Chapter 10
TEN
Clustered together in an alley, Joan, CZ, and Abel filled Grace in on what little they knew.
Grace was tapping her foot, face unreadable.
“You definitely need a witch to help you,” she said.
“You’ll have to take me to Mik, and I’ll do what I can to suppress the magic a little, and then we can figure out how to determine if there’s still some sort of tether in place.
Or I can try to rummage around in their memories like someone did in Joan’s. ”
Joan relaxed with each confident word Grace uttered. Grace clearly possessed the ability to stop another attack. CZ looked absolutely starstruck by the woman.
“Wait,” Abel said suddenly. “Someone rooted around in Joan’s head.”
The three of them looked at him questioningly. He grabbed CZ’s arm to usher them all rapidly through the market, walking backward for a second to hiss at them. “Someone rooted around in Joan’s head, a head that knows exactly where Mik is at this moment, totally alone.”
CZ whirled on Joan, and panic had transformed his face. Mik, all alone. Mik, being taken again. They had known each other a sum total of two days but—
“We can’t let anything happen to them,” CZ said.
“Human subway’s an hour, but if I take the HERMES, I don’t know how to bring them back with me, and I’m not—I mean, if there is an intruder, I don’t think I can…” Joan trailed off in a bit of a breathless gasp as the four of them picked up speed, now running for one of the boundaries of the market.
I don’t think I can protect them. Joan wasn’t like Grace, who could cast, or Abel and CZ, who could rip a person apart.
She couldn’t protect the people who mattered to her.
Desperate tears welled in her eyes, an overload of frustrated helplessness. “How fast can you run there?” she asked CZ urgently.
“Less than twenty minutes,” CZ said. “But where do we bring them after? My apartment isn’t safe anymore.”
They burst through the wards, moving at a dead sprint for the witches and a casual jog for the vampires, ignoring the alarmed looks they were getting. The park was deep and endless in the darkness around them.
“My apartment,” Grace said without hesitation, and listed an address nearby in Bay Ridge. “My wards are strong. We’ll meet you there. And be careful.”
If Grace was the spellmaker behind all this, they’d be delivering Mik right into her waiting hands.
But Joan didn’t know where else they could possibly move Mik.
CZ sent a questioning glance in Abel’s direction.
“I’m not sending my little brother into potential danger alone,” Abel said. “Mom and Dad and even Aunt Lila would kill me. I’m with you.”
CZ’s fingertips brushed Joan’s bare arm lightly in reassurance, and then the brothers were gone.
After pausing so Grace and Joan could put their hands on their knees and gasp a bit in tandem, Grace led the way to her nearby apartment.
It was on the fifth floor of a building in Bay Ridge, and they were both wiped enough that they took the little elevator rather than attempt the stairs.
“Hanging out with vampires makes me feel like shit,” Grace grumbled, fanning herself with a hand.
“Tell me about it,” Joan said, slumped against the wall. “You know, I used to run track in high school?”
“And how long ago was high school?”
“Long enough that I’m wheezing in an elevator,” Joan said, straightening as they hit the fifth floor and Grace exited, walking down the hallway to an apartment that fizzled with magic.
Joan concentrated for a moment, narrowing her eyes, and magic manifested like a golden web on the apartment. She whistled low, impressed, distracted at least for a second from the thought of Mik being snatched. “Those are some kick-ass wards.”
Grace didn’t look back as she opened the door, but there was a clear smile in her voice. “All my private tutoring had to be good for something. When Fiona visits, she does her best to poke holes in them. Mik should be safe here for the moment.”
“Fiona comes by often? You must be close.” Joan had run all her tutors off, eventually.
“She has an apartment in the city, New York’s better for finding odd magic jobs, but she remains based in Atlanta,” Grace said, flicking on a light in the entryway and making room for Joan to step in.
“And we are close. My dad is totally human, and my mom doesn’t have magic, though her parents can cast. It meant a lot of my exposure to the spellmaking world came through Fiona.
I wouldn’t have had half the opportunities I’ve had if not for her. She works really hard, you know.”
There was something accusatory about Grace’s tone. “I never said she didn’t.”
“Tell that to your aunt. Fiona’s been gunning for an actual job for years.
Spellmaking isn’t particularly lucrative unless you work in academia, which Fiona hates, or as a private contractor for corporations, and those positions go to people with family connections,” Grace said bitterly.
“She can only make a living by pulling in jobs here in the city, but she can’t afford to live here full-time either and has to rent it out half the year. ”
“Grace, I know my aunt is watching you two closely. If you help with this spell, I’m sure she’ll help Fiona get placed,” Joan said. She was pretty used to people taking out their Greenwood family grudges on her. It went hand in hand with being the least intimidating Greenwood.
“Sorry,” Grace said after a beat. “I guess that was a lot. It’s just…
I know Fiona can be a bit cold, but underneath she’s one of the best and most generous people I know.
I’d do anything to help her. We used to dream of this city together.
I gave her a stupid snow globe of it, some tourist nonsense, back when I was still a kid in Georgia, and she used to bring it out all the time to show people. ”
“It’s no problem.” Joan toed off her shoes, massaging her still-burning thighs.
The apartment was actually fairly well sized, with a hallway that bent at an angle with a few doors off it, and a kitchen and living room in front of her.
It was very sparsely furnished. A window at the back of the kitchen showed, way off in the distance, the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge lit up in the night.
“Water? There’s no use standing there worrying,” Grace said, stepping into the kitchen and placing her produce bag on the counter. “They’ll probably text soon to confirm if they have Mik. Can CZ run back with them?”
Joan shuddered. “A piggyback ride from CZ at high speeds is a harrowing experience, but yes, it’s possible.” She had mainly done it drunk, so hopefully Mik would fare better sober. Joan accepted the glass of water, and the two of them stood there in the kitchen, leaning against the counter.
Grace seemed unconcerned with the silence, so Joan settled into it, her mind beginning to drift. Someone had clearly connected Joan to Mik, which was a distressing thought. Joan didn’t think she’d left any obvious trails—Grace was her loosest end, and she was now part of the inner circle.
“Oh!” Grace said, thunking her empty glass down on the counter. “My roommate!”
Joan came back to herself, dreaming suddenly of yet another person who might rat them all out. “Should I tell the boys not to come here?”
“No, she won’t mind, and she can keep a secret—There you are, Billy.”
Grace was looking over Joan’s shoulder, and Joan spun around to see a ghost floating in the entryway to the kitchen, hair dark and wild around her, eyes golden and shaped like a hawk’s.
The ghost, Billy, watched Joan curiously. “Finally,” she said, “I’ve been waiting so long.” Then she phased through the wall behind her and disappeared into nothing.
“You get used to her,” Grace said with a smile. “She’s a freaky little fucker, but she came with the apartment, and the haunting rumors kept the rent absurdly low, especially for a three-bedroom. Two thousand a month.”
“Three bedrooms for two thousand—” Joan began, maybe a few pitches too loud, when her phone buzzed, and she fumbled it out expeditiously to see a text from CZ.
Got Mik, they’re fine.
Very Grumpy
On our way
Joan: thank jeebus. Pls hurry
CZ: I am breaking world records rn
“They’re fine,” Joan said, glancing up at Grace, who was frowning. “Are you upset that they’re fine?”
“No, of course not. But it does make me wonder… this person had a head start, so why didn’t they grab Mik?” Grace asked. “What stood in their way?”
“Or who,” Joan said. “Two powerful vampires might be enough to deter a singular witch. Or… we’re assuming that the person who invaded my mind was after Mik specifically, but we don’t know that for sure. They could be after something else up there.” Joan rapped her knuckles on her skull.
“You are a Greenwood, I guess,” Grace said. “I’d jump into your head if I found you in the Night Market and wanted to know what your parents and aunt were up to. What are they up to?”
Joan reclaimed her glass of water. It was a weirdly reassuring thought that she might have been attacked because of her last name and not because someone knew about Mik.
“I’m really taking a swing trusting you.
You actually could be an ingenious villain who has just had everything you ever wanted handed to you on a silver platter.
Mik’s coming here; I’m about to spill family secrets. ”
“That’s true,” Grace said, in the no-bullshit way Joan was coming to know and like a great deal.
“You have absolutely no way of knowing if I’m trustworthy, but it kind of feels too late to back out now.
So, while we wait for your vampires, please let me know what your family is planning next.
I promise I won’t tell anyone else, if that helps. I keep my word.”
A promise. We aren’t children, Joan.
But Joan didn’t want to live like her aunt did, always on the lookout. Joan still wanted to believe people could make promises to one another and keep them.