Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
Joan blurted the words out before she could think, her vision of the future shattering.
“Oh, come on. Again?!”
CZ had yelped and ducked behind Joan. Grace had stepped rapidly to the side like she could hide from Astoria’s line of sight.
Astoria’s smirk grew, and Joan hated the way it pulled at the scar across her lower lip, how cute it all was. “Good to see you too, darling.”
Darling.
Every alarm bell in Joan’s brain clanged so hard, they started to crack. Was this payback for calling her sweetheart?
Astoria was still speaking. “Last I saw you, you were in a coma. Did you like my flowers?”
Joan had, tragically, had to leave them behind at the Greenwood Mansion, and damn Astoria, because Joan did like the flowers. “I hear you pulled us out of the market. I didn’t know you were a fire elemental.”
“And air,” Astoria added. “I’m something of a double major. Is there a thank-you in there?”
Joan’s mouth was running roughly three miles ahead of her brain, because her brain was still going, Hello?
?? Mik??? and her mouth apparently was more than happy to verbally spar with Astoria.
“There is not, seeing as your invasion was the reason I nearly got myself and Grace killed in the first place.”
Astoria shoved the door wider, standing aside. “And Mik, don’t forget about them.”
Joan reached out, almost scrunching a fist in Astoria’s shirt in her desperation, but she stopped short, kind of brushing Astoria’s shoulder, like some sort of pathetic fool. “What did you do to them? Astoria, I swear to Circe—”
“Mik!” Astoria said loudly. “Your friends are here for your playdate!”
There was a crashing sound from inside the suite, and then a figure appeared at the end of the mirrored internal hallway.
Mik’s hair was starting to grow in a little fuzzy, or maybe that was Joan’s imagination, adding differences to mark their time apart. “You came back for me,” they whispered. Their face transformed into a smile. “Guys! You found me!”
“Oh my fucking god,” CZ said, which gave Grace a head start to duck around Astoria and sprint toward Mik, smashing into them in a hug. CZ wasn’t far behind, sweeping them both up.
“I’ve never been happier to see another person,” CZ said. “And Astoria called us your friends!”
Mik’s reply was muffled by all the bodies. “My very best friends.”
Joan felt like she couldn’t turn her back to Astoria. Her body was torn in two, trapped between needing to keep her eyes on the Wardwell heir and throwing herself into Mik’s arms, sobbing and blubbering.
She struck a middle ground by cautiously edging past, feeling the heat of Astoria’s body. She looked up and found Astoria looking down at her from her precious few extra inches of height.
“They’re fine,” Astoria said softly. “This isn’t a trap. Trust me, Wren would have my ass. She’ll be back in a second.” Astoria shut the door behind Joan and nudged her forward with a hot hand pressed briefly to Joan’s back.
Joan resisted the urge to lean into it.
“Joan, hug me!” Mik said, shimmying out of the grips of CZ and Grace. This was enough to break Astoria’s spell. Joan rushed to Mik, who wrapped their arms around Joan and squeezed.
“You saw my trail of credit card purchases?” they whispered in Joan’s ear.
“You sure do know how to spend,” Joan whispered back.
Mik stepped back, holding Joan by the shoulders. “When Astoria took me in, I was kind of sure it wasn’t a trick, mainly because Wren seemed so genuine, but just in case it was, I thought maybe if I ordered some stuff, you guys would be able to find me? Astoria promised she’d tell you where I was.”
Joan turned to glare at Astoria. “She did not do that.”
“I was waiting for the hospital discharge,” Astoria said, ushering them out of the hallway and into the living room.
“It was the first thing on my agenda this morning, and then I heard you’d fled your family’s house.
Mik doesn’t have your number, and neither do I, so texting was out of the question. ”
“If you want my number, ask for it, Wardwell,” Joan said thoughtlessly. “And don’t pretend some sort of message spell wasn’t an option.”
Joan expected Astoria to ignore her, but the woman held out her phone promptly. “Please give me your number, Greenwood.”
When Joan hesitated, Astoria reached out, took Joan’s hand, and put her phone in it. Why did Astoria’s hands have to be so warm and nice?
A bark of laughter burst out of CZ’s mouth, but he slapped his hands over it, and his hand was joined by Mik’s in rapid succession, all before Grace elbowed him hard in the ribs.
Do it, Grace mouthed, miming typing into the phone.
Joan snatched the phone away, taking a step back for good measure before plugging in her number and practically throwing the device at Astoria’s face.
“Good,” Astoria said, catching it smoothly. “Now, the next time I discover a fugitive you’ve been hiding, I can text you directly.”
“Mik, you’re being very chill, so I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt,” Joan said, shifting in place as Mik’s hand slowly fell off CZ’s face. “But I’d love an explanation as to what you’re doing with the heir to California.”
Mik sat on the arm of the couch and explained their desperate run from the tent, looking for anyone who could help Joan and Grace, slamming right into Astoria, directing her toward the tent, and fleeing.
“But not to my apartment,” Grace prompted.
“I did go there at first,” Mik said, pointing a finger of recognition at Grace.
“But then I realized, if someone suspected you two, they might search it for answers. I thought maybe it wasn’t safe there, so I got a motel.
I was going to hole up until someone found me, but then four days ago, Astoria knocked on the door. ”
Astoria picked up the story. “I knew the Greenwoods were hiding something in Brooklyn. Then the market went to shit, and I found Joan at the center.” Her gaze was piercing. It made Joan’s skin prickle.
“Once I got the chaos under control, I went looking exactly where Mik thought someone might—Grace Collins’s home.
Though I couldn’t get past the wards, I cast to see who had come and gone recently and followed a strange life signature to the motel, and Mik.
We established I wasn’t going to kill them, or Wren did, and that we wanted to help, then brought them here to keep them safe. ”
“See, that’s what doesn’t make sense to me,” Joan said, joining in. “Why would Mik be safe with you? Why would you take them in? Is California sending a strike force to kidnap them right now? You can’t be operating out of the goodness of your heart.”
“Why?” Astoria challenged, an edge to her voice that Joan couldn’t quite identify. “You think you know me so well. Why couldn’t I be?”
Joan’s voice was cold. “You invaded the market. I know why California was sent here.”
“And so I can’t ever change my mind?” Astoria said. “I have to be exactly what you assume I am? The market was complicated. I saved you, didn’t I?”
That… was true.
How much of Joan’s perception of Astoria was based on fact, and how much of it was based on who Joan thought she should be, considering her mother? She was easier to hold at arm’s length when Joan could simply say they were on opposing sides. But Astoria was swimming in murky waters.
“If it helps,” Mik said, looking between them, “Astoria and Wren have been nothing but kind to me.”
“Listen to your friend, Greenwood,” Astoria said, the edges of her mouth turned down, and the snarky tone she put on lost her whatever sympathy she had been gaining with Joan. What, was she hurt? Offended that Joan had used basic knowledge to draw a very clear conclusion about Astoria Wardwell?
Joan wasn’t going to abide any more patronizing.
She’d had enough of that from her family, thank you very much.
A thousand comebacks filtered through her head, each more biting than the last. Joan had thrown a giant fuck you at her family for this, and Astoria got to change her mind willy-nilly, no questions asked?
It wasn’t fair.
“Wren wants to give casting magic to Moon Creatures,” Joan said, and her voice had gained its own level of heat.
She failed to tone it down. “Did you know that? Did you know that’s the real reason she’s in New York?
That she came to me privately at my family’s party and asked for my help with that? ”
“Of course she does,” Wren said, closing the door at the end of the hallway with a bag of groceries in her hand. “Astoria knows everything about me.”
Joan’s heart sank inexplicably.
“If you want to know why I took Mik in,” Astoria said, her voice a little uneven, pointing down the hallway at Wren, who was slipping off her shoes.
“That’s why. Maybe I don’t have goodness in my heart, but I do have Wren.
We aren’t in agreement about the right thing to do with the spell that was cast on Mik, but I would never, ever, willingly hurt a human or witch, and Mik qualifies as both. ”
“No,” CZ said bracingly. “You would just hurt my people. Vampires, the fae, ancients even.”
Astoria’s jaw ticked. “I’m not perfect, but I’m not naive enough to think the world is rendered only in shades of black and white. I’m in a gray area.”
“And yet you still invaded the market,” CZ said. “You could have chosen to stand aside like Wren. Better, you could have chosen to stop it.”
“It’s not that simple,” Astoria argued. “Valeria was going to have some brainless mercenaries run it if I didn’t. At least I could run a clean, nonlethal operation. And you don’t know my mother, the repercussions if I refused—”
“You are the heir to the second most powerful state in the US,” Grace cut in. “The world is as simple as you make it.”