Chapter 19
NINETEEN
Two lonely days later, Joan had regained enough strength that they could bring in a healer to cast over her, and not long after that, she was cleared to go home, albeit with two of the fingers of her right hand still taped together for another week. Those injuries were resistant to magic.
Molly had come by frequently and smuggled Joan her phone, so she could at least text CZ.
Mik? Joan asked, once she’d confirmed CZ and his family were alright.
Not in Grace’s apartment. I’m sorry, Jo, I haven’t been able to find them.
Joan didn’t want to ask her next question, but it felt like cowardice not to. Casualties from the market?
CZ’s response was quick. No fatalities, some injuries and huge property damage. The market is shut down, which is going to completely screw the livelihoods of so many people, but we’ll come together and rebuild. Mik didn’t die there, but I don’t know where they are.
Not dead. Not dead at least. Mik was not dead. Probably. Joan could find them as soon as they let her out of this godsdamn bed.
CZ: I’ll come see you once you’re out of the heavily guarded hospital
Joan: everyone keeps saying they’re glad I’m not dead. It feels weird.
CZ: Being perceived? Please make no mistake, once I see you I am grabbing you in my arms and never letting go. I can’t believe you were so stupid
Joan: can’t you?
CZ: Hush
Jo, you’re absolutely singular to me, I hope you know that. Idgaf about your family and what they think. I can’t lose you, okay? It’s all about me.
Joan: you’re being sappy
CZ: I literally love u bro
Joan: bro
“If you’re smiling like that, you must be texting CZ,” Grace said, pushing open the door.
Joan nearly ripped her IVs out in her haste to swing her legs off the bed, sniffling back some tears. “Shit, Grace. I’m so sorry.”
Grace was in street clothes, and there were no bandages in sight, but she looked absolutely exhausted. She strode over faster than Joan could stand and, to Joan’s ever-loving surprise, threw herself into Joan’s arms.
Grace squeezed, hard. “I’m really glad you didn’t die,” she whispered. “Thank you for doing that with me. Molly says we saved a lot of people. Though she also for some reason is under the impression I tried to stop you.”
“Please tell me you furthered that lie,” Joan said.
“I promptly refuted it. It was my idea in the first place, and we did it together.”
Joan groaned. “Grace, you know they can’t really get mad at me—I was trying to protect you.”
“And who was going to protect you?” Grace said. “No, I know I’ve been harsh with you, but I’m not going to hang you out to dry.”
Joan breathed slowly, trying to stifle the tears.
“Mik is missing,” Joan murmured into Grace’s shirt.
Grace stiffened. “We’ll find them. I’m getting out today, and I can do a tracking spell once I get back to my apartment.”
“You’re always coming up with a plan.”
“My last one nearly killed us.”
“I brought half the idea to the table. Are you okay to cast?”
“I don’t know,” Grace said after a pause.
“I apparently tolerated magic worse than you did but responded more quickly to healing spells. I’m tired.
Bone-tired. And my job is probably so pissed at me for missing a week.
We have to keep going, right? We already left them alone in the world for eight days. ”
Eight days with no phone, cards, cash, IDs, and they hadn’t returned to Grace’s apartment.
“I’ll meet you at your place this evening,” Joan said.
Grace was still hugging Joan. “I doubt your family is going to let you out of the house for a good long while.”
Joan hadn’t realized how badly she needed a hug, a real one, unconditional and fond, but judging by Grace’s grip, Grace needed it too.
“Grace,” Joan whispered into her hair.
“Mmm?”
“Let’s never do that again.”
Grace laughed. It sounded a little wet. Joan pretended not to feel the tears falling on the bare skin above her hospital gown. “Is it awful that it was kind of incredible?”
New York opening ancient eyes, the feeling of power, the whole city in her fist. “I felt invincible. And you—you were amazing. Who else would be able to adapt on the fly well enough to keep up with all that magic? I can’t believe you’re thinking about leaving spellmaking behind. You could do it on the side.”
“As if anyone would leave me be if I did. Besides, I’m good, sure, but I wouldn’t say incredible or prodigy or whatever; the world will be quite alright without my spells.”
Joan tightened her grip. What was it with Mik and Grace that made them think they weren’t important to the world? Joan had never met such tenacious, loving, generous people. “I don’t know if it would be, Grace. I certainly wouldn’t be.”
Grace’s breath in was long and shuddering. She drew back finally and dug around in the pocket of her jeans, before pulling out a ring. Joan’s ring, with a black pearl inset into its gold band.
“I kept it on me,” Grace explained, clearing her throat and blinking a few times to clear the sheen on her eyes.
Joan would let this go for now, but she had to find a way to get Grace to understand how extraordinary she was. “Does it… I mean, does it work?”
“I think so,” Grace said. “There’s magic in it, but I don’t know if I’d put it on. That much magic in a mind ward? I’m not really sure what it might do to a regular person. I’ll take it back to my apartment and hide it somewhere until we figure out what to do with it.”
Joan swallowed thickly. “We?”
Grace put the ring back in her pocket. “What, you’re gonna ditch me now that we’re in a ton of trouble with your family? No, we’re a we, Joan. You and me and Mik, at minimum, but CZ and Abel too.”
“At least until we fix this,” Joan said.
Grace shook her head. “I don’t know, I think I’ll have your back as long as you’ll let me. I’m sorry I was being such a secretive dick about things.”
Joan lowered her voice, though the room was empty save for them. “Right, gods, I forgot. Fiona, what’s that all about?”
“I started to suspect when I went in Mik’s head…
The spell there had a certain feeling to it.
Spellmakers all have a kind of signature that they leave on the spells they create, and the memory wipe on Mik felt familiar,” Grace said.
“But it wasn’t just that. Why could Mik cast in the market?
How does the spell on them regenerate with such dedicated focus?
It’s a variation on a pocket realm—she changed the physics of magic around them so that the only function of the realm is to keep drawing magic into the spell, and in doing so made it possible for them to circumvent the wards in the market, just a little. ”
That was… genius.
“I thought about it forever, because I didn’t want to make an accusation unless I was sure.
But Fiona’s always been fascinated by New York’s Night Market, it’s the biggest one in the country, it’s why she lives in the city half the time.
There’s work to be found there, and when I got in that tent, I could feel the remnants of her magic, even several days old.
She’d been there. She’s good with pocket realms, like, really good.
It’s her specialty. And she’s been researching a cure for magic poisoning for forever, which is not too far off the question of how to make a human a witch. ”
Before everything, Joan’s growing suspicions about Grace had crescendoed.
And she wanted to hug her again, believe in the best of the woman.
But Grace’s lifelong mentor being the latest suspect?
It was too close to her. I’d do anything to help her, Grace had said once.
Fiona was struggling to find work. Would Grace create a spell that was such a mystery, Fiona conveniently got called before the Greenwoods?
“There’s one more thing,” Grace said. “The night someone rifled through your head, Fiona was the friend I met in the market. She left an hour before you got there.”
There were voices in the hallway, and it sounded like Molly and Nate were among them.
Joan’s mind whizzed through the mental calculus. It didn’t add up in Grace’s favor, but Joan’s gut was still a steady light in the darkness. Even if it was nothing more than wishful thinking, Joan wanted to trust Grace. She had to trust Grace.
“Tonight,” Joan said quickly. “I’ll meet you tonight; we can talk more then.”
Molly and Nate entered the room with Joan’s doctor in tow, rolling a wheelchair, their laughter dying down as they saw Grace in there.
“Glad you’re okay,” Grace said as goodbye, and then politely made her way out the door.
Molly gave her a quick smile before turning back to Joan with a suggestive look on her face.
Joan had forgotten Molly thought they were in love. “Leave off it.”
“I didn’t say a single word,” Molly replied. “Ready to go home?”
Joan really wasn’t, but it would be easier to break out of her family’s house than this hospital. She slid off the bed. “Let’s go.” She pointed at the dahlias. “Can I bring those?”
“Of course,” said Joan’s doctor, a Black woman in blue attending scrubs. “They aren’t the hospital’s.”
“I guess I never thanked you for them, Molly,” Joan said, seating herself in the wheelchair.
“Not mine either,” Molly said.
“Astoria dropped them off while you were both still asleep,” Nate said. He leaned in and kissed the side of Molly’s head. Joan decided not to gag and make fun of them, mainly because she was still trying to process that Astoria had brought her favorite flowers.
And single-handedly rescued her from a death of her own creation in the market.
Molly’s eyebrows had rocketed up her face. “Is there something there? Was I wrong about Grace?”
“You are absolutely wrong about Grace, but there’s also definitely not a thing with Astoria.” Joan scoffed and attempted to wheel herself one-handed out the door, nearly running over Nate’s toes in the process. Astoria has a clear and unrequited crush on her best friend.
Molly gained control of Joan’s wheelchair before anyone could suffer further injuries. “Sure, Joan, whatever you say. Nate, please grab that vase of flowers.”
“Yes, sir,” Nate said, picking up the glass vase.
Molly teased her all the way to the taxi. Inside, Joan had an abysmally short amount of time to try and figure out what she’d say to her father and aunt.
She hadn’t seen Merlin, Valeria, or Selene since Joan’s argument with her mother.
Whatever was waiting for her at that house… it wouldn’t be good.