Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
The sound of Astoria’s chair shifting brought Joan back to the present, shattering her concentration as Astoria stood up, hands raised as if to cast again.
The voice disappeared.
Joan’s grip slipped, and magic slowed. The map started to stabilize as whatever Astoria was doing shored up its edges.
What the hell had happened? Joan had never channeled in a cycle at that scale before—she’d never thought such a thing would be useful, probably because she wasn’t typically faced with the need to neutralize a magic map.
Probably because she’d never really thought of magic across the entire city as having a pattern.
Definitely she’d never imagined that if she did that, magic itself would look at her.
“It’s fixing itself,” Astoria muttered at the map.
But that wouldn’t do.
That map ran on magic. It was magic, and Joan might not be able to dismantle it, but if there was no magic, it wouldn’t run.
She could see its fraying ends, so she reached out mentally, picked at a corner, and sucked in, releasing the structured magic back into the formless air.
The magic blinked out.
“What the hell—” Wren began, and Joan took this as her chance to lunge past her, half standing to slap her palm down on the paper, whispering softly under her breath.
Astoria’s hand came down on hers. Bigger, stronger, rough and scarred. Her hand curled around Joan’s to pry it off, but it was too late.
Joan smiled sweetly up at Astoria as the paper beneath her burned away, the result of a tiny light charm that, as always, went haywire the moment Joan cast it, overloading the spell and making it burst into a little flame.
“Sorry,” Joan said, her heart hammering. “Did you need that?”
She fluttered her eyelashes a few times, smiling pleasantly.
Astoria’s face was a mask of shock, and her fingers curled further around Joan’s, as if her body hadn’t gotten the message and was still trying to stop Joan’s shenanigans.
Joan looked at their entwined hands pointedly, then up at Astoria. She aimed to knock Astoria off-kilter the best way she knew how: being a shameless flirt.
“At least buy me dinner first, sweetheart. I’ll take flowers too. Dahlias are my favorite.”
Astoria’s fingers stopped their movement.
Joan watched the words process on her sweet little face.
This close, with only a foot or two of space between them, Joan could smell Astoria’s cherry soap, count her lashes, feel the cool flutter of her breath.
This close, Joan could read Astoria like an open book.
Surprise, then confusion, then a dawning realization.
Then amusement.
“You need someone to buy you dinner before you can even hold hands?” Astoria said in a low voice. “No wonder your sister was celebrating your walk of shame.”
Joan curled her fingers into a fist, thoughts of ancient magic beings scattering. “You’re not being very inclusive right now. It’s Pride Month, you know. There’s going to be a parade soon.”
“Joan Greenwood,” Astoria said softly, and her voice was so lulling. Joan felt herself drifting away on it. “What are you hiding in Brooklyn?”
Joan took an embarrassingly long time to register the question, deep as she’d fallen into Astoria’s dark hazel eyes. She blinked, jerked back, and the dizzying sense of attraction was broken.
Astoria removed her hand from Joan’s as they pulled apart, revealing a delighted-looking Wren sitting beneath and between them.
“Oh no,” Wren said. “Don’t let me interrupt this. Ray is going to kill himself when I tell him how hard you’ve been flirting, Astoria.”
Ray? A boyfriend? Had Joan’s gaydar been wrong?
That was horribly worrying. A sinking feeling settled in Joan, which was stupid, because she hated Astoria Wardwell and all she stood for.
She hated Astoria’s mother, and she hated Astoria’s smugness.
Her muscled arms. Her sword. The beauty mark by Astoria’s mouth.
The scar in the corner of her lip. Yes, this burning feeling was hatred.
“I’m not flirting,” Astoria said. “And you were right.”
“I usually am,” Wren said.
“Right about what?” Joan asked. “And who’s Ray?”
Wren brushed the ashes on the table into a neat pile. Joan had scorched the wood. Maybe she could blame the mark on Astoria so Molly wouldn’t get mad at her.
“My boyfriend,” Wren said. “Our friend.”
Astoria took this pronouncement a bit like a punch to the gut, bending slightly and then sitting back in her chair, her poker face back on. Wren didn’t seem to notice.
Joan’s unrequited-love theory was only gaining strength, and it was worse than that—Wren was in a relationship. With a mutual friend.
“And I’m right about the fact that the Greenwoods know something,” Wren continued.
“Wren suspected if we let you in on our plan, you’d stop us the moment we started to get close to something good,” Astoria said, back to being the picture of nonchalance.
“We know your family is withholding information from the broader witch community. You’ve confirmed there’s something about the Night Market in Brooklyn we should be investigating. ”
This was probably very bad news for Valeria, and it was certainly even worse news for Joan, someone else realizing the Night Market was the origin of Mik’s creation.
Joan flashed back to Janet Proctor cautioning the Greenwoods not to give in to the growing witch sentiment that they should storm the market.
That would be disastrous, but it was at least a few steps removed from Mik themself.
Selfishly, in the grand scheme of things, hearing that they hadn’t realized there was a rift above Grace’s apartment too was a huge win for Joan.
Even if she had stupidly only drawn further suspicion to the market.
“Though I’d like to know how you messed with our spell,” Wren said excitedly. “I didn’t see or sense you cast. I’ve really never heard of a witch doing complex counterspells without moving or speaking; that level of talent usually only ever stretches to common, uncomplicated spells.”
“Especially surprising, considering we heard you can’t cast,” Astoria added. “Was that a lie New York whispered into the world to hide you until some later moment? You’re more formidable than I thought.”
Joan leaned past Wren again to claim the pile of ashes, scooping it into her hand so she could walk to the kitchen and dump it in the trash. Giving her room away from Wren and Astoria. You’re more formidable than I thought. Rumors of Joan must have been more pitiful than she’d known.
They didn’t even know she had done something deliriously, unspeakably cool by sucking the magic right out of their spell. She’d messed with the magic currents across all of New York.
“Not a lie,” Joan said. “I can’t cast at all. I had nothing to do with your spell going wrong. Maybe look inward.”
When she looked up, Astoria was rubbing her temples, and Wren had propped her chin on her hand, looking curiously at Joan.
“You’re a good liar,” Astoria said, and Joan chose to interpret her tone as a begrudging compliment. “You put people at ease so effortlessly.”
“And you’re a master manipulator,” Joan replied, and she surprised even herself with the current of anger that ran through her words.
“I’ve apparently played right into your hands.
Did you orchestrate Molly needing to run out so I’d be called in?
Try and get the weakest link to snap, and all that. Like you both tried last night.”
“I have no ulterior motives with you,” Wren said. “I’ve made my intentions very clear, and I won’t lie to you. We did perhaps nudge a few things to get your sister out of the house.”
Astoria gave Wren a measured glance, then redirected the full weight of that heavy stare on Joan. “I’ve also made it clear what I’m here for. My mother wants this spell. I have been sent to get it for her. You know that. But neither of us thinks you’re the weakest link. At least, not anymore.”
But they weren’t the same intentions, Wren’s and Astoria’s, were they, and Wren’s gaze held a dare in it. Try and reveal me, it said. See what happens.
“What remains unclear are your intentions, Joan,” Astoria continued. “As I said, Wren is completely convinced you do not want New York witches to gain sole control over this new magic. So, are you an extension of your family, or do you have your own thing going on?”
Oh, how that question had always plagued Joan. Who was she, without the Greenwood name? Was she no one and nothing, or did she have her own things going for her?
Joan didn’t, in whatever form the future took, want New York, and her family especially, to gain and maintain full control over this new magic, no.
But confessing that here felt like high treason.
Trying to argue with her aunt was one thing, but publicly acting contrary to the family’s interests and loudly professing this to two Californian witches was another.
It was betrayal. It was a line she wasn’t ready to cross.
She wasn’t quite sure she’d be forgiven, and it dawned on her that, despite everything, she did want to be forgiven.
She wanted to be forgiven of every crime she’d ever committed against her family, serious or not, and to have her portrait up in the hall, and for people to recognize her at the door of her aunt’s study. She wanted to feel important.
She wanted to be important. And the thought felt dangerous, pathetic, and best left alone.
Joan straightened in the kitchen, crossed her arms, and cocked her head at the door. “I think it’s time you leave my sister’s house,” she said.
Astoria’s smile was razor-sharp, barbed wire and broken glass and the dangerous crush of the tide. “Don’t make empty threats, Greenwood.”
Joan felt, in that moment, that she was perfectly willing to burn the house down with all of them in it. That was how Astoria made her feel, like she was dangerous too. Like she had power too.