Chapter 32
THIRTY-TWO
A noise woke Joan in the middle of the night, and she blinked awake with a pounding heart, straining to hear it again.
She must have been having a nightmare, though she couldn’t remember it, because she was a little sweaty and a little wired, and the noise had not helped. In front of her, CZ had vacated his spot on the floor, and across the gap, Mik slept, mouth wide open.
Joan tried to turn and couldn’t.
There was an arm around her waist. Someone’s legs slotted into her own. Their body was recognizably warm, and so was the scarred hand limp across her.
Astoria was cuddling her.
She was also snoring, very softly. That had been the noise in Joan’s ear; it was intermittent but there.
Very carefully, so very, very carefully, Joan turned incrementally.
Astoria’s face in the darkness of the hotel room had all the drama of an oil painting, rendered in thick slashes of dark colors. Her hair was in a messy bun on her head, curls coming loose to brush her cheeks. Her eyelashes were a triumph, and breath fluttered out in those little snores.
This was now the second time Joan had ended up in the woman’s arms, and she was so selfishly glad Astoria was sleeping and couldn’t pull away and so wholly disgusted by herself at the thought, because she was being a creep. She was. She wanted something she couldn’t have.
A soft cough made Joan tilt her head up to look past the back of the couch. CZ stood in the darkness, red eyes neon in the night, a little smile on his face.
“Be more obvious,” he whispered.
She raised her eyebrows at him.
“Need to eat,” he said. “Shockingly, there’s no blood in this hotel room, and I ran out at home. I’m restocking.”
Joan scrunched her nose.
“Don’t be cute. I’ll go to a bar nearby and be back tomorrow morning,” he said. “I wouldn’t leave if I didn’t have to; I hate letting you out of my sight right now.”
Go, Joan tried to make her face say. I’m surrounded by people who will protect me.
“Alright, sleep tight, little lesbian,” he whispered, and pushed off the couch with a chuckle, striding for the door.
She was going to kill him, just as soon as she managed to get out of Astoria’s arms.
Astoria, as if sensing the thought, curled her arm tighter around Joan, forcing her into her chest with a hand on her back.
Oh my. Joan’s face was pressed to Astoria’s neck. She couldn’t help it, she breathed in. Why did Astoria have to smell so nice? Why did she have to smell so nice and be so deadly and have feelings for Wren? Why did she have to be from another state?
Another inhale. Drowsiness settled on Joan, her fingers curled between them, pressed to Astoria’s chest, feeling the steady thud, thud of her heart. She’d give anything to press her lips to Astoria’s skin, but that was a line she couldn’t cross.
Joan matched her breaths to the other woman’s. Let herself fade.
When dawn stretched her rosy fingers across the sky, Joan’s eyes fluttered open again.
This time, to a chill.
CZ was still out, and as Joan took stock of her aching body, she realized there was an arm missing around her.
Astoria wasn’t in bed either.
Mik was still sleeping. Grace had somehow secured a bonnet, and her braids were tucked away as she slumbered; even Wren had wrapped herself up like a burrito and passed out.
Joan didn’t much relish trying to throw herself back into dreams of dank rooms and orange-haired women. And she had to pee anyways.
She rose cautiously, stepping carefully over everyone’s sleeping bodies, wincing when she made even the smallest noise, until she could tiptoe to the bathroom. When she exited, she heard the faint slash of something whizzing through the air coming from one of the bedrooms.
The door was closed save for an inch. Joan peered in.
Astoria had moved all the furniture she could to the side and was practicing with her sword. It swished as she twirled, her concentration absolute, wearing a sports bra and spandex. Her hair was still in that infuriating bun; she was glistening with sweat.
She spun to the end of a series of movements and then backed up to the start. “Couldn’t sleep?” she asked in a low voice, and Joan’s ruse was up.
She guiltily pushed the door open. “Apparently neither could you.”
Astoria restarted her forms as Joan stepped inside. The twirling sword made Joan nervous, but Astoria wielded it so expertly that she was fairly sure she wasn’t actually in danger.
It had switched, somehow, from Joan distrusting the woman to Joan trusting her with her life.
“I’m thinking,” Astoria said.
“About how best to stab someone?”
“Funny.” Astoria swung her sword extra hard. “Is that all you think I think about?”
“Hard not to make that assumption when you’re… you know.” Joan waved a hand at Astoria, trying to encompass both the fact that, in this day and age, the woman used a sword and that she looked so good doing it.
“You don’t understand what it’s like, in California,” she said abruptly.
“The way we run things—it’s not to control Moon Creatures, as you say.
We’re the ones who get called when the ancients go berserk, when a banshee starts terrorizing a family, or when a rogue curse starts killing people off.
Here, there’s no central system. The people have no one to call on. ”
“We do,” Joan argued back. “When one of the fae does something wrong, we leave them to the fae to deal with. Same for vampires and witches, and the ancients don’t bother us much, but if it’s bad enough, the Greenwoods will figure it out, or dispatch someone to.
Like hiring private contractors to deal with individual issues. ”
“And it works, for you,” Astoria said. “That’s what I’m thinking about. That’s what I don’t get.” She swung her sword a few more times. “Could it work for us?” she muttered, and lapsed into silence.
The kind of community self-governance that ruled here happened because the Greenwoods didn’t usually spend their time squashing Moon Creatures completely, Night Market raid aside.
Packs like the LaMortes could amass enough power and respect over time to establish their own systems. That didn’t happen in California, where witches ruled with an iron fist.
But change could still come for them, slow as it might be, and Astoria was one of the few who had enough power to lead it. Maybe, just maybe, if Joan gave her room to evolve instead of assuming the worst about her, Astoria could start something new.
“Can I hold it?” Joan asked.
Astoria paused her footwork to smirk at Joan, and it was such a relief to see amusement back in the woman, rather than worry or guilt or whatever had her up exercising at six AM.
“I’m holding back so many jokes,” Astoria said.
“Wardwell, you dog,” Joan said, but she approached anyways, because Astoria was holding the sword out.
Joan wrapped her fingers around it, grip warm from Astoria’s hand.
Astoria let go the moment Joan had a firm hold, and the sword nearly speared through the floor.
Joan let out a curse, but Astoria was back in a flash to lift the weight again, like she’d been expecting this.
“You didn’t trust I was strong enough to hold it!” Joan accused.
Astoria looked meaningfully at how low the point of the blade had gotten. Looked back up at Joan. “You have other strengths,” she said.
“A boatload of weaknesses, you mean,” Joan snarked, but maybe it sounded a little pained. Their fingers were touching. Joan was a Victorian waif, and she’d seen an ankle. Her skin was all buzzing.
“No, Joan,” Astoria said, and Joan’s name on her tongue was velvet. “You have other strengths.”
Joan tilted her head up. When was the last time she’d kissed someone? At least a year ago. Now was not the time to be fantasizing. “Like?” she breathed.
“Fishing for compliments?”
“Well, you’re so insistent that I have strengths, I am waiting to hear what the great Astoria Wardwell might admire in another person.”
“You can make anyone feel like they are the most important person in the world,” Astoria said, surprising Joan with her ready answer.
“Like they have indisputable worth. You listen so intently when other people are talking. I know all your friends feel it. They bend toward you. You love people and things and places like it’s easy. ”
“Alright, I didn’t mean it.”
“Don’t chicken out now, I’m not done,” Astoria said.
“Your ability to put people at ease is extraordinary. Your moral compass is striking. I understand you’re also a very talented architect.
Look, I don’t care if you can’t lift a sword or can’t cast a spell.
I will lift it for you. Cast it for you. ”
Perhaps this was what Agamemnon had felt like, leading his men to war. Or maybe Joan was Patroclus, donning a borrowed suit of armor to inspire false confidence. She wasn’t the true hero here. She’d get struck down eventually.
And what a heady feeling it was, to think Astoria might follow her down.
Joan was a thousand things, with a thousand weaknesses, but standing in front of Astoria, she felt she had only one, and it was the strung bow of Astoria’s lips.
She leaned in.
Their lips brushed, featherlight. Every atom in Joan shivered alive, like the stars were watching them now, like Fate had started back up at their loom and all threads bound Joan to this moment.
Astoria pulled away.
Her absence was a vacuum, she left Joan poised with her eyes closed, took the sword from their shared hands, and stepped back with a ragged inhale.
Joan’s eyes fluttered open. She wished she’d left them closed, looking at the agony on Astoria’s face.
“I’m sorry,” Astoria said, voice rough. “I shouldn’t have—”
“No, it was me,” Joan assured, strangely calm. “I shouldn’t have done that.” I was just… feeling so glad to be alive.
Astoria’s fingers squeezed and loosened on her sword in alternating beats. She wouldn’t meet Joan’s eyes. “I was leading you on. You’re… I don’t really know what I feel for you, but I do know I am in love with someone else. So I can’t.”
“Wren,” Joan said softly.