Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
Out on the street, CZ matched her pace.
“You good? You were kind of quiet in there.” He didn’t look down at her when he said this, like she was a frightened doe on the brink of running away. “Or maybe that’s what Astoria Wardwell does to you?”
Joan might as well have been back in middle school, passing notes back and forth.
She didn’t want to follow that train of thought, not at all, because she couldn’t deny the evidence of her eyes and ears—Astoria was very much in love with Wren.
Joan had fallen for plenty of straight people she’d never had a chance with and her fair share of gay people interested in others.
She wasn’t going to make that mistake again here, and especially not over someone who was slated to head back to the West Coast in, hopefully, a matter of days.
The best defense was a strong offense though. “Tell me about whatever thing you’ve got going for Grace first.”
Now CZ did look at her. “Not fair.”
“I ship it,” Joan said, spooling her energy.
She boxed up her emotions and sank them to the bottom of a lake.
The air outside helped cut through her turbulent mood.
“You’re a good, steady guy who could use someone to kick you in the ass sometimes; she’s a brilliant, dedicated woman who needs someone to lean on.
You’d have little witch-vampire babies who rage against the establishment, and they’d like me more than they’d like you. ”
“Do I need to be here, or do you want to monologue?”
“Every good orator needs an audience.”
They’d left Mik with Wren and Astoria, partially on Joan’s insistence, much to the confusion of the room.
Mik had been safe there for several days, safer than they’d ever been with Joan and CZ, or even Grace.
Joan could see that clearly, even if the rest of the room couldn’t.
Grace had asked to meet Fiona for an early lunch and stayed behind.
Astoria and Wren would settle in nearby, and Grace would try to convince Fiona to go back to the hotel room willingly.
Or if not willingly, the Californians would step in.
It was decided that Joan and CZ were better off not being seen by Fiona, what with their family connections and so they didn’t reveal their full hand. They’d been ushered off, and it was just Joan and CZ now walking aimlessly.
“You’re crying,” CZ observed casually. “Does the thought of me being with Grace really bring you to tears?”
“They’re happy tears,” Joan said, wiping furiously at her eyes.
“Joan.”
“I want to be useful,” Joan said, maybe with more force than was strictly necessary.
CZ made a frustrated noise, grabbed her shoulder, and spun her around on the sidewalk, forcing her to look at him.
“You are useful. When there are people better suited to a task, you let them work. When you know you can offer something, you stand and fight. You stood and fought when your parents told you to lie about Moon Creatures.”
“Very low bar,” Joan said wetly.
“And when I called you about Mik, you jumped into action. But you are not a trained fighter, you cannot bodily capture Fiona,” CZ said.
“So when it came time for people who do have that expertise to step up, you stood aside. That’s not weakness, Joan.
Don’t try to be a hero. You need time with your fancy new power.
I don’t want to see you run headlong into something and get seriously hurt because your daddy issues made you so desperate to be useful. ”
“Hey!”
“I’m just saying, your family trauma is rooted deep, and you did a huge thing by walking out. Don’t let your sense of helplessness in one area of your life drive you too far into a dangerous situation.”
“You’re therapizing me.”
“I’m helping you because your mental illness matches mine,” CZ countered. “Us second children, we develop complexes. And you always tell me I’m important, even if I’m not running my pack. I’m here to tell you the same. With or without the new powers, you are important.”
Joan gently knocked her head against his shoulder, because if she said thanks, you’re right out loud, then she’d have to face the fact that she’d thrown a minor temper tantrum at the age of twenty-five and her best friend had been forced to talk her down like she was a child.
“Are you going to be mad if I ask to talk to Abel about my powers anyways?”
“No, I think that’s a very good idea,” CZ said. “I’d feel better if you were well armed with knowledge as you explored being a magic bomb. Let me ask him if we can meet him somewhere.”
Unfortunately, Joan was no longer welcome at the LaMorte apartment building in Queens as a result of her family’s actions. Which was completely and entirely fair, she knew that, but still felt like a loss.
Instead, Abel agreed to meet them in Brooklyn at Grace’s apartment in an hour, and as Joan felt she needed to do something to avoid kicking a hole through a wall, she made CZ go to IKEA first.
With a couple of meatballs in her and CZ lugging along the table Joan had bought, Grace’s thrifting dreams be damned—she could source her own chairs—they met Abel at the foot of the building.
He looked tired.
“Are you sure you’re okay to talk?” Joan asked anxiously. “I didn’t mean to pull you away from something important.”
“I desperately need a break, and CZ’s story about your new magic is, selfishly, hugely fascinating to me,” Abel said, holding open the door so CZ could angle himself in with the table box. He grinned at Joan, eyes feverish. “It’s true, then? The city spoke to you?”
“I feel better about being an object of curiosity and not an active burden,” Joan said, approaching the lobby elevator and hitting the button. “And yes, it’s true.”
She wasn’t entirely sure what you said to someone whose pack had been partially attacked by your family. “Abel, I’m sorry. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help the displaced vampires or rebuild the market.”
“You’re always welcome to put your money where your mouth is,” Abel said, sobering up. “And CZ says you left your family, so if you’re feeling extra generous, we could use your insider mind on occasion. We’re in talks with the fae to reestablish the market.”
CZ punched his arm.
“What! She doesn’t like them,” Abel grumbled.
“I’ll think about it,” Joan said, feeling queasy at the thought. It felt like an irreversible decision if she went that far, but everything she’d already done was supposed to be irreversible. She was gone. For good. “Except the money thing, happy to do that anytime.”
They entered Grace’s peaceful apartment and set up shop in the kitchen. Joan plopped right down on the floor and started dumping pieces out of the box, her phone placed close by in case the group messaged about Fiona. The screen lit up with a text, but Joan looked away.
“Okay, so CZ told you about New York talking to me,” Joan said, as CZ joined her in trying to read the instructions. “How freaked out should I be?”
Abel was practically vibrating with excitement as he settled against the counter.
“Freaked out isn’t the word. Thrilled feels better.
It’s the sort of thing that you hear about in our local folklore: A witch on a quest who bargained with a god, and the god is depicted as the city.
A vampire on the brink of death, hallucinating from blood withdrawal, who thinks she hears a voice coming from the Hudson.
What was always curious to me is that, as much as we can pinpoint the origins of this, these stories start in the late 1600s, which is after the city’s founding.
Normally fairy tales draw on some sort of naturalistic origin. ”
“The woods are big and dark, and so they’re magic,” CZ supplied. “The ocean seems alive, so it’s secretly a god.”
“Very happy to hear you listen to me on occasion,” Abel said. “Also, Joan, I don’t think those pieces go together.”
Joan abandoned the two sections of wood she was trying to jam together and grabbed a third one, trying to be mindful of her wrecked fingers. “But cities are man-made.”
Abel nodded. “My theory? It’s a little less about place and a little more about population density.
Magic existed naturally and individually, but as more magical creatures, and particularly witches, settled in one place and started manipulating magic, it gathered and grouped together.
Spells are like mini commands for magic, but what if it started to cobble together a will from all those little commands?
The ability to think? And I highly doubt those pieces fit together either. Aren’t you an architect?”
Joan nearly threw an Allen wrench out the window in her frustration at this stupid table. “I don’t specialize in furniture design,” she said back, “and I’m doing better than him.”
She gestured at CZ, who was still attempting to piece together the instructions.
“Slow and steady wins the race.”
The pieces in Joan’s hands finally slotted together neatly.
“That’s something losers say,” she said.
She turned back to Abel. “So witches start using spells all in one place, magic wises up to us and starts to gain a sort of localized sentience? But is it one thing? It felt like… like a million different things that occasionally coalesce into one mouth.” It felt really good to verbalize all this, and her shaky hands steadied on the furniture pieces.
“Sure,” Abel said. “I mean, you’re the only one I know who’s actually gotten it to talk to you. I don’t have answers here, just a lot of theories based on what you’ve told me and what I’ve read. Like I said, it was all fairy tale. But why you? Why not speak to any other random witch?”
“Who says it hasn’t? I mean, who’d believe them?” CZ asked. “All we have is Joan’s word.”
Joan’s responding glare was long-suffering. Her phone screen lit up once more, and her attention lasered in, but it was Molly again. There were a number of texts waiting for her from Molly. None of which she felt ready to open yet.