Chapter 38
THIRTY-EIGHT
Mik burst into giggles the moment the group hit the street.
“Is this a trauma response?” Astoria asked dryly.
“Definitely,” Mik said. “I feel like we got away with murder.”
Grace winced.
Mik’s giggles ended. “I meant that as a figure of speech! I’m so sorry! Too soon, too soon.”
CZ’s arm brushed against Grace’s with every step. She didn’t move away from him. In fact, she leaned her head briefly on his shoulder.
“I’m not going to mourn a terrible person,” she said, though she didn’t sound that convincing.
“She was…” Joan swallowed hard. “She cared about you. That was always clear to me.”
Grace lifted her head. “I don’t think we should tell anyone that getting close to dying makes you temporarily more powerful.
I think Fiona had the right question and the wrong answer.
The magic world is unfair, but gaining more power to ascend its ranks isn’t the way to go.
You don’t fight to overcome magic poisoning; it’s there for a reason.
To protect us.” She looked at each of them, swallowed hard.
“You find a way to undo the system, a kinder way to live, and when you gather together, maybe then the world changes.”
Joan sniffled pathetically. “Does this mean you’re not hightailing it out of the witch world and leaving spellmaking behind?”
Grace scowled at her. “Let’s take things one step at a time.
I might consider keeping up with my spellmaking, carving a place for myself like you have—Joan, wipe that smile off your face—but not for any single High Witch, and still in tandem with my day job in the human world.
And I hope I never have to use my death spell on you again. ”
Joan had no intention of poisoning herself again or slowly shuffling off her mortal coil, but she also suspected that talking to New York was a privilege she wasn’t going to let go of lightly.
She smiled sweetly at Grace, who rolled her eyes. “Rascal,” Grace said.
“I’m good, right?” Mik said suddenly. The group swung to look at them. “I mean… the sealing spell. I’ll be good forever?”
“You should be,” Grace said. “We could look into why Fiona’s spell worked on you, at least partly, but to do that, I might need to undo the seal.”
“No thanks,” Mik said, swinging their head wildly. “Nope.”
“Fiona’s theory was that you have some sort of fairly recent witch ancestry that made you friendlier to magic,” Joan piped up. “Oh! You said your grandmother made the hens lay good eggs. Maybe she had a little something to her she never told you about.”
“That was a joke,” Mik said. Paused. “Unless…? She did have double-yolk eggs all the time.”
“Case closed,” CZ said. “Though I suspect someone’s going to find some way to recreate that aspect of Fiona’s work eventually.
Some sort of spell that’ll at least make it possible for those with chicken-raising witch grandmothers but who aren’t born with magic to gain it. Or people like Grace’s mother.”
Grace sighed. “It never ends.”
They were two blocks away from the house when Joan realized Astoria and Wren had drifted behind the group. Joan slowed, waiting for them, a sinking feeling in her gut.
She turned to walk backward, confident she was going to trip over something shortly, but even more confident someone would catch her.
“You’re leaving, aren’t you?”
Astoria and Wren exchanged glances, and whatever they decided there, it was Wren who spoke.
“Poppy’s going to recall us the moment she hears the Greenwoods are closing the case on Mik.
We’ll have to come up with something to tell her, and it looks more suspicious if we hang around until she forces us to return, rather than rush back willingly. ”
“You’ll lie?” Joan said.
“That’s what the deal with your aunt required, isn’t it?” Astoria said. Joan couldn’t read her tone. Maybe she was projecting the bitterness in it.
“I appreciate you doing so to protect Mik,” Joan said.
“To protect all of you,” Wren added warmly. “All of us.”
Joan couldn’t help the way she looked to Astoria, though Astoria wouldn’t look back.
Joan glanced at her constantly over the rest of the journey back to the hotel to pack up Mik’s things.
They parted at the door, the New York group heading back to CZ’s place to grab Joan’s belongings before they went to Brooklyn, where they’d help Mik figure out how to reemerge in the world after going missing for two weeks.
Joan suspected her family would want to weigh in on that one.
Joan was the last one out the door after some surprisingly tearful goodbyes were shed.
She’d gained Wren’s number, promising to text her and go out to California sometime.
Her friends were down the hallway, heading to the elevator, and Wren, with a knowing smile, stepped back into the room to give Joan and Astoria a last moment alone.
Joan didn’t know what to say, staring Astoria down in the doorway.
They were both filthy and scratched up. Against all reason, Joan still thought Astoria was the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen.
She wanted to say something. Needed to. A real goodbye.
But she feared if she opened her mouth, she’d embarrass herself by crying.
How to say I wish I’d never met you, and I’m so glad I did? How to say I am going to think of you often and wish that I didn’t? How to ask her to stay, here, in New York? All of that was too much and not enough. Joan’s mouth was always running a mile a minute, but here it failed her.
Astoria’s thumb brushed Joan’s cheek, wiping away a tear, so tender, with such care. Joan swallowed, hard.
“I meant what I said,” Astoria whispered, and that hand withdrew.
Joan could think of only one thing she might mean.
There’s a version of me somewhere who kissed you back.
Joan sniffled, wiped her tears away herself. “If you ever find her, call me.”
She turned so she didn’t have to see the woman’s response, half raising her hand in a wave.
Down the hallway, Joan’s friends waited for her, having let an elevator pass to call a new one. Their faces were sympathetic. CZ held an arm out to fold Joan in, hugging her tight. Mercifully, they did not say more.
Mik cracked a joke about the dirt they were tracking everywhere. Joan could see her future here among them, bright and endless, with room to grow into whoever she was without her family squashing her smaller. She turned as the elevator doors closed.
Astoria was still standing in her doorway, watching them move down the hall, until they vanished from sight. Until someone left someone else behind.