Chapter 20
TWENTY
At the Greenwood Mansion, Joan was fussed over by every member of the staff she’d grown up with, including George, who looked quite agitated and flickered in and out as he opened the front door for them, despite Joan insisting she could still use a doorknob.
She felt tired and weak, and her hand kind of ached.
The doctor, who Joan was pretty sure was both a witch who specialized in healing magic and someone with a human medical degree, had told Joan to try and keep the hand above her heart to reduce swelling and sleep with it elevated, which seemed like a hassle.
But other than that, she was perfectly fine. The miracles of healing magic.
Selene, at least, greeted them at the door. Joan resisted the urge to duck and cover, a thousand possible arguments rearing ugly heads at her.
But Selene did not say a single word to Joan.
“The silent treatment, really, Mom?” Joan said, gobsmacked by this behavior.
There had been plenty of times in life that Joan had pissed off her mother, and Joan had felt bad because she didn’t want to get in trouble, and because she didn’t want her mom to stop loving her, and because she could do the mental cartwheels that made her think maybe, after all, what Joan had done was wrong.
But Joan had spent her time in that hospital bed trying to do those cartwheels, and she could not fathom a universe where she was sorry for what she had done, except insofar as she had hurt Grace, which she did deeply regret.
Selene didn’t look at her.
Deep in Joan, fear began to morph into annoyance.
“Come on, Mom,” Molly said, hovering around Joan like she’d fall over at any minute.
“Indeed, Selene,” Valeria said, coming out of her study to stand at the bottom of the staircase. “You can’t expect an apology out of someone who isn’t sorry.”
“That is between me and my daughter, Valeria,” Selene said. “Tell her what we decided. I’ll be in the garden if anyone needs me.”
Valeria’s face was calm as Selene left.
“I assume you want to yell at me too?” Joan said, that ember of annoyance gaining heat at the mere sight of her aunt’s stalwart face. Now was not the time for serenity.
Valeria stood there, neither leaving nor coming closer to greet Joan. Her ambivalence was infuriating.
The heat stoked higher.
“This family protects you because it must,” Valeria said. “Do not take that as a blessing on your actions, and do not take that for granted. You won’t do something like this again, Joan.”
Joan’s response was almost reflex at this point. “Don’t invade the market again.”
“Can you give it a rest for like half a second,” Molly said.
But she couldn’t. Joan couldn’t. Standing in this house—surrounded by all their wealth and power, the soft scurrying of house staff, the relative quiet—all Joan could hear were the screams of the market, and the crackle of the flames, and her conscience leaping into action without a second thought for her own well-being.
Pushed into a corner, the Greenwoods had done something horrific.
Pushed into a corner, Joan had responded in turn.
“You are not in a position to tell me what to do, and you lack the clarity to see what must be done,” Valeria said. “That is why you do not rule, and that is why you are not heir.”
“You don’t have an heir,” Joan shot back. Valeria neither had any children nor had named anyone to take over should she die. By default, the position would fall to Merlin.
Valeria, for a moment, looked every year her age.
Growing old at the top of the magic world.
So many layers of power and privilege and time and tradition kept her on top.
“Because having no one is better than running the risk of having you, Joan. If you aren’t careful, you will be the destruction of this family and its legacy.
” Her words reverberated through the world with all the force of a prophecy, settling like a noose around Joan’s neck.
Molly wasn’t looking at her. Neither was Nate. Only Valeria had the guts to actually say it and stare her down too.
In Joan’s normal life, she was a creator. She was an artist and an architect. She made things from nothing.
In Joan’s family, she did nothing but destroy.
There was a choice here somewhere, between who they thought she was and who she knew she could be, but she had never been strong enough to choose the right path.
She swallowed thickly, her throat tight, her eyes burning. She didn’t want to be here; she couldn’t stand to be in this room anymore.
Valeria stepped away from the stairs. “You will not appear as a member of this family in any capacity until such a time as I decide you are ready for that privilege again. Get some rest. I’m sure your father will have words for you.”
Joan couldn’t possibly have been grounded. That’s what this was, her being grounded like she was eleven again and had accidentally smashed a vase while sliding on her socks down the hallway.
But she could be, couldn’t she? They could all lock her in a room. She didn’t have power here; she didn’t have any true use.
There’s a great magic in New York, and I spoke to it, and I called on it, and still I am grounded.
Joan had spent a lifetime reaching for power in the hopes that it would earn her respect and acceptance.
But now that she had some semblance of it, she saw it was the wrong kind of power.
An unruly one her family didn’t understand or believe in. One they couldn’t control.
Molly hovered all the way up the steps and to Joan’s bedroom, but the moment she tried to step in, Joan blocked her path.
“I’m going back to sleep,” Joan said. “You should go back to your life. Thanks for hanging around.”
Joan shut the door in her face.
Merlin did not make his appearance for several more hours, not until the sun had set, and Joan had cried herself out, and napped, and cried again, and taken a shower.
It was only when she was back in bed, counting down the minutes until she might be able to sneak out to meet Grace and CZ to look for Mik, that Merlin deigned to visit his youngest daughter.
He knocked once, but didn’t wait for a reply before stepping in. The top button of his shirt was undone; his sleeves were rolled up. If Joan were feeling nicer, she’d say he looked tired, but she wasn’t, and she didn’t care.
“Hi, Dad,” she said bitterly, pulling her knees to her chest. “Finally decided to see me?”
“Right off the bat, snark from you,” he said from the foot of her bed. “Stand up.”
“I’m very comfortable—”
“Stand up, Joan.”
Like a puppet on a thread, she stood. Unfolded, Joan felt terribly vulnerable, all soft belly, no hard shell.
“Since you’ve decided you’re grown, and that you can shun this family, break the law, do whatever the fuck it is you want, then you can stand up and talk to me like the adult you are,” Merlin said, voice rising in volume.
“I didn’t break the law,” Joan said, but her voice was small. Smaller than she’d like. She hated it. She hated how weak she sounded, how weak she felt. She’d managed to find some semblance of a spine with her mother and aunt, but Merlin knocked her right back on her heels.
“I am the law,” he said, gripping her footboard. “I make the law, and when you hear your family intends to make a move and you defy it, that means you are defying me and the law.”
I don’t set the moral code of the witch world, the Greenwoods do, Grace had said what felt like an eternity ago. The rest of us are cogs in a machine; ethics don’t factor into my ability to turn.
“That was your last toe out of line,” Merlin said.
“That isn’t a threat—I am telling you it was your last one.
You will fall in your place now. When people ask, you will tell them that Moon Creatures forced you to nearly blow up the market.
If you do a single thing more to defy us, I will bring the full hammer of the Greenwood family down on your head, daughter of mine or not. ”
The lie of it was outrageous. Disastrous, accusing the Moon Creatures of such a thing when they all knew it wasn’t true. No, no, no. Not in a million years. Never.
That ember grew a flame.
“But you won’t,” Joan said, “You won’t bring the hammer down, will you? Because it would reflect poorly on you. You’ll lie your ass off to avoid that.”
Merlin released the footboard to walk toward her, invading her personal space with his gesturing hands and his hot breath. “Call my bluff, Joan.”
Joan was all cried out. No tears rose to the summons of her torn emotions; there was no more wobble left to her voice.
She was calling his bluff, she was, because she had never once called it before.
She had let herself get corralled. She’d gone to the parties they demanded she go to, and returned to the city when they said it was time, and chased after something she’d never have: their respect.
Joan stepped back, giving herself room. Carving it out for herself, since Merlin wouldn’t grant it. “You were in the wrong,” she said.
“And you are a naive child. Don’t do this again.”
“I had to try; they’re victims, they deserve—”
“I don’t give a shit, Joan,” Merlin snarled, making a cutting motion with his hand, severing the air between them.
“I don’t give a single fuck what you think they deserve.
Call them victims, call them pitiful sheep, call them evil, call them gods—whatever name you come up with for them, whatever story you spin to save them, they belong to New York, which means they belong to me, and I won’t suffer them to hide this spellmaker for a second longer. You have no idea what’s at stake here.”