Chapter 37
THIRTY-SEVEN
Ash drifted like snow, down through the hole in the ceiling, raining on the people still inside.
CZ’s grip on Joan’s hands was firm. They all coughed in the dust, taking stock of one another. Joan, alive. Grace, Mik, Wren, alive. Astoria, gray with ash, but alive. CZ, as alive as he ever was.
And Joan’s family, covered in Valeria’s blood, with Ronnie holding Valeria in her lap, and Molly sitting next to them, shuddering, and Merlin and Selene standing over them all.
Valeria was blinking slowly, lips ashen.
Merlin let out a disbelieving breath. “Joan, that was—”
“Incredible,” Selene finished. “We didn’t know you could do that.”
“She tried to tell you,” Molly said. “At the hospital, she tried.”
Ronnie’s eerie blue eyes unnerved Joan, though the woman was silent, only clutching Valeria to her, both of them still shrouded in Ronnie’s stasis magic.
Merlin brushed the dirt from his shirt, stepped closer.
Joan’s step back was involuntary. The way her friends shifted closer to her, she knew, was not.
Merlin didn’t seem to care; he was turning, inspecting the ceiling. “The Greenwoods come out on top again,” he said with a little laugh. He laughed harder. Cleared his throat. Transitioned in an instant from grateful relief to something more businesslike.
“Valeria needs a hospital. In the interim we’ll need to make some sort of public statement. Joan, everyone will want to talk to you about what you did, so we’ll move into one of the other properties and make it our home base.”
“This guy really doesn’t change, does he?” CZ muttered.
“Dickbag,” Astoria said firmly.
CZ looked at her in delight. “You listened to me!”
“I’m not giving any sort of statement or talking to anyone,” Joan said over them.
Merlin had fished his phone out of his pocket and was texting. “I’ll help you prepare what you’ll say,” he said, tapping away.
He had never understood no. That had always killed Joan—how did you fight against someone who just kept going? “Dad,” Joan said. “I left this house and this family. I will not do it.”
Merlin jammed his phone back in his pocket, and Joan could already see the argument stretching out in front of her. The same as it always was. But this wasn’t Joan posturing; she was not like her father.
Merlin was cut off by Valeria’s weak voice. “Listen to her, Merl,” she said, struggling to sit up with copious aid from Ronnie and several admonishments. “I think she’s serious this time.”
“She can’t be serious, that’s ludicrous,” Merlin said, arguing with his half corpse of a sister. “She can’t leave, she knows too much. She’s… she’s my daughter. What would it look like if—”
“I will destroy this family before I come back here,” Joan said. “Call my bluff, Dad.”
Selene sat down on the floor, suddenly weary. “I can’t believe you,” she whispered. “You… how do you walk away?” She looked up, something strange in her eyes. “Is it really possible to walk away?”
Merlin was struck speechless.
Valeria drew in an unsteady breath. “Well, then. I suppose we will have to choose another path.”
“Like?” Joan was shaking with rage and fatigue. She’d saved their miserable lives, and they were still going to end up on top, and the magic world would still keep wheeling on.
“You will no longer appear as part of the Greenwoods,” Valeria said, focused entirely on Joan, the ends of her hair red and clumped with blood. “You will reside in the city, still, so no one thinks a major rift has formed in the family. Only that you made a personal choice to shift residences.”
“I’m not going to play your stupid games,” Joan said impatiently.
“We will not bother you,” Valeria said, louder. “You will not join any rebellions against this family, and you will stick to whatever story we come up with to explain today’s events.”
“Aunt Val—”
“Listen, Joan, for Circe’s sake, listen for once,” Valeria snapped.
“In exchange, we will not, in any way, shape, or form, go after or otherwise harass Mik Batbayar, Grace Collins, CZ LaMorte, or either of the Californians you seem to have befriended. We will pretend that your involvement never happened. None of you will ever speak of it—not even you, Wardwell. And Grace, you will not complete the spell on Mik and disseminate it.” She heaved a breath. “Do we have a deal?”
Joan’s silence in exchange for the safety of her friends. She barely had to think about it, but it wasn’t just her silence she was promising. She looked around at her friends. No one contradicted Joan’s aunt. The message from them was clear: Your choice.
“I won’t blame Moon Creatures,” Joan said, finding strength. “For this or the market.”
“Fine,” Valeria said.
“And you’ll pay reparations to them, the ones whose market stalls you destroyed. You’ll cover their lost wages, out of the Greenwoods’ personal coffers,” she added.
“This is ridiculous,” Merlin said, throwing up a hand.
“And you will never again violate the sovereignty of the Moon Creatures by pushing into our territory and conducting a raid without permission from our individual governing bodies,” CZ said firmly.
Merlin’s face was the perfect picture of disgust. “We’re never agreeing to this. Where do you even intend to go, Joan?”
“She’s coming home with me,” Grace said, stubborn chin held high. She addressed Joan: “Brooklyn is farther away from your family than CZ’s place in Hell’s Kitchen. One of my rooms is yours, if you want it.”
Joan did want it. Badly. She wanted it more than she’d realized until right this moment.
A quiet life in Bay Ridge with Grace and her enigmatic ghost roommate.
She’d willingly get scared by Billy every day for the rest of forever for that privilege.
She was too choked up to speak, so she only nodded at the offer.
“And Mik,” Grace said, “the last room’s yours, if you want it.”
Mik, much less restrained, threw their arms around Grace, knocking the wind out of her. “Thank god,” they said. “I was worried I was about to get left behind.”
Grace hugged Mik back. “Never.”
“Touching as this is, the point remains that we will certainly not be funneling money into the hands of vampires and fae,” Merlin said. “All magical creatures fall under the Greenwoods’ jurisdiction; there is no sovereignty to violate.”
“Then you don’t have a deal,” Joan replied.
“Astoria gets to go home and tell her mother all about how the Greenwoods nearly crumbled today and what she saw of Fiona’s spell before we sealed Mik and Fiona eviscerated herself.
CZ tells his parents, Grace finishes the work, and I tell everyone I can find every last dirty Greenwood secret. ” Abel had already asked for them.
“My mother will love this,” Astoria said helpfully. “I can call her right now.”
“I’m not going to negotiate with the lot of you,” Merlin snarled.
“Then it’s a good thing you aren’t the one in charge here,” CZ said.
“Dickbag,” Mik chimed in. The room looked at them, and they held up their hands. “Sorry, got carried away, still not super fluent in magic-world etiquette.”
Joan smothered a smile. “We’re talking to Valeria.”
Valeria’s soft laugh cut the tension in the room before Merlin could go on. “You’re a Greenwood to your core, Joan. You can leave us, but we’ll never leave you,” she said, and before Joan could find some way to violently refute that statement, Valeria seemed to decide something.
“I know you all think I’m unreasonable,” she said. “But ruling isn’t as easy as you think. You make tough decisions to protect people. I did not enjoy invading the market.”
“Too little, too late,” CZ snarled, his canines flashing.
Valeria sighed. “You have a deal. We’ll be in touch with your family, LaMorte, along with the other leaders among the Moon Creatures, to discuss payment for those displaced.”
Merlin started turning quite red in the face.
“Quiet, Merlin,” Valeria said, groaning softly as she tried to sit up better. “They have us beat. We’re in a precarious position, and they could ruin the family. Now everyone look away—I’ve nearly died, and I’d like to kiss my wife.”
In the aftermath of that acquiescence, the group bumbled around for a few seconds, bumping into one another as they navigated the torn-up floor to flee before Valeria could change her mind.
Joan turned at the Greenwood threshold, looking back at her family trying to piece themselves back together. They’d be alright; they’d live. Molly met her eyes. Put her hand to her ear in the universal symbol for call me.
Joan smiled back.