Chapter 21 #2
Magic was a bit hesitant around Grace, and she grimaced a little when it funneled into her, but the spell glowed to life, the map’s black ink shining with an intense white light before settling into a dull shine, an X appearing on the map.
“Is channeling tough for you too?” Grace asked Joan.
“Like I overworked a muscle,” Joan replied, as they gathered closer to the paper. “I think it’s faded from full poisoning to fatigue, but it isn’t very pleasant.”
Grace grunted. “I think it’ll keep fading.”
Think being the operative word. But maybe it was for the best Joan not touch magic like she had been lately.
It was intoxicating to finally have some modicum of power, and she’d nearly committed a murder-suicide chasing it.
“Best if I stay away from it for now, though I was just getting the hang of talking to New York.”
Focus. Looking down at the map, Joan half expected it to settle over Green-Wood Cemetery, as if Mik had been killed and neatly buried there.
But instead the X hovered over an area in Manhattan.
Joan frowned. “Why would Mik be in Manhattan? What’s in that area?”
Silence.
She looked up to Grace and CZ exchanging very meaningful glances. “What?”
“Joan, my darling,” CZ said, “what do you mean you’re talking to New York? Are you feeling okay?”
“Is this related to when you asked Abel if New York was alive?” Grace added. Something clicked for her. “In the market, you said magic felt like one entity, but you didn’t say it was sentient.”
Had she seriously never told them? She picked over her memories, straightening.
Yeah, that was right, she’d been kind of convinced she was having a breakdown, then the moment she was sure it was real she’d wanted to tell CZ in private, and she’d started to explain but hadn’t actually said magic was aware, only that there was a kind of aggregate to the city, then the market had exploded, and in all that time since, she had never brought it up directly.
“When I cycle huge amounts of magic, it’s like I settle into the currents of energy in the area.
Several times now it’s felt alive and spoken to me.
A sentient being that, since it comes from the magic across the city, I’ve been referring to as New York. ”
Grace leaned hard against the counter. “You’ve learned that you can not only nullify magic but also speak to magic itself? I’ve never heard of that happening. I’ve never heard of magic having a consciousness.”
“Me neither! I’m having a late awakening,” Joan said, maybe a little bit proud of herself.
“Doing lots of things it had never occurred to me to do before. It’s cool, isn’t it?
And I don’t know that it’s Magic, like worldwide Magic Itself, so much as it’s magic within the city, like maybe Seattle has its own identity.
I don’t know, I need to have a long conversation with Abel. ”
CZ clapped her on the back. “You’re such a little freak,” he said endearingly. “Look at you!”
This was much more the reaction Joan was looking for. Her family hadn’t seemed to want to dwell on her magic-nullification abilities, or at least they had been more concerned with convincing her to lie for them.
“Maybe we can seal Mik without anyone else,” Grace murmured. She refocused on the map. “Maybe if Joan pulls in enough magic, I can do it solo.”
“Last time you two were left to your own devices, you nearly died,” CZ said. “We can get one more witch, to be safe. I really think we should consider Wren.”
Joan got out her phone to pull up a map app, zooming in on the area that Grace’s magic drawing was showing.
The X was large, covering an area rather than a specific building, and Joan didn’t want to strain Grace further by asking her to zoom in.
“That’s by the Diamond District, not far from Rockefeller Center. ”
“You’re telling me what, that Mik fled a mass fire and decided to go diamond shopping?
” CZ said incredulously. “With what money? They have no cash or credit cards, were working a publishing job for a frankly laughable salary, and they’re still there a week later?
Do they have a friend in the city who lives around there?
I’d have assumed they’d go back to their parents, but I found their address, and Mik wasn’t there. ”
“It’s mainly shopping in that area, not apartments,” Grace said, squinting at the map like it might cough up more secrets.
Something CZ had said was pushing at the building blocks of Joan’s mind. Money. How would Mik survive in the city without a phone, cash, or cards?
“Oh! Oh, they do have a credit card,” Joan said excitedly, exiting the map and opening up her banking app. “They have my card!”
Joan’s fat fingers fumbled her sign-in a couple of times before making it through and checking her credit card transactions. Mik’s full history was laid out here, purchase after purchase. Joan scrolled back to the beginning, one week ago.
“They got a cheap motel,” Joan started. “Junk food, junk food, groceries—good for them, nutrition is important, I’m told.
A phone, I think. Okay, the latest version of the iPhone, that feels like overkill.
And then the regular transactions stop, and…
” That didn’t make a lot of sense. Joan paused, typed something into Google, went back to the app.
“Please stop with the dramatic suspense; the doctors say my heart is weakened,” Grace said.
“Gods, is that true?” CZ said worriedly. “It sounds normal.”
“Stop listening to my heartbeat,” Grace said. “And it was a joke. I tell them sometimes.”
“I enjoyed it,” CZ said. “You should tell more.”
Joan looked up. “Stop flirting.”
CZ coughed suspiciously. “I wasn’t—Shut up. Joan, the charges.”
Joan’s mischievous desire to tease him lost against the task at hand.
She refocused. “Several days ago, room service charges for the Baccarat Hotel start popping up,” Joan said.
“But there isn’t any sort of credit card hold for an actual room there, which is kind of nice, because that hotel is expensive as fuck. ”
“You have the money,” CZ said.
“For now. I don’t know what sort of legal, financial sorcery my dad might work to get my access removed, if he’s pissed enough,” Joan said.
“Isn’t it in your name?” Grace asked.
“My family owns the bank it’s held in; I wouldn’t put it past him.” The thought was admittedly rather sobering. Joan needed a job, and fast. She’d have to polish her portfolio, look for an architecture firm elsewhere. Another borough? Or another city entirely?
Now that she could actually leave the city, the thought felt hauntingly cold. She could leave New York behind. New York, whom she’d discovered like a long-lost friend.
“So, the Baccarat?” Grace prompted. “Should we go there?”
Joan corralled her mind into logical lines. “I think it’s our best bet. Mik probably left us a trail on purpose.”
“I think I’m going to kiss them full on the lips if they did,” CZ said. He darted a glance at Grace. “Platonically.”
Joan rolled her eyes at his hurried addition. “Platonically.”
The three of them gathered themselves and stepped back outside. Because CZ was a vampire, they couldn’t save time by taking the HERMES—an unfair barrier that Joan would disable if she were in charge.
But she’d never be in charge. She’d made sure of that when she left that house.
“See, a car would be great,” CZ said, watching Joan closely.
“You want to drive on these hellish streets?” Grace said as they descended into the subway.
Joan snorted, pulled from the anxiety spiral of her bad thoughts. “See, no one thinks it’s a good idea.”
CZ grumbled all the way to Manhattan and was still grumbling when they got off and wove through the throngs to get to the lobby of the Baccarat. Joan had been to plenty of expensive parties here growing up, but Grace’s mouth hung open a little as they stepped inside.
“What exactly is the plan here?” CZ whispered. “Do you know what room number it is based on the charges?”
“I do not,” Joan said. She breathed deep. The lobby smelled expensive, like maybe they piped the air in from somewhere else to avoid the smell of the city.
Magic was the easy answer to finding the room here, but a quick glance at Grace’s ragged form made Joan’s heart pang. They relied on her too much.
“Plan A, I try to finesse my way into a key card. Plan B, a distant and last-case resort, Grace does something with magic.”
“Like?” Grace asked.
“Tracking spell to figure out the floor? Sorry, I know you’re not in good shape right now.”
“I can manage, that’s not what I’m concerned about. So I figure out the floor, fine, but I’m sure the elevators require a key card at a place like this.”
“Magic the elevators,” CZ said, wiggling his fingers.
“You are being a menace,” Grace said.
Joan shook herself a little, altering her posture, trying to look like she belonged here, despite being dressed in flower-printed shorts and a black T-shirt. “Wait here,” she ordered, and waltzed up to the front desk, shoulders back.
Mik was so close, or at least whoever had Joan’s card was. Joan had to reach them.
The attendant did not look convinced by Joan’s attire. “Can I help you?”
Be normal. You’ve been in places like this a thousand times. “Yes, I lost my key card and need a new one.”
“Room number?”
Joan donned an air of apology. “I don’t remember, I’m so sorry.
But the room’s charged to Joan Greenwood—here’s my ID.
” Joan slipped it over the counter, hoping against hope it would work.
Joan was pretty sure the room actually wasn’t charged to her name, but maybe her card was in the system somehow based on the room service charges.
It was a long shot, a Hail Mary, and she’d already started trying to figure out what magic Grace could do.
The attendant straightened, examining the ID. “Of course,” they said. “We were expecting you. Let me call up to the room.”
Expecting her? Had Mik left some sort of note at the front desk? Hopefully Mik was behind that phone and not a dead body rotting in a fancy bathtub as someone ran up charges on Joan’s account. Was Mik maybe a genius?
Was Joan going to kiss them full on the lips?
“We have a Joan Greenwood in the lobby for you,” the attendant said into the phone. “Yes, we’ll send her right up. Yes, I’ll ask.” They moved the phone from their mouth. “She asks if your friends are with you?”
“They/them pronouns,” Joan corrected, looking over her shoulder to beckon Grace and CZ over excitedly. Only Mik would expect friends, not a random murderer who wanted to kill them. She was hopping a little in place. They’d done it. They’d done it! “Tell them Grace and CZ are here.”
CZ made big, questioning, puppy-dog eyes at Joan, and Joan kind of shrugged and put her hands out, like a caricature of I don’t know what’s going on either, but I think maybe it’s really good news.
The attendant spoke into the phone. “Right away, they are on their way up.”
They hung up and stepped away from the desk. “If you’ll follow me, I’ll send you up in the elevator. Your friend is on the eleventh floor.”
Grace, CZ, and Joan followed after them, Joan and CZ jabbing each other in the ribs with their elbows to get ahead while Grace whispered at them to knock it off, all the way to the elevator, where the attendant swiped the card and stepped in with them.
It was an agonizingly quiet elevator ride, a sharp contrast to the giddiness overriding Joan’s system.
Finally, some good news. The city was fucked, Joan’s personal life was fucked, but Mik was here.
Alive! Joan was going to kiss them then CZ then Grace then maybe the front desk attendant, as thanks.
Mik being alive made it all worth it. She hadn’t fully understood how much she’d had riding on finding them. If she lost her family, then Mik, who had started all this—well, Joan wasn’t going to go there. She didn’t have to, not anymore.
The final chime of arrival was a sigh of relief. The group piled out. Joan let out a delirious giggle before CZ poked her in the shoulder blade. The attendant walked down the hall, stopped in front of a door, and knocked politely before stepping out of the way.
Joan prepared herself to leap into Mik’s waiting arms as the door clicked open. They’d watch Real Housewives for days and spend so much money buying furniture for Grace’s apartment. They’d be back together, a team, and they’d follow Grace’s Fiona Ganon hunch and save everything and figure this out.
For a shining moment in Joan’s mind, everything was exactly as it should be.
Then Astoria Wardwell opened the door, a pleased smile on her face.