Chapter 33
THIRTY-THREE
Wren and Astoria both started channeling, though Astoria’s hand drifted up to rest on the wound from Fiona’s magic bomb.
She was too stoic to wince, but Joan knew what it was like to draw in magic on the heels of a magic poisoning—that had to hurt.
Still, Astoria did it.
And despite it all, it was Joan who stopped her, grabbing her arms to break her concentration.
“I have it solo,” Wren said. “Let me do this.”
“I can help—” Astoria started, looking over Joan at Wren. Seeing past Joan.
“You worry too much.” Wren laughed, and though a full portal was a clear strain on her abilities, she brought it to life within seconds. She gestured through. “Let’s go get Mik.”
Joan, still dressed in baggy pajamas, snatched a flannel she was pretty sure was Mik’s off the couch, before pulling it on over her shirt as she jumped through first.
The portal took them two blocks over from the house, unable to break through the wards on the Greenwood Mansion or its direct vicinity, so Joan took off at a run, barely checking to make sure Wren and Astoria were behind her, her body a rusty machine.
Her mind flashed through the possibilities.
Would Mik be treated as a curious guest or chained to a chair?
What damage could the Greenwoods have done in the mere minutes of a head start Valeria had gotten them?
Maybe they’d already removed the seal and were trying to make Mik cast; maybe magic was ripping through them at this very moment.
Joan slapped the gate open, registering faintly that it did indeed still open for her, despite the way she’d left.
Come home, Valeria had said. How absurd. They genuinely thought it was a temper tantrum. They couldn’t fathom Joan leaving. Meanwhile, Joan had never once imagined she’d be able to go back after an outburst like the one she’d had. She’d assumed her exile would be mutual, and absolute.
“Miss Joan!” George called in alarm from where he stood by Merlin’s car. Returned by Molly. That traitor. If they’d touched a hair on Mik’s head, Joan was going to bite her sister’s arm off.
She stormed up the steps, the Californians hot on her trail, and shoved open the front doors in a huff, ignoring every cut and bruise that protested at the action.
The lobby looked the same as always: Every vase Joan had destroyed was back in its place, seamlessly put together. The rug was spotless. The chandelier looked fine. It was all the same, like Joan hadn’t even been here at all, save the audience of witches.
The Greenwoods were assembled at the far side of the room, Molly included, a hand around her father’s forearm, eyebrows slanted down.
In front of them were important witches Joan recognized from various functions, the wealthy families that held sway.
All the High Witches of New York’s boroughs were in attendance.
The room moved in surprise when Joan burst in, the crowd going concave to whirl on her, scandalized.
“So glad you could join us,” Valeria called. “We were getting started with our line of questioning.”
Mik looked terrified, standing up there facing a horde of witches, disheveled from sleep, but they seemed unharmed. For now.
“How the hell do you know about Fiona, what she did to me, and still feel it’s a priority to grill Mik for answers?” Joan said, furious, pushing her way to the front of the crowd.
“We will find Fiona too,” Valeria said calmly. “I can walk and chew gum at the same time.”
“This is a circus to reassure your loyal followers,” Joan said, throwing a hand wide to the room.
She knew her family’s games; they moved in public to solidify their reign.
It would be a good look, the Greenwoods bringing in Mik before a crowd so no one could deny they’d found them first. They were staking a flag on Mik’s body.
They were squashing rumors of Greenwood weakness that people like Janet Proctor were spreading.
“Our daughter isn’t well,” Merlin announced loudly to the room. “She was viciously attacked, first by Moon Creatures at the market, then by a rogue witch.”
“I’ll escort her up to her room,” Selene said, holding out a hand for Joan to take.
Joan looked at it in disbelief. Then up at her parents, the warning glimmers in their eyes, the triumph in Merlin’s.
This wasn’t just about Mik; this was a trap her family had set for Joan too.
They really thought she was going to come back.
They really thought that she was that pathetic, that they meant that much to her, that the Greenwood name meant more than anything.
“If there was any chance of me returning, Molly shot it in the head the moment she snitched,” Joan hissed. “Go all the way to hell.”
Molly’s face had gained a look of horror Joan hated with every fiber of her being. “I didn’t tell them,” she said. “Joan, you think I told them?”
They could all act, the whole lot of them—it was a Greenwood trait. Us Greenwoods, we have a way with words, and Joan had fallen for Molly’s act hook, line, and sinker.
“No one’s touching Mik,” Joan said, whirling and backing up toward them. “I swear to the fucking gods.”
“No one wants to hurt them, Joan,” Merlin said, with a sympathetic glance shared with the crowd.
Kids, am I right? it said. So unreasonable.
Every action of Joan’s painted her as someone who needed to go under a mental hold.
Joan could see it clearly—they were paving the road for her to disappear from public life.
A mental breakdown in front of a crowd before her family shipped her off to get help—it was better than everyone knowing Joan had, in full control of her faculties, cut her family off and worked directly against their interests.
Merlin reached for Joan and, in her stunned agitation, got his hand on her arm.
He pulled up short at the sword to his throat.
“You’re not going to touch her,” Astoria growled, and a hot wind kicked up around her.
A sword to her father’s throat. Astoria Wardwell had put a sword to Merlin Greenwood’s throat in front of everyone.
She was so screwed, oh gods. Joan had screwed her; the room’s collective gasp was proof enough of that.
But Astoria’s hand was steady as a surgeon’s. “Hands off her, Merlin.”
Merlin put his hands up slowly, an exaggerated movement he paired with a nonchalant smile, a charming laugh. “Come on, now,” he said. “I’m trying to help. Don’t you think this is inappropriate? You hardly know her.”
Astoria didn’t waver. Merlin took a step back, then two.
“Joan, I think I hate your family,” Mik whispered at Joan’s back, hand twisted in Joan’s flannel.
“I didn’t tell them,” Molly repeated, looking shell-shocked. “I swear I didn’t, they called me down minutes before you got here.”
Astoria’s hand came down, sword pointing at the floor. Her chest was heaving; Joan knew her well enough now to see the panic in her eyes. So many times she’d insisted none of them understood how unreasonable her mother was, and now Astoria had threatened a New York Greenwood. For them. For Joan.
“How do you think this plays out?” Valeria said. “You hold the whole room hostage so that, what, we cannot question one human? You are more than welcome to petition for Mik Batbayar’s release, after questioning.”
The room murmured in agreement, polished witches looking appalled by all these unhinged moves.
Damn witches and their respectability politics, and damn Aunt Val for sounding so reasonable.
Joan wasn’t entirely sure what her plan was here; she’d only known Mik couldn’t be here alone, that she couldn’t let her family get to them.
But what, she was going to fight her way out and go on the lam?
What now? Whatever Joan chose, she had the strong feeling Wren and Astoria would back her up.
That was the most frightening thing that had ever happened to her.
“I think I should answer the questions,” Mik said, low in Joan’s ear. “I don’t think we can hide things anymore. I’ll answer, and it’ll prove I’m innocent, and then we can all go.”
As if a justice system had ever operated that easily.
Humans were nothing to witches; they didn’t have rights in this world.
They could easily be swept under the rug, as could witches without powerful families behind them.
Merlin would find a way to twist Mik’s confession.
He’d have all of them strung up for harboring Mik, even if technically it wasn’t illegal to have done so.
He was the law.
When Joan defied him, she defied the law.
Joan opened her mouth to speak to the expectant room, unsure what she was even going to say, how she was going to spin her way out of this one.
Then the wards popped.