said to Joan. ‘I knew if I brought one of you here, the other would follow. And then you’d both get to see this.’
‘To see what?’ Joan said. ‘To see …’ She stared at the scene inside the opened seal. And understanding slowly dawned about what exactly Eleanor was about to show them; why she’d brought Joan and Nick to the guard house. Joan looked over at the new Nick’s still-trusting face, and her stomach lurched. ‘No,’ she said to Eleanor. ‘Close that seal back up! Please!’
‘Joan?’ Nick said, confused.
‘Hush,’ Eleanor said. ‘This is my favourite part of the show.’
Through the tear in the timeline, Joan watched Nick pull her into his arms, his face full of love and wonder and relief.
I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you, Joan said in that other timeline.
I love you, the other Nick said. I always have.
Joan heard her breath shudder out, and beside her Nick turned his gaze to her. His expression was so raw that Joan was almost undone by it. He was remembering their own kiss, she knew. The way she’d reacted to it.
In the other timeline, Joan kissed him. She’d been crying then, and she was crying now again. Her past and present selves both knew what was coming next.
