Chapter 4 #2
Anything, anything they could. Joan had seen her family screw people over again and again.
Humans, Moon Creatures, ancients, even other witches were all pawns for the Greenwoods to move across a board, to use and discard.
No one wanted to be the one who lost the Greenwoods their five-hundred-year legacy of power, so anything was fair game.
Even holding a human against their will and tormenting them with magical experiments to reverse engineer this spell.
Joan had watched Valeria and Merlin ruin reputations, run families out of the city, mandate that vampires turn new vampires only within strict quotas, and even put attendance limits on certain fae revels to keep too many of them from banding together at once. All in the name of order. Power.
“You have no idea what kind of awful things they’ll do to stay on top of the magic world,” CZ said bitterly. The Greenwoods had kept their boots on the necks of the LaMortes for centuries. “Plus, you can’t afford to keep channeling magic and making yourself sick.”
“We should keep you here,” Joan continued, before swallowing past the tightness in her throat. “At least until I determine if my family can come up with a counterspell or a cure or whatever, and then I’ll steal it. Just… give us some time. Stay here.”
“But—”
“Mik, I know we haven’t known each other long, but I’d like to think we’re friends now,” CZ said.
“A stretch,” Mik muttered.
“And as your friend, I am asking you to give us a few days. I know maybe you can’t parse the magnitude of how fucked we all are, but Joan and I are really fucked if we’re found harboring you, and we have no idea what happens if someone else finds you.
But, at minimum, if whoever took you originally gets their hands on you, they will probably continue whatever sick experiment they started.
So. Stay inside. It’s a nice apartment—isn’t it a nice apartment, Joan? ”
“It’s dusty,” Joan said. “But nice.”
“Dusty but nice!” CZ exclaimed.
Mik, after a long moment of silence, grunted. Joan chose to believe this was acceptance and waved CZ over so they could whisper by the door.
“Okay, you need to subtly ask around the Night Market to find out what happened to Mik and their coworker a week ago,” Joan said as they bent their heads together.
“And you need to use your big, sexy brain to figure out how to undo this, before the magic poisons them and makes them puke their organs out,” CZ said, bobbing his head along vigorously.
“I am not qualified for that,” Joan said. “And I can’t cast anything that will undo this spell, not without chaotic, sets-fire-to-things consequences.”
“But you’ve gotta know something? What leads does your family have?”
Nothing, apparently. They were spinning their wheels; they didn’t even know that this rumored human-turned-witch was someone in their early twenties who clearly hadn’t wanted this.
They were looking for a witch and human like they might be in cahoots, when they should be looking for a solo witch with completely unknown intentions who was willing to kidnap to reach their goals.
All they had was…
Grace Collins, the spellmaker. And if pressed, maybe Fiona could be motivated to help Mik, if Joan could promise her the right things. But Grace was apparently the more skilled of the two.
“I’ve maybe got something,” Joan said begrudgingly.
“Perfect, keep me updated,” CZ said. “I’m heading back to the market before it closes to see if Mik’s disappearance made any ripples. You stay here and watch them.”
“What? I have my own house I snuck out of,” Joan protested, but CZ was already putting shoes on. It wasn’t fair; he’d had too long to think this all through, and Joan’s feeble brain was only now catching up.
“Mik, Joan’s gonna take care of you!” CZ called out. “Be back soon!”
Another groan.
“Have fun!” CZ said cheerily, and shut the door in Joan’s face.
Joan risked leaving Mik alone long enough to run to a twenty-four-hour pharmacy to get anti-nausea meds and whatever food she could get her hands on, since CZ’s fridge was mainly décor.
Décor filled with blood bags he got on ration via one of the many vampire bars that regulated blood distribution.
Joan felt it was best Mik not look in there.
After a very brief crash course on the magic world and spellcasting specifically—This shit is real?
Yes. You’re like an actual witch? Yes. With a broom?
That’s a myth. But you cast spells. Witches do, yes, but I specifically can’t control my spells, so I usually avoid them.
That sucks. Thanks—they watched TV while waiting for the meds to kick in and swapped backstories.
Joan was the misunderstood artist child of a prominent witch family; Mik was the second-generation immigrant child of two humans from Mongolia whom their parents had pinned their hopes and dreams onto, before they failed them by going into publishing.
Mik and Joan argued at various housewives in the show, then passed completely the fuck out before CZ returned, almost entirely empty-handed.
Two missing humans wasn’t a big deal in the market.
Humans went missing all the time—dinner for a vampire, a toy for the fae.
Victims of their own curiosity. Truthfully, Joan wasn’t optimistic Mik’s coworker had survived.
But everyone was still buzzing with the news that some human had ascended.
Rumors were beginning to spiral out of control.
Mik was the greatest con artist of their generation.
Mik actually wasn’t a witch. Mik was a four-headed rat that had been blasted with magic by accident one evening and mutated.
Joan was quite fond of this last theory, and even Mik found it a little funny.
The next morning, Joan traded off the babysitting shift with CZ after confirming Mik’s nausea had faded, fairly certain they’d be okay so long as they stayed calm.
They seemed to channel only when upset, like their body was unhappy with the world and reached out to magic to change it until Joan managed to distract them or talk them down.
All they had to do was keep Mik temporarily calm.
And around enough light that they didn’t panic and accidentally summon more orbs.
And locked up in a strange man’s apartment.
Joan returned to her own family with haste.
She entered through the front door this time and marched straight for Molly’s room, only to find it empty and bare. Unlived in.
It was almost eight AM, and enough of the house had risen that Joan could go down to the kitchen, corner the chef—very nicely—and ask about Molly’s whereabouts.
“She’s likely at home, Miss Joan,” the cook said, pulling out a container of oatmeal.
“She’s not up there,” Joan countered.
“I mean her home in Tribeca, with her boyfriend.” The chef was too familiar with the Greenwoods to be much bothered by Joan.
“Molly moved out?” Joan blurted in shock. “And in with Nate?”
“A few months ago,” the chef said, finally sparing the youngest Greenwood a pitying glance.
Oh, Joan was terribly out of the loop. She was so out of the loop, she didn’t even know what the loop was.
“Do you have an address?” Joan asked, and waited impatiently for the chef to write it down for her before she ran upstairs to brush her teeth, change again, and pull up the rope still dangling from her balcony.
She fled the house as she saw her father emerging from his suite, his eyebrows furrowing at the sight of her.
“Joan, where are you off to?”
Nowhere was her best and most pedantic answer.
“Did you eat breakfast? I’m about to eat; we should chat about your job prospects.”
“I’m busy.”
“Doing what?”
“Meeting CZ.”
Merlin’s face transformed into something long-suffering, the beginning of an argument about who Joan spent her time with that they’d had one thousand times already.
Didn’t he ever get tired of hating absolutely everything Joan did?
Everyone she chose to hang out with? Couldn’t he, just once, say she had done something right?
Worse, why did she keep giving him chances?
She still lived with the family, despite how much she ragged on them.
She still accepted their money. She still yearned to find her place among them.
She still hoped when Merlin opened his mouth, he might be saying something perfectly normal instead of starting a fight.
“There are some people I want to introduce you to tonight who might be a better use of your time than running around the city with your vampire.”
“I’m busy,” Joan repeated, and luckily some random witch in her family’s employ walked past, distracting Merlin long enough that she could book it out the door.
In Tribeca, Molly’s town house was on a quieter side street, and Joan stormed up the steps to pound on the door.
Molly’s boyfriend of over a year—at least Joan knew that—answered, a puzzled but kind smile on his face.
“Joan? Welcome back,” he said. He was in work attire, a businessman like Molly. His family owned some hospitals, Joan thought. His curly hair was only a few shades darker than his warm-brown skin.
“Thanks, Nate,” Joan said, heart still beating a little too fast from talking to Merlin. She really needed to schedule an appointment with her therapist. “Is Molly home? I need to talk to her.”
Nate shifted out of the way so Joan could step inside. It was a very cute house, tastefully decorated in warm tones, and Joan fought against her admiration so she could remain pissed off her sister hadn’t told her about this.
Molly was sitting at the breakfast nook, nursing some coffee, when Joan walked in.
“Uh-oh,” Molly said, putting down her phone.
“You didn’t tell me you moved out,” Joan accused, trying not to sound sulky or get too distracted by the gorgeous tile backsplash in the kitchen.
“I didn’t think you’d come back to New York if you knew,” Molly admitted.
“And what did you think I’d do once I got back and realized?”