Chapter 32 #2
Astoria jerked in surprise, and she met Joan’s gaze again, but there was panic in her eyes.
“I won’t tell,” Joan said. “But she must know by now, you’re so close.”
Astoria loosed a breath, made her sword vanish into whatever little realm she normally stored it in. Joan was a million miles away from her own body. Nothing that was happening now surprised her at all, and still she had leaned in. Reckless.
Astoria tried again after a few false starts. “She does know, or she did. I confessed years ago, but she doesn’t feel the same way. She loves me. She does.” Astoria didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands. She put them on her hips, and then that seemed wrong, so she dropped them again.
“But she loves you like CZ and I love each other,” Joan offered. “Entirely platonic.”
Astoria finally crossed her arms, muscles bulging. “I can’t lose her. So we don’t talk about it. And it doesn’t even matter, because she’s straight and I’m not out. Not to my mom, at least. Attraction, sexuality, they’re things I’ve never wanted to look in the eye, I guess.”
Joan closed her eyes and made herself draw in a breath, steady, steady.
“I really am sorry,” Astoria said, so soft and pitiful, and Joan added it to the list of things she never wanted Astoria to do again. Her Astoria wasn’t meant to sound like this, not because of Joan. “You deserve better than me.”
Joan had called this from the start, from day one, hour one.
Minute one, from nearly the first dazzling moment she’d laid eyes on the woman, Joan had known, deep in her bones, that Astoria was going to wreck her life.
And still she hadn’t seemed to be able to get off this path.
Still, she’d driven this car right into a wall, pushed something she never should have touched in the first place.
She opened her eyes.
“I understand,” Joan said. “I really do. And I guess I’ll only say—you deserve better too, Astoria. Better than holding a torch for a woman who doesn’t feel the same way, and better than wading through life afraid of your own ability to love.”
The silence between them was excruciating, but Joan was drinking her fill of the sight of Astoria like she’d never see her again.
Astoria cleared her throat, voice suspiciously gravelly. “I need you to know, there’s a version of me somewhere who kissed you back.”
Joan left the room so Astoria wouldn’t see her cry.
Hours later, Joan was pretending to sleep, curled up with Mik, when CZ returned to the apartment. Grace and Wren were already up cooking, hashing out plans for Grace to return to Brooklyn to grab some stuff.
“Not alone, I hope,” CZ said in a hushed voice.
“I might have an idea,” Grace was saying. “About the spell, or about magic poisoning, I don’t know. It’s bugging me, and I think Billy could help me.” There was the sound of her standing up from the table.
“Billy?”
“Or any ghost, really,” Grace amended. “Joan said something strange about… dying. That New York commented on her being half dead, and that Joan longed to be a ghost so magic would run through her.”
“Quoting Billy,” CZ supplied.
“Was that exactly what Billy said?”
“Yeah, that magic runs through her like the wind and it can’t hurt her. What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know. Nothing maybe. Causation versus correlation. Again, just an idea.”
“I’ll go with you, we should have a buddy system,” CZ said, standing too.
“You went out alone,” Grace pointed out.
“I could kill half the room before one of you so much as raised a hand to cast,” CZ said casually.
“Try me,” Astoria said. Her voice squeezed Joan’s ribcage.
“Astoria.” That was Wren.
“The vampire is right,” Astoria continued. “Buddy system for those who aren’t trained in offensive magic.” A pause. “Or eating humans.”
“I can eat a witch too.”
“Stop, stop,” Grace said sarcastically. “You both have super huge dicks.”
“Breakfast is ready!” Wren called. “Stop pretending to sleep! Mik! Joan!”
Joan opened her eyes and found Mik’s eyes were also open. Mik put a conspiratorial finger to their lips. Despite herself, Joan grinned at them.
Mik stood, pulling Joan with them, then making exaggerated yawning movements. “Eggs?”
They headed for the table, Joan trailing after them and trying very hard not to make eye contact with Astoria, who had showered at some point and was back in one of her cool, tight-shirt, loose-pants outfits.
CZ planted a kiss on Joan’s head as she sat down and then walked backward as Grace picked up her purse and headed for the door. He pointed a finger at Astoria, then Joan.
“She doesn’t leave your sight until I get back.”
“Come on—”
“Of course not,” Astoria said, interrupting Joan’s protest.
“I’ll rip out your throat if something happens to her again,” CZ said cheerily. Joan groaned his name. “Or maybe I’ll rip it out for fun, for leading the raid on my people.”
Mik whistled. “Guard-dog privileges from two predators,” they said, sitting down too.
Wren was smiling into the scrambled eggs she was cooking. Joan hated them all.
Once CZ and Grace were out the door, Joan dug into the eggs Wren set in front of her. She was on her second plate, absently listening to Mik and Wren discuss the relative merits of making different kinds of eggs in different styles, when there was a loud knock on the door.
Noise cut off abruptly.
“Room service?” Wren said cautiously, looking around at the group.
Astoria cast under her breath, pulling her fingers apart to create a little magical window.
A window that revealed Valeria Greenwood at the door, with a team of five witches at her back.
Valeria, here. Joan shoved back from the table violently, her sore right hand protesting.
Why was she here? It was Astoria and Wren’s hotel room, that was normal, but why bring five extra witches?
Wren motioned frantically for Mik to file into the bedroom, then tugged Joan’s arm to get her out of her seat and herd her in the same direction, hissing furiously at her, but Joan’s mind was a sluggish hellscape.
Yesterday, Joan had brought Molly into the loop.
Today, Valeria Greenwood was at the door of the place they’d been hiding Mik.
Wren had wrestled her halfway to the room when Valeria’s patience apparently ran out.
With a pop, the door unlocked, and the witches poured in, leaving Valeria to take up the rear, stepping inside delicately. They were quick, well trained.
They’d come expecting a fight.
It was too late for all of them, Joan had known that the moment she saw Valeria at the door. No rush into a bedroom was going to save them from her.
Joan planted her feet. “Aunt Val,” she called. “What do you want?”
Valeria was in a green satin blouse and black slacks. Her witches blocked the hallway. Astoria had edged in front of Joan, who was in front of Wren, and while her sword hadn’t been summoned yet, her hand was out like it could be at any moment.
“Mik Batbayar,” Valeria said, in the most frigid of all her cold tones. “You’ve been called to face witch questioning.”
Wren was solid at her back, her hand wrapped around her bicep, lending her strength. Joan could ask all the obvious questions: How did you know we’d be here? Who told you about Mik? But the answer was obvious.
Joan had cried uncle. Molly had still betrayed her. At the end of the day, for all her decency, Joan’s sister was Merlin’s favored daughter.
“They’re sealed,” Joan said. “And of no use to you. You know about Fiona?”
“We were informed,” Valeria said, looking interestedly around the hotel room. “Your friend can come out of that room.”
“You can’t haul them in against their will,” Joan said.
“They’re a human, I can do anything I’d like,” Valeria countered.
“You think they’re a witch, which means they have the rights of a witch and deserve protection,” Joan replied.
“So pedantic. Fine, then, they can come with us so we can protect them.”
Valeria always came out on top.
“Don’t do this,” Joan begged.
“Or what,” Valeria said, and there was a rare note of impatience to her tone.
“This can happen by force or by choice, but it will happen. Mik will come with me to the Greenwood Mansion. We will locate Fiona. If you’d like, niece of mine, you can set aside your tantrum and accompany us to discuss what comes next.
You may make your petition to me there.”
“They’re innocent in all this,” Astoria said. “The spell was cast on them against their will, and they have no desire to live as a witch.”
“If that’s the case, they will have no problem saying as much at the house,” Valeria said. She gestured at the bedroom door, and her five witches moved like a bunch of cartoon goons to storm it.
Astoria’s sword materialized. “Back up, Greenwood,” she murmured at Joan.
This morning she had said Joan with such a softness to it, but now she was back to Greenwood.
The witches slowed, looking nervously at fearsome Astoria Wardwell and the murderous look on her face.
“Do you really mean to swing that at us?” Valeria said. “New York would consider it an act of war.”
“And what, California is meant to roll over and show you our belly when you storm unannounced into our hotel room?” Astoria threw back. “You mistake us for cowards.”
“I make no mistakes here,” Valeria said. “You must honestly know you don’t have a chance. Your mother would more than support this move. But I’ll show you mercy.” She beckoned her witches back, and they moved toward her again.
“Children,” she said dismissively. “All of you, children, an unlikely coven of spoiled, naive creatures. As I said, you’re welcome to make your case at my home. You can meet us there.”
Us? Joan had time to think, before Wren swore, and Valeria reached out, making some quick hand movements.
With a yelp, Mik appeared next to Valeria, drawn by the spell the High Witch of Manhattan had cast.
Valeria faced the room. “Come home, Joan,” she said, and a portal shimmered to life behind her.
Joan lunged as Valeria unceremoniously pushed Mik through it. Lunged and hit an air barrier that one of Valeria’s henchmen had cast before they all filed through. She rebounded back into Wren’s arms, and though Astoria’s sword slashed down in fury, shattering the spell, Valeria was too fast.
The portal closed, popping them out of existence, and the hotel room returned to silence.
Every time Joan thought they might be in a reprieve, the universe stepped on her neck. For two weeks, Mik falling back into the hands of either Fiona or the Greenwoods had been her biggest fear, and now it had come to pass.
Joan hadn’t been tortured for two days for this. She had not nearly died to let this go.
“Portal me in,” Joan said in a strangled voice. “Take me to the Greenwood Mansion.”