Chapter 5 #2
Okay, here went nothing. Joan focused intensely on her food to avoid looking at Grace and seeming too eager.
If they couldn’t “fix” Mik entirely, they could at least help make it so their life wasn’t so miserable and sickening.
“And how would one make it tolerable? Do we at least know the answer to that, if not any of the other bits?”
Grace didn’t look amused, not at all. “What are you up to?”
“Lunch, mainly.”
“You’re here for my help.”
“They’re innocent questions.”
“I kind of doubt you’re innocent though.”
“You wound me, Grace Collins. I’m wounded,” Joan said, even as her mind danced a little jig, looking for a rip cord to get out of this conversation.
Joan was two seconds from spilling her drink on herself so she’d have an excuse to skitter away like a bug up a wall when Grace’s flinty stare flicked away, her displeasure melted into something more accommodating. Joan had seen it many times—people giving up on trying to figure her out.
“Reducing the harm of magic instead of blocking it entirely?” Grace’s fingers were back to drumming; her gaze had become distant, far-off, as she returned to Joan’s question.
“In some ways, that’s an old question. Magic poisoning doesn’t just affect humans—it can rip through a witch too if they channel more than they’re naturally built to.
No one’s answered it though. The pain we feel is the body’s method of saving us from potential death; it’s critical.
That’s Fiona’s research interest, and she’s on the cutting edge of it, but even she hasn’t cracked it.
It’s hard to imagine some random did it before us. ”
“Us?”
Grace snapped back to the table abruptly, gaze clearing. “I work with Fiona a lot. I think she’s hoping that if she never cracks magic poisoning, I will. But nonetheless, you’re the first person to ask me these very good questions.”
Joan gave a nervous laugh, aiming for oh, you know me, instead of I am hiding a person in Manhattan. “I’m an outside-the-box thinker.”
“Makes sense,” Grace said. “What with your own unusual magic.”
Joan was piling dirty napkins onto her plate, longing for a moist towelette to wipe her greasy fingers. “What about my magic?”
Grace waved a vague hand. “You don’t have any barrier at all. A current of magic does not enter you and take a new shape; when a current of magic enters you, it exits in the exact same form. Fi and I have never even heard of anything like this.”
“How do you know that?”
“I can see and predict magic without the intervention of magical tools.”
“Huh,” Joan said unintelligently. Though Joan could also naturally see magic, she couldn’t see herself from a third-party view and had never seen herself cast successfully, nor paid too much attention.
She hadn’t heard this about her channeling before and had no idea what any of it meant.
But that wasn’t her priority at the moment; Mik was.
Grace had taught her two key facts: Someone could track Mik with enough effort, and Mik must be somehow linked to some broader power source or perhaps even the caster themself. Maybe they could follow that thread back to the source.
Grace sighed, clearly mistaking Joan’s furious hamster wheel thinking for disengagement.
“I’m boring you, and my lunch is nearly over.
My best guess is that the way to reverse or mitigate the effects is the same as stopping the spell as a whole—seal the witch’s magic.
We have the spell for that. Essentially, a team of witches can thicken that barrier so the subject can’t channel.
If you can locate this person, you can seal them.
But I’ve told your family all this already, before they made me trek all the way to the Upper East Side.
So has Fiona, so have all the spellmakers the Greenwoods have called up.
The other problems, how to keep the magic from corroding a person, they’re all secondary to this fix.
I know it doesn’t help track down the witch who did this, but it would undo whatever was done to this human. ”
It took Joan’s brain, stumbling toddler that it was, an embarrassingly long time to catch up to the implications of Grace’s statement.
“If it’s that simple, why are they making all this fuss about figuring out how the spell works?” Joan asked, dread settling in her. Valeria had said…
Grace gave her another Look. One that was equal parts confusion and exasperation. “Is this a test?”
“I am genuinely asking,” Joan said, desperately afraid of the answer. “If they know how to undo it, why do they need the spell recreated at all? They can seal people to control the consequences of a spell like this being released.”
Grace rose from the table. “Why do they need a spell to turn humans into witches? Gee, I don’t know, Greenwood, maybe to turn humans into witches?”
Valeria had claimed—and Selene had said… but Merlin. Merlin had stated the obvious. It didn’t make sense why Valeria would say they weren’t going to recklessly turn humans and then commission the spell.
But maybe the operative word had been recklessly.
Valeria didn’t do anything without careful consideration, but that wasn’t a guarantee she was never going to do the thing.
And with California after the spell, it seemed all the more likely Aunt Val’s restraint had been little more than a stall.
Grace could be lying, but as Joan sized her up, every horrible thing her family had ever done stacked the scales.
It was much more believable that the Greenwoods really were looking for a way to capitalize on this spell, no matter what they’d said last night.
Hell, since Joan had left the room yesterday, they’d also planned a party and determined Astoria Wardwell would be coming to town.
Joan wasn’t necessarily the first person they’d tell if they had plans to use the spell to create loyal followers.
It didn’t even seem like they cared about motive.
Grace could chalk it up to a witch wanting to sell the spell for incredible wealth, but if that were the case, wouldn’t they have gone public by now?
Mik was an escapee, and the spell on them was unfinished, but even a partially finished spell would be worth an incredible amount of money.
It made Joan think there was something else at play.
“Grace,” Joan said, as the other woman turned away. “Do you think it’s right? Doing this?” Do you think it’s okay? Because for Mik, it seemed like torture.
Grace lifted a shoulder, dropped it. “I told you all at your house—I don’t think this is magic to be trifled with. But I don’t set the moral code of the witch world, people like the Greenwoods and Wardwells do. The rest of us are cogs in a machine; ethics don’t factor into my ability to turn.”
“But they should,” Joan said. “It should be your choice.”
Grace pulled her purse up higher on her shoulder and snorted.
“Like working for the Greenwoods is ‘my choice’? No, Joan. When your family calls, the magic world bends. It doesn’t matter if I work for Manhattan or Queens or Brooklyn—I’m only free if I stay out of the witch world entirely.
” She gave a half wave. “I’m only free if I coven break and turn my back on everything.
This has been profoundly interesting. See you around. ”
“Wait—Grace, those aren’t your only options,” Joan said, standing in a rush. Coven breaking was a serious split from one’s family, community, or state at large. The term covered both a self-imposed, informal exile and something more official.
“Is this where you say I could work for you specifically?” Grace called over her shoulder, not breaking stride. “Pass. You’re clearly after something, and I don’t like being used.”
No! Joan wanted to scream, left behind with her crumbs and her doubts.
This whole lunch soured in her mind. She had forced that woman to come here and talk to her.
It hadn’t been kind. It had been all sorts of desperate.
Joan was using her, but Joan didn’t have a choice in the matter.
She had to dig herself and CZ out of a Mik-size hole.
She had to dig Mik out of their own coffin. Her hands were tied.
That was probably what Merlin told himself so he could sleep at night.