Only a Monster(Monsters #1)(72)

‘Joan,’ Aaron said.

Joan shook her head.

‘Look,’ Aaron said. ‘Even if it were possible to steal that much human time, we still couldn’t travel through that thing. We’re on a mire.’

A mire. Joan had forgotten about that. Monsters couldn’t travel here—their powers didn’t work in this place. Except . . . that clearly wasn’t quite true.

The King’s powers still worked: this bubble of another time was proof of that; the whole palace out of its time was proof. Maybe the family powers would still work here too. Maybe the Hunt power would work.

‘Ruth,’ Joan said. There was a twig on the floor, tracked in from the garden. Joan bent to pick it up. The thought was still half-formed as she straightened. ‘Ruth, do you think you could put this in there?’

‘What do you mean?’ Ruth said, sounding confused.

Joan’s own family power had diminished over the years. As a child, she’d been able to hide and retrieve things just like the rest of the Hunts. But as she’d gotten older, retrieval had become less and less reliable. She’d lost things that way. A jade bracelet that she’d been given as a baby. A cameo brooch that Mum had once owned. A few years ago, she’d stopped trying to hide things at all. Ruth’s and Bertie’s Hunt power had gotten stronger as they’d gotten older, but Joan’s had faded away as if it had never really been hers.

‘How does the Hunt power actually work?’ Joan asked Ruth.

Tom interjected with a soft cough. He showed them the wristwatch he’d taken from the guard: eleven thirty-five. ‘Next change is twenty-five minutes away.’

So they had twenty-five minutes. No . . . Joan calculated. Fifteen minutes, unless they wanted to run right into the new guards.

Joan tried again with Ruth. ‘How does the Hunt power work?’ she asked. ‘I used to think that we put objects somewhere else. But that isn’t right, is it?’

‘No,’ Ruth said slowly. ‘It’s more like we place objects somewhen else.’

‘Do you think you could?’ Joan nodded at the snowy landscape.

‘What, put something in there?’ Ruth bit her lip. ‘I don’t know, Joan. . . .’

Joan gave her the twig. ‘Can you try?’

Ruth’s dubious expression didn’t change as she turned to the snowy landscape. But she put one hand up to touch the barrier.

‘I think . . .’ Joan was still feeling out the idea. ‘I think it’ll be just like all the other times you’ve hidden an object with your power. The only difference will be that you can see where you’re putting it.’

Ruth pressed the twig against the barrier in the familiar motion of the Hunt power. She shook her head doubtfully, and was still shaking it when the twig crossed through. Her eyes widened. Joan heard Tom gasp softly.

Joan let out the breath she’d been holding. ‘Let it go,’ she whispered. Ruth did. For a moment the twig seemed to stand, suspended in the air, and then it vanished.

‘Where did it go?’ Aaron said.

‘Well . . .’ Joan tried not to feel too excited. Putting a twig in there was a long way from crossing the barrier. ‘I think the Hunts place objects into a moment in time. My aunt Ada puts mugs of hot tea into the air. When she takes them out again, they’re always still steaming.’

‘I don’t understand, though,’ Ruth said. ‘How does this help us? The Hunt power doesn’t work on living creatures. I can’t push you in there, if that’s what you’re thinking. I can’t go in there myself.’

‘I know,’ Joan said. ‘I know. But . . . what if you could create a tunnel?’

Ruth looked at her questioningly.

‘What if you had a . . . a tube of some kind?’ Joan said. ‘Could you hold the inside of the tube in this time and the outside in that time?’ She gestured at the snowy ground. ‘Do you think you could make a tunnel through to that door?’

‘An object can’t straddle two times,’ Aaron said. ‘It would be torn apart.’

‘I don’t think it would be torn apart,’ Joan said. She’d seen her family’s power her whole life. She’d seen the way objects disappeared piece by piece. ‘You just saw Ruth do it—that twig stayed intact as it crossed the barrier, half in here, half in there. Ruth held it together with the Hunt family power. The twig didn’t disappear until she stopped touching it.’ She could hear her excitement making her voice shaky. She wanted this so much.

‘We don’t have time for this,’ Aaron said.

‘Aaron,’ Joan said. For the first time since the confrontation with Edmund, Aaron met her eyes properly. ‘We’re so close,’ she said. ‘That door is right there. We could save them all. We could bring them back.’

Aaron shook his head, clearly unconvinced. But he glanced at Tom’s watch and sighed. ‘What can we use as the bridge?’

They ended up rolling up the rug from the entrance, keeping a centre loop big enough for them all to crawl through.

Ruth’s mouth was an unhappy twist as they lined it up with the door. ‘I really don’t think the Hunt power can do this.’

‘I think it can,’ Joan said. Please, she thought. Please work. The archive felt so close.