Only a Monster(Monsters #1)(51)

Joan leaned forward, eager. ‘If there were another timeline, then something changed it. Or someone.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Ying said, not unkindly. ‘But that completes our conversation. I’ve given you information about the Liu power. Now you owe a favour.’

‘No,’ Joan said. The conversation was just starting. She needed to know so much more. ‘How was the timeline changed? Please. I’ll owe another favour.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Ying said. He refilled Joan’s tea. ‘As I told you, my family likes to keep things simple. One debt is simple. Multiple debts are complicated. But please. Finish your tea and feel free to peruse the gallery afterward.’

Aaron shifted from the white pillar. He came over to sit beside Joan on the edge of the garden bed. ‘Joan,’ he said softly. ‘He’s met the terms of the bargain.’

‘We can’t leave,’ Joan said. She was sure that Ying knew more. ‘Aaron, I can’t leave until I know.’

Aaron bowed his head. When he raised it again, it was to look up at Ying. ‘I’ll take on a debt,’ he said.

‘No,’ Joan said. That wouldn’t be fair. He hadn’t even wanted to come here.

Maybe Ying would take something other than a favour. But what did Joan have to trade? She hadn’t brought anything with her into this time except for a phone and her clothes—and she’d sold the phone yesterday.

The only thing she still had was . . . She put her hand to her chest, feeling the lines of the necklace under the soft fuzz of her jumper. The man at the market had offered to buy it yesterday and Joan had refused.

Her hands shook as she unclasped it. It was the last thing she had left of Gran. She tried not to think about that as she offered it to Ying. ‘Will you take this instead of a favour?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Ying said.

‘Please,’ Joan said. ‘Please. I need to know.’

‘Need to know what?’ Ying said.

‘How to undo deaths.’

The sad lines in Ying’s face were like carvings in wood. ‘You’ve lost someone.’

‘Yes,’ Joan whispered.

‘I can’t help you with what you want to know,’ Ying said gently. ‘You don’t owe me for telling you that you can’t bring them back.’

Joan couldn’t accept that. ‘Something or someone changed the timeline before,’ she said. ‘You have perfect memory, and you said that the Liu records are comprehensive. You must have heard something—some rumour, some whisper—about how it was done.’ She held out the necklace again. ‘Please.’

Ying started to shake his head as if to refuse one final time. And then he frowned, leaning closer to get a better look at the necklace. Joan heard his breath catch. ‘Where did you get that?’ he said softly.

Joan remembered the way Gran’s hand had slipped from her wrist, leaving the chain behind. She’d barely been able to see it through her tears that night. ‘My grandmother gave it to me.’

‘May I?’ Ying said. But instead of reaching for the necklace, he cleared the table, moving bowls and plates to the ground so that there was only the black tray left.

Joan draped the necklace across it. The gold pendant was very bright against the black.

There’d been blood on the chain after Gran had died. Joan had washed it that night in the shower. But she hadn’t really looked at it—she hadn’t been able to bear it.

Now she examined the pendant: it wasn’t the silver-tongued fox of the Hunts, but something else. At first, Joan couldn’t make out the intention of it. It was a creature with a lion’s head and the talons of a bird. It wasn’t much bigger than her thumbnail, but it was exquisitely detailed: three-dimensional and lifelike. It stood on a flat gold disc, ears up, head tilted in curious interest. The whole thing seemed to be solid gold.

‘I never noticed you wearing that,’ Aaron said to Joan.

‘It has a long chain,’ Ying said absently. The chain was gold too, and very fine. There were dark marks along it, as if the gold had been burned. Ying spread his fingers, touching four fingertips to the patches, and Joan had a sudden clear memory of touching the chain in those same places. The chain had been unblemished, and after she’d touched it, these dark patches had appeared. She’d thought at the time that the blemishes had been blood. But looking at the chain now, it seemed almost as if the gold itself had been transformed into something else. But how?

Ying looked at Joan again. There was something searching in his gaze, as if she hadn’t really had his attention before this. And now she had it completely. Joan was unexpectedly reminded of the way Edmund Oliver had looked at her in the Gilt Room. His indifference had changed to interest, as if he’d seen something inside her. The Hunts have been keeping secrets, he’d said.

‘What do you want to know?’ Ying said.

Joan swallowed. Her heart was beating faster, and she wasn’t sure why. ‘How was the timeline changed?’ she asked.

‘There are stories about the creation of our timeline,’ Ying said. ‘But they’re myths.’

‘Myths?’ Joan said. The human hero is a mythical figure, Ruth had said last night. ‘What myths?’

‘They say that the King created our timeline,’ Ying said. ‘Using an object. A device. He destroyed the zhēnshí de lìsh? with it and created this timeline in its place. Now this timeline is his timeline. Everything in it is just as he wishes it to be.’