Chapter 13 #2
Wren stood, breaking the tension between them with her hands on her hips. “Stop it, you two. Joan, does this mean you’re setting us loose in the city to do what we want, or are you still taking your babysitting duties seriously?”
“I assume you’d much prefer the former,” Joan replied, unsure yet what her plan was. Being by Astoria made her want to shed her skin and destroy everything, but Molly was going to be so pissed off if Joan abandoned her post.
“No, I’d actually much prefer to spend some time with you,” Wren replied. “As I’ve said, I think we’re on the same side.”
“Do you honestly? You really still think our goals are aligned here?”
Wren put out a hand to pull Astoria to her feet. “I do. Show us New York, if you want, take us to an endless stream of your favorite coffee shops, we won’t mind. Do whatever makes you feel best so you can trust us.”
Us, she said, but she still hadn’t said it out loud in front of Astoria: I want to give Moon Creatures the ability to cast. Joan couldn’t trust Wren until she knew she wasn’t aligned with Astoria, and as far as Astoria had admitted, she was nothing more than her mother’s puppet.
Wren was consistently light and positive, but there was an iron depth to her when she evaluated Joan.
Joan remembered what Astoria had said, about Wren being the clever one here.
Wren pulling the strings to get Joan today instead of Molly.
Wren being convinced, somehow, that Joan would side with her desire to give casting magic to Moon Creatures.
Wren was, of course, right. Joan knew that at this point, but she still didn’t know if those were Wren’s true intentions or a masterful obfuscation. Wren’s cleverness was only providing evidence for her capacity for betrayal.
“Come on, then,” Joan said, making her decision. She’d have to run with this whole friends close and enemies closer business. “I know just the coffee shop.”
Joan took them to four coffee shops, five bookshops, several parks, and then a street food vendor, where they happily ate street meat. By the end of the day, Joan was fairly confident she had succeeded only in tiring herself out.
Indeed, partway through, Wren had been seized by a great enthusiasm for New York City, begging to be taken to both Times Square and the Statue of Liberty, which had left Joan forging an unfortunate alliance with Astoria, who refused to go to either location.
Each time Joan had suggested their next destination, eyeing them pointedly as if to say Retire to your hotel room at any time, the devilish glint in Astoria’s eye had only flashed brighter, and Wren had only gotten herself worked up further.
The unfortunate result of which was Joan was really starting to like them.
“We do have to meet your aunt for dinner,” Wren said apologetically, after making them stop at some cheesy merch shop so she could purchase a classic I ? NY shirt.
“Oh nooo,” Joan said, leaning heavily against a wall. “But we were having so much fun.”
“We can always continue tomorrow,” Astoria deadpanned, adorned in blinking sunglasses shaped like the Statue of Liberty’s crown.
Joan reached out absently, pushing the glasses higher up Astoria’s nose, where they’d been slipping. “Only if you orchestrate Molly’s absence again.”
Astoria went rigid, and Joan realized what she’d done. How familiar that touch had been. She snatched her hands away, and they both went back to watching Wren, saying nothing as she babbled about key chains to bring back for Ray.
Joan dropped them off at the Greenwood Mansion, walking barely farther than the gates to see them in, Molly’s warning looming large in her mind.
“I’m pretty sure you can attend this dinner,” Wren said, pointing at the door.
“Indeed, Miss Joan’s presence has been requested,” George said, bowing low ahead of them. He’d been the one to answer the gate to let them all in, since Wren and Astoria weren’t keyed to the wards like Joan was.
“Miss Joan,” Astoria said with a snort.
“Story,” Joan shot back.
“Your mother and father have been asking for you quite urgently,” George added. “Though Miss Molly assures them you are quite alright. They insist you attend dinner tonight. Quite emphatically.”
Oh, Molly. Joan owed her a life debt. “I’m busy tonight, George.
And no one wants to see me get into an argument with them while we have guests.
” They’d deploy Joan’s mother for a fight with guests over—Merlin was harsh and to the point, but Selene was a maestro in a debate.
She’d practiced law at a top firm up until about four years ago, when she’d left for reasons Joan didn’t fully understand but suspected had to do with Merlin’s controlling tendencies.
“I would love to see an argument,” Astoria said. “In fact, it would make my night.”
Joan flipped Astoria off, swinging open the side gate. “Rot in hell, Wardwell.”
“Hopefully with you by my side, Greenwood,” Astoria called back, before the Greenwood Mansion’s yawning doorway ate them alive.
Joan returned to Bay Ridge on the human subway, relishing the long ride.
As she took the elevator up to Grace’s apartment, two pizzas in hand, Astoria and Wren’s general pleasantness couldn’t distract her for long from the issues at hand. A semisentient force that Joan had flirted with by cycling magic. Grace’s odd behavior that morning.
Mik let Joan into the apartment. CZ wasn’t around, which was devastating, because Joan was itching to catch him up on her major magical triumph. Grace was shut in her bedroom.
“She came home after work, said she needed to work on the spell to see if I have a tether to whoever did this to me, and shut the door,” Mik whispered. There was still no kitchen table, so they set the pizza on the counter, and Mik ate straight out of the box.
After the coffee shops and a sweet treat at each one, Joan wasn’t very hungry, but she pulled out a single slice for herself and bit into it, a queasy feeling rolling in her stomach.
“She seems nice though,” Mik said. “I mean, I like her. I just get the feeling…”
“She’s got a secret,” Joan finished. “Or a couple, something to do with what she saw in your head.”
“We don’t really have a choice in trusting her though?” Mik said, and there was a clear question mark at the end. Did they have a choice?
Joan, unfortunately, knew the answer was no. “Let’s have her do this tether-tracing spell and then decide from there. CZ texted to say he had a family thing and can’t be here with Abel until seven thirty or so, but then we can get this going. At least if something goes awry, we’ll have them.”
Mik grabbed another slice of pizza. “TV in the interim?”
They watched more housewives make terrible decisions and backstab one another as Joan very quietly did some tiny magic cycles, practicing letting go of magic as soon as she touched it.
It went against instinct—normally, she held magic in and tried to proportion it in little bits into her spells.
It was how she had been trained and, when they realized her spells were bursting, retrained in an attempt to get her to push less magic into her castings.
She ran the trials. If she held magic in for longer than three seconds, she started to feel nauseous.
She could really fuck up any magic map she wanted if she kept practicing, but more pressingly, she might effectively be able to cancel out spells by yanking magic from them.
With Mik’s eyes glued to the screen, Joan concentrated on looking them over, as if she could unravel the spell on Mik here and now, but there were no loose edges to pick at.
The haze of magic on them was airtight, bending at the corners like it was slipping from this reality into the next.
Joan tried anyways, trying to suck in more magic from Mik, but the spell didn’t so much as flicker. Odd.
It was seven twenty when Grace finally exited her room.
She looked tired. She’d clearly been chewing on her bottom lip. Grace was so far from the polished, put-together person Joan had come to know these last few days that she scrambled to her feet like she might physically be able to help.
“Are you okay?” Joan blurted out. “I brought pizza.”
Grace gave a tired smile as she opened the box and put a slice on a plate, eating it cold. “Fine. When are CZ and Abel coming?”
“Within the next ten minutes. Grace, are you sure you’re fine? Because you don’t really look it,” Joan said.
“Thanks.”
“And we’ve been relying on you a lot. I understand if that’s taken its toll and you need another day to rest or something, or help?
You mentioned Fiona might be willing to help us seal Mik?
We don’t know each other that well, so maybe you don’t trust us if something is wrong, but we have no interest in running you down.
” It was only when Joan said it, her rambling pouring out of her, that she really consciously registered that worry—that in the same way Joan wasn’t sure about trusting Grace, Grace wasn’t sure about trusting Joan.
Grace set her pizza down on her plate as a strange look crossed her face. “You know what the stakes are. For all of us. Your family and Fiona have already checked in with me twice to see if I’ve made progress on recreating the spell on Mik. I can’t deflect forever.”
Mik leaned back on their hands, their head resting on their shoulder. “As the person facing the highest stakes, I don’t mind another day if you need it, Grace. I really do appreciate all you’re doing for me.”
Grace’s plate hit the counter with a thunk. “Why are you being so nice to me? You don’t even know me. I could be… I don’t know. I could be downright evil. I could kick puppies in my free time.”
“I kind of think you’re supposed to be nice to everyone,” Joan said. “At least until they’re proven puppy kickers, then you rip them to shreds.”
“Mercilessly,” Mik added.
Grace bit her bottom lip hard, like she was holding in tears. Joan didn’t think she’d done anything particularly moving here, but Grace looked ready to burst. “Guys, I—”
A knock on the door cut her off, before it swung open to reveal the LaMorte brothers. They stepped inside and respectfully took off their shoes, calling greetings.
“Everything alright in here?” Abel asked.
“Grace, did you have something to say?” Joan prompted, turning back to the woman who had finished off her pizza and was scrubbing furiously at her plate.
“Nothing,” Grace said. She finished and dried off her hands. “Okay, let’s start.”