Excerpt: AN UNLIKELY COVEN by AM Kvita

ONE

Joan Greenwood’s grand homecoming was ruined by the fact that no one remembered to show up.

Nearly seven years after she fled for college, then her master’s degree, Joan stepped off the train at Grand Central with all the fanfare of a slowly deflating balloon. Her duffel bag felt like the heaviest thing on earth, and her ratty sneakers nearly twisted her ankles as she trudged up the stairs from the platform. Moving with the approximate grace of a bike with a flat tire, she wove through the crowds flowing out onto the street.

There, she found no car waiting, no parents loitering, no sister waving amid the swirl of New York City.

This was no great surprise to Joan, but she had expected better anyways. When her father had said he’d send a car, she’d believed him. She scanned the street and hoped to see his ghost chauffeur idling by the curb.

Her mother had offered to take her out for lunch, and Joan had browsed restaurants in the area.

Her sister had said they’d meet up and take the witch subway back home together.

Joan had believed each of them.

Her aunt was too busy to even pretend, and that, in the end, meant she was the only one who had not, for the millionth time, let Joan down.

People shouldered past her to exit into their splendid lives. With a huff, Joan found a corner to wait on, out of the way, in case they were running late. But her phone held no notifications, and the minutes aggregated into despairing blocks of time. Joan didn’t even want to be back; she hadn’t ever really wanted to come back. Everyone assumed she would return, and as she ran after jobs post-graduation at respected witch architecture firms, she was repeatedly met with surprise.

I just thought you’d be returning to the city. An endless variation on this, until Joan began to suspect that it wasn’t so much that everyone had made assumptions as it was that her father, Merlin, had spread the word behind her back.

Joan was returning to New York. Period. End of sentence.

She allowed her eyes to prickle and burn for precisely four seconds, breathing in the smell of food vendors and car exhaust and dirty cement, hating that it felt like home in a way New Haven and Yale hadn’t, even though she’d only been back nine times in seven years. Hating that it felt like home because it was home, and no matter how far she ran, for how long, she was always going to end up here.

Alone.

At Grand Central.

Disappointed.

You should have known better, she thought, because this also meant she owed CZ five bucks.

“So? I assume if you’re calling, it isn’t good,” CZ said on the phone as Joan gathered herself, telling her eyes to unprickle and unburn, even though they did neither, because nothing ever went the way she wanted it to.

“No one showed,” Joan replied, crossing the street and really starting to sweat in the growing June heat. She valiantly fought the strap on her shoulder as it began to slip off. Her bag held her entire life.

“I’m sorry, Jo,” CZ said. “I can be there in like five. No, two—the light just changed.”

“Two? Why are you around Grand Central?”

CZ was suspiciously silent.

Joan stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and was rewarded with several pissed-off heckles from the people around her. “CZ—”

“Forty-five seconds!” he said, and then hung up.

Less than a minute later, CZ had located a bewildered Joan on the sidewalk and was weaving toward her, a wide grin on display, slightly elongated canines betraying his vampire heritage. A smile split her own face, wide enough to make her cheeks burn. That was the kind of guy CZ was; he smiled and you had to smile back.

“Jo!” he said, throwing his arms wide—they were really blocking the sidewalk—and Joan responded with a laugh, opening her arms so he could scoop her up, lifting her off her feet like she was a child, like she still housed every innocent thing she’d already lost.

“CZ,” she said into his neck, and if it was a little teary, who could blame her? And if she squeezed tight enough to choke out anyone whose heart beat faster than twelve beats per minute… well, then he was kind enough not to comment on it.

He swung her a little before setting her down, patting her shoulders. He was tall and Black, with his hair cropped close to his head.

“I know this is a terrible day for you, but for me? Personally? It’s so nice to have you back in the city,” CZ said sincerely, which reminded her of how quickly he’d arrived.

She punched him in his extremely well-toned bicep, earning herself a set of stinging knuckles. He rubbed at the spot, pouting.

“It’s one thing to bet on my family not coming; it’s a whole other thing to be so confident I’m going to be abandoned that you show up and wait for my inevitable call,” she scolded. They’d been friends, best friends, since freshman year of undergrad, and each of the nine times Joan had visited New York in the last seven years, it’d been to come home to him.

“You keep enough faith for both of us,” he said, tucking Joan under his arm so they could continue walking. “Not my fault I can’t stand the thought of you out on these streets, alone and so, so small.”

“I’m not that small.”

“Small and weak.”

“Is this supposed to help boost my spirits?”

“You’re a cat that I have lovingly taken home from the shelter. Oh! Bonus to returning—you can finally get a cat.”

“A cat as small and weak and abandoned as me,” Joan said, and flicked another tear from her eye, because even though the joking was fun, it kind of didn’t matter how old you were, fifteen or twenty-five—abandonment was still abandonment.

CZ planted a kiss on the top of her head, furthering his small theory, but only because he was over six feet and she was merely five ten.

“You hungry?” he asked. “We can go somewhere, or we can go to my new apartment. You owe me five dollars.”

“Yes to everything,” Joan said.

“They’re not going to be furious you didn’t go straight home?” CZ asked, knowing better than to pose such an obvious question but asking anyways, to be polite, because CZ was a LaMorte vampire the same way Joan was a Greenwood witch; they both lived at the whims of their families.

“They absolutely are,” Joan said, disappointment morphing into annoyance in the safety of CZ’s arms. “I just don’t care at the moment.”

CZ squeezed her shoulder. “So bold! Bets on how long it lasts?”

She huffed a laugh. “One hour, max.”

“I’ll be the optimist this time, then, and say two.”

An hour later they were leaving the café they’d stopped at—because even if her mom hadn’t remembered her, Joan’s restaurant research didn’t need to go to waste—so Joan could have a huge, late lunch and CZ, who did not consume human food, could watch her eat with a vaguely disgusted look on his face. It was familiar and comforting and meant absolutely everything to Joan as she tucked into her messy sandwich.

Once she finally reached her family, she would not be allowed to dine so sloppily. There would be napkins in laps. She’d have to fix her posture. All meals would be spent contemplating which utensil would best allow her to gouge her own eyes out. She had to enjoy it while she could as the minutes counted down.

The café had been almost entirely human, though there were plenty of magical creatures who worked service roles, hidden in plain sight. CZ was chattering in that way he did to keep Joan’s mind off things. About his pack, something his brother, Abel, had said, and a fae he’d met recently at the magical underground market run by Moon Creatures, a classification of magical species encompassing the fae and vampires that were tied together by fabled connections to a single mythical ancestor, Empusa.

“Do not hang around Times Square. There’s a new information broker there who frolics with pigeons—nasty—and the pizza place on 42nd that you liked closed.”

“Kill me now.”

“And there’s a new witch family gaining power, the Proctors or something. They’re cutting deals left and right in the Night Market, but jury’s out on if anyone likes them or just their money. Oh, and that witch who can create new spells—Grace something—she’s being courted by all the New York elite, but she’s based in Brooklyn.”

“Dad can’t be happy about that,” Joan murmured. Merlin collected interesting people like they were coins, keeping them in drawers until the time was right. The ability to create new spells was quite rare, and Merlin would be extra pissed off if Grace ended up working for Wista Redd, the High Witch of Brooklyn, rather than Merlin’s sister, Valeria, the High Witch of Manhattan and Head Witch of New York State.

“Your dad isn’t happy about anything,” CZ said. “That’s what happens when you’re a dickbag.”

Joan didn’t correct him—Merlin was the king of dickbags, and half of Joan’s life was playing out fictional arguments with him in her head, thus keeping her therapist in business—and CZ continued, cycling through the most pertinent changes to the witch world before swapping into the vampire one, then the fae one.

There were myriad magical creatures, but only three factions with populations large and organized enough to hold political sway. Witches, who were the smallest group at thirty million worldwide, set the laws that kept the magic world hidden and regulated trade across the human-magic border. Then there were vampires, who numbered sixty million, and the fae, who were over eighty million, both with lobbyist groups and microgovernments. The rest, the ancients—dryads, harpies, banshees, a thousand other creatures with different names across different cultures—were old magic, and mainly unconcerned with the human world. They kept to themselves and ranged in population from only a few dozen to less than a hundred thousand worldwide.

CZ had moved on to a story about his brother’s new boyfriend when time ran out for Joan.

Her phone vibrated incessantly, and the caller ID showed her sister, Molly, which was smart, because Joan might have been a bitch and sent her father to voicemail if he’d been the one to call.

“Mol,” Joan said by way of greeting. CZ raised an eyebrow, checked his watch, and then dug in his wallet to hand her back her five.

“I’m so sorry,” Molly said, loud over the din in the background. “I just realized.”

Over an hour late? CZ mouthed at her with exaggerated movements.

“CZ met me,” Joan said in reply, turning from CZ so she wouldn’t laugh outright on the phone.

“Of course, oh good,” Molly said, and the noise started to dim. “I’m really sorry, I mean that. It’s, well, it’s been kind of a morning at work. With the family.”

“It’s midafternoon,” Joan said.

“It’s been kind of a morning and midafternoon, whatever. Are you close? Aunt Val’s—um—well, I think you’d better come. There’s been an event.”

“And people want me there?” Joan asked incredulously, and she hated the note of wanting that seeped into her voice. She was the child who refused to come home, the one who had received all the finest training at witch prep schools but still couldn’t cast actual spells.

“Well.” Molly drew out the word.

Which answered her question perfectly.

“Tell me even a single one of them remembered I exist and I’ll come home right now,” Joan said. “Tell me Mom or Dad or Aunt Val said, just once, ‘Where’s Joan?’ and I’ll sprint uptown. Gods, an event. Whatever the fuck that means.”

In the high-drama world of Joan’s family, that could indicate truly anything: Someone had gotten the wrong napkins for the latest witch soiree. Merlin’s watch had gone missing and tracking spells weren’t working to locate it. Perhaps New York was caving into a magma bath and the Greenwoods, as the family in charge of the state, were responsible for pulling the earth back out.

Molly’s silence was a death knell. No one would leave Molly at a train station. She had recently started a position at the family’s investment firm.

She sighed loudly over the line. “Jo—”

“Don’t make excuses for them,” Joan said, and CZ wrapped a hand around her arm, squeezing sympathetically.

“Joan, I’m only saying this over the phone because I suspect the news is going to hit everyone else in like an hour, and CZ’s going to know, and he’s going to tell you anyways, and I know he’s listening right now with his super vampire ears, and I’m evil and rotten and my ancestors are ashamed of me, but, Joan, come home now. There’s been a rumor—”

Joan snorted. “A rumor.”

“That we’ve spent all morning verifying,” Molly continued. “A human who managed to ascend to witchhood via some kind of spell. The whole magic world’s talking about it.”

A wave of horror smashed through Joan’s body, leaving the hairs on her arms standing upright in its wake.

That was impossible. A complete nonstarter—witchhood was inherent, not gained. Credited to a single shared ancestor, Circe, earning them the classification Sun Creatures. And only witches could cast spells or channel magic; ancients and Moon Creatures had innate magic that tended to manifest in physical abilities, like speed, heightened senses, or fae shape-shifting.

Humans were entirely unmagical—the softest, weakest species and nothing more to witches than moneymaking sheep to herd. The magic world operated beyond the sight of humans to hoard resources, not out of fear.

Hearing this was like being told the sheep had turned into Godzilla. It was just not possible, not without threatening every structure and hierarchy that witches held so dear.

But impossibilities didn’t earn her a call from her sister. Impossibilities didn’t send her family scrambling to verify it.

CZ drew back and pulled out his own phone. Joan knew who he was calling without seeing his screen—his older brother, Abel, heir to the powerful LaMorte pack in Queens.

“You’re sure?” Joan whispered.

“Every source we have is saying the same thing: A human managed to become a witch and is now casting,” Molly said.

CZ whipped around, eyes wide, before responding to his brother on the phone, too far away to be audible. That was all the confirmation Joan needed.

“Come home, Joan,” Molly said. “Now.”

“On my way,” Joan reported, and the line went dead.

TWO

They parted at the mouth of the subway station with promises to call each other later that night and recap their respective families’ level of sheer alarm, CZ heading toward the human side to take a train to his pack’s headquarters in Queens and Joan heading uptown via the HERMES transport network to the Greenwood Mansion, her heart lodged in her throat, strangling her half to death.

As she fumbled in her duffel bag, fishing for the black plastic card she hadn’t used in nearly a year—dredging the horrible depths of her disorganized packing job and dislodging ChapSticks, receipts, a small lotion, pens, more pens, an endless stream of pens—she was left to parse why exactly Molly’s phone call had unsettled her so.

On the surface, it was obvious why this news would send the Greenwoods straight into a panic. If humans started becoming witches left and right, they’d need to be properly taught and acclimated to witch society somehow, which would be a burden on the magic world’s infrastructure. If it was a spell that made this happen, then the Greenwoods wouldn’t want that power in any random person’s hands—they’d want to control how the witch population grew, and when, and who these newly turned humans were loyal to.

There would be those in the witch world who viewed this as a threat to their power. Joan, however, cared little for the power of witches. That was the byproduct of not being able to cast herself, an affliction entirely unheard of before her birth—sometimes children were born without the ability to channel magic and were thus deemed human, but no one had been born with the ability to channel, indeed an unusually strong ability to channel, yet completely unable to control the magic with spells. Without the power to form magic into spells that could influence the world, Joan’s ability to channel was utterly useless. Like drawing breath but never actually processing the air in her bloodstream—inhaling without breathing. She had been forced to find other ways to define herself, and an architecture degree, grad school, they had all guided her forward.

She located the dingy card and jogged down the steps, swiping the card through a nondescript seam in the wall tile and stepping through an invisible barrier with the surface tension of a bubble. The moment she was through, the noise of a thousand commuters faded.

Inside the HERMES 51st Street Station, a large, polished lobby greeted her. Anywhere there were major transit systems, witches had hacked them, creating mirror realms over human stations and using portals instead of trains to move faster. Witches were entwined deep in human history and innovation.

Joan navigated quickly to one of the four lines, picking the one she thought would move fastest and, as always, somehow managing to select the slowest. She tapped a foot impatiently, pulled out her phone, and put it back. There was no reception here. Too much raw magic charged the air, and though it was present everywhere, latent in the world, anywhere witches concentrated, it could sicken humans and mess with electronic signals. Magic was only manageable when schooled into spells.

Around her, all types of witches murmured to one another scandalously. Apparently, Molly hadn’t had as much of a head start as she thought, because as Joan shuffled forward behind an East Asian man and a South Asian woman, she could hear their excited whispers.

“It can’t honestly be true.”

The woman scoffed. “If it were, someone would have figured out how to do it by now. Why today? Why now?”

“Something old that the historians unearthed? Or a hobbyist? I don’t know,” the man guessed. “Or a new spell.”

“They keep track of spellmakers. If it’s new, then the person behind it would be a fool to send it out to the public without letting the Greenwoods know.”

“Unless the Greenwoods do know,” the man said with a waggle of his eyebrows. “Who’s to say they’re not the ones behind this?”

“Valeria seems too competent to leak it.”

Dad would, Joan thought. Anything to try and destabilize Aunt Val so he can get named Head Witch of New York. The fast way would have been to challenge her to a Scales Law duel that granted the winner their opponent’s social title and property, but doing so would weaken the family.

“Merlin might.” The man’s voice hushed here, and he glanced around fearfully without actually noticing Joan, which was fine; she was kind of a recluse, so people likely didn’t know her face that well. Plus, it had been seven years, and in that time, Joan had cut all her ringlets to her collarbone, gotten a septum ring, nose ring, cartilage piercings, a couple of tattoos—

“Next,” the attendant called, and the man and woman stepped forward to show their black cards and identify a destination. The HERMES system was nationwide and extended from the local subway portals to secret airport-like buildings that could pop you across state or country lines.

No one around her seemed overly concerned with the news; it was still just a rumor. To them, maybe it wouldn’t make a difference at all if humans could become witches. Maybe it was the dawn of an amazing new age, a way to shift the demographics to favor their kind and force a closer merger with the human world, though witches tended to enjoy the exclusive club that was the magic world.

Why did Joan feel so concerned, then?

If Joan were a good little soldier, she’d already be thinking about telling her family the news had hit and people were gossiping that the Greenwoods themselves were behind it. Joan liked to think she was not a good little soldier, even though she was currently on her way to the Upper East Side because her older sister had said Jump! and Joan had replied How high?

“Hello?” said the attendant, an androgynous white person with perfectly coiffed blonde hair. Likely for at least the second time.

“Right, sorry.” Joan fumbled her card out again, nearly throwing it at them. They were clearly not paid enough to put up with her nonsense, and they swiped it nimbly out of her hand and held it to the magicked tablet that registered her identity.

Their eyebrows shot up. “Joan Gre—”

“Madison, East 63rd,” Joan interrupted, with what she hoped was an apologetic smile but maybe was more of a feral grimace. Please do not out me in this subway station, dear gods.

“Of course,” the attendant sputtered, turning to the massive mirror behind them, raising their hands to cast in a few quick movements that helped shape the spell they were forming.

Joan stepped through the mirror, in one side and out the other, entering the next station with the feeling of walking through mist.

Shaking off the odd, small feeling of vertigo that resulted from changing locations so abruptly, she hustled up the stairs, really starting to feel grimy from the hours-long train ride, then the sweating around New York City. The Greenwood family mansion (one of several, but the main one) was around the corner, and when she arrived at the front gate, she needed only to put a hand on it for the powerful wards to recognize her and open up.

It was her aunt’s house, technically, and the central working hub of New York witches, though the whole Greenwood family lived there. All the (many) windows were lit up as she approached through the small front courtyard, though the only person outside was George, Merlin’s ghost chauffeur, sitting on a bench and going fuzzy around the edges the moment a breeze shifted through him.

“Miss Joan!” he said excitedly, standing up.

“George! Is that a new bow tie?” she teased.

“Did you just get in? Who picked you up?” he asked, wearing the same dark blue bow tie he’d probably been wearing for thirty years at least, his suit crisp, his gray hair slicked, and his mustache well oiled. Merlin didn’t like to be reminded that George was dead, so he was in a mostly corporeal form, with colors solid enough that he couldn’t be seen through.

“No one,” Joan said cheerily. “Well, CZ. I was completely forgotten about until Molly called.”

“Ah,” George said sympathetically. “Welcome home, then.” Ghosts didn’t classify as a specific magical species, as everyone died eventually and almost no one really wanted to, so they tended to hang around for ages until the universe recycled them. Magical creatures, though they lived much longer than humans, moved on the quickest, since their magic usually got folded back into the worldwide magical currents long before humans did.

Joan hopped up the first step to the door. “How bad is it in there?”

“Judging by the number of people who have come and gone… quite,” George said pleasantly. “But, of course, the spells are meant to keep me from overhearing.”

“If only magic worked on ghosts,” Joan said dryly. But it passed right through them. No body, no way for magic to manipulate it.

George gave a little bow. “If only, Miss Joan.”

Joan shook her head with a laugh and hopped up the remaining stairs to the door before placing a hand on the knob.

But her hand wouldn’t turn.

The moment she crossed the threshold, their problems would become hers. She was here to serve the family and whatever the family was wrestling with. She’d been eighteen when she left for college, and she’d never had any real responsibilities, being so young, but what contact she’d gotten from her parents over the years had been clear: We paid for your degrees, so now you return home to do as we say.

“Miss Joan?” George asked politely.

“Sorry, George,” she replied softly. “Cold feet.” Another breeze made goose bumps rise on her arm.

“I think often, Miss Joan, about how few things there are in this world that cannot be undone.”

Joan whipped around, searching his face for some deeper meaning, but it was perfectly composed, as always. George was unwaveringly committed to Merlin in death, as he’d been committed to Merlin’s father in life. Joan had spent years trying to worm her way into a joking relationship with him, and what they had now was as far as he had ever seemed willing to go.

But that statement hit her like a truck.

There were so few things that could not be undone. She stepped over the threshold. She… could step back one day. One day.

She could do that; she could change her mind later.

Carved into the stone above the door, the Greenwood family logo looked down on her, a coffin with a scythe in the background, wrapped in ivy.

Joan pushed the door open.

Inside, witches bustled from one side of the grand lobby to the other, their voices joining in a murmur loud enough to drown out the edges of Joan’s thoughts. The two-story lobby was framed by double curved staircases on either side, and as the door shut resolutely behind her, no one paused in their various quests.

There were menacing-looking witches watching everyone, dressed in matching black uniforms. Likely a private defense company that had been contracted by the Greenwoods to guard the house, which was a truly terrible sign of what was to come. The average witch knew only a small amount of offensive magic and certainly wasn’t trained for physical combat. These witches looked lethal.

Well, now that she was here, she would need to get things over with: find her family, listen to them talk at and over her for a while, retire to her childhood bedroom upstairs, sob in the shower, call CZ. A nearby potted plant stretched its leaves out to her in her agitation. It wasn’t real witchcraft; the magic in plants just liked Joan a lot.

If she knew her family—and despite her recent best efforts, she thought she did—they would be in Valeria’s study on the first floor.

Joan shoved through the crowd, stepping past expensive vases, priceless wall art, and the grand chandelier to fight her way to the wooden double doors of the study.

“You can’t go in there,” a sharply dressed witch said, half stepping into Joan’s way.

Joan shied back in frank shock. “Why not?”

“The Greenwoods are having a private meeting,” the witch said impatiently, tucking their long black hair behind their ears. “Wait out here.”

“The Greenwoods are having a private meeting,” Joan repeated faintly. She clamped down on a do you know who I am? because that was obnoxious, and this assistant or whatever was just trying to do their job. But come on now, this was a bit ridiculous, wasn’t it? Did she have to be on some sort of guest list to roam her own childhood home? Worse, was she so entirely unrecognizable? She’d passed portraits on her way over, an endless stream of stately oil paintings. Grandparents, great-aunts, distant cousins. Down the hallway Joan could see her mother’s portrait done in deep brown skin tones, her father’s pale face staring down at her, Valeria’s stately grace and eternally gray hair, Molly’s springboard curls and brown skin—but not Joan.

“Okay, can you please move?” Joan said, trying not to be mean but really starting to reach the end of her roughly one-inch rope.

The witch looked alarmed. “I said—”

“Pardon me,” a voice said behind Joan. “I think we’re meant to join that meeting?”

Joan whirled to find a frankly gorgeous Black woman behind her, dressed in a neat dark blue button-down and black pencil skirt, sensible heels on her feet. Her box braids were pulled back into a matching blue scarf. Her lips were a respectable dark red. Her chin was held high, which gave her a commanding enough aura that her complete lack of height was less noticeable.

She was looking at Joan as curiously as Joan was looking at her.

Beside her was a white woman with orange-brown hair, dressed in very expensive-looking clothing. She barely glanced Joan’s way.

“Ms. Collins, Ms. Ganon,” the doorkeeper said, “we’ve been expecting you. Please step in.” They nudged Joan out of the way, knocked, and opened the door, ushering Ms. Collins and Ms. Ganon inside.

Joan came to her senses in time to wedge her foot in the door as it closed—which, ow—and bodily shoulder the outraged gatekeeper to the side so she could palm the door back open.

“Ma’am!” the witch cried, wobbling before they lifted their hands, settling into the start of a binding spell Joan could recognize on sight alone—even if she did suck at casting, she still knew all the standard spells by heart.

“Oh my fucking god,” Joan ground out, shoving the door open wider to reveal the study. “Someone tell this person I am a Greenwood.”

Inside, Valeria, Head and High Witch of New York and Manhattan, respectively, was sitting behind her massive wooden desk in a lovely gray suit. Her lips quirked in the ghost of a smile as she looked at the door, and Joan, the flustered attendant, and Ms. Collins, who had wheeled in alarm, though this Ganon woman was scanning the room.

“Francesca, darling,” Valeria said, “you don’t know Joan, my niece?”

Someone, presumably Francesca, gasped like she’d been shot in the stomach, but Joan’s pride kept her from turning. Pride and maybe some animal instinct that knew better than to put her back to her father, Merlin Greenwood, who was standing behind one of the large leather armchairs, gripping it like it had personally wronged him, his salt-and-pepper hair looking a little run through.

“Joan!” Molly said, rising from the couch where she’d been sitting next to their mother, Selene. “Sorry, I forgot to warn everyone you were coming.”

“She should have been recognized on sight,” Selene said disapprovingly, her wavy black sew-in gathered neatly over one shoulder.

“Forgive Francesca; she’s new,” Valeria said. “And you, Joan, never come home.”

“I am so sorry!” Francesca said, on the verge of a wail, and Joan wouldn’t have been surprised to find Francesca had fallen to her knees in outright horror at the faux pas, but Joan still wasn’t turning around; she was accepting a hug from her sister, who was wearing neat beige work attire that blended in perfectly with all the wood and leather in the sizeable study.

“Hey, Mol,” Joan said softly, pulling her sister to her chest, avoiding eye contact with their father over Molly’s back. “Can you maybe euthanize me real quick? Preemptively.”

“Sorry again,” Molly whispered.

“Joan!” Merlin said, straightening. “You’re back in town?”

This was the first knife to Joan’s ribs.

“You’re early, aren’t you?” Selene said with a frown, another knife.

“I sent you all my information,” Joan protested weakly.

“She’s perfectly on time,” Valeria said. “You two forgot about her.”

“So did you,” Merlin replied, a bit petulantly.

“I did not. I simply never made any promises to her in the first place.” Valeria rose from her chair. “Come here, Joan.”

Joan obediently separated from Molly to hug her aunt, becoming acutely aware of her own griminess as she pressed against her aunt’s silk shirt. “Sorry,” she muttered generally, because it seemed the safest way to cover her bases.

“You really should have showered before coming here,” Merlin said, having made no effort to cross the room to her. “You look a mess.”

“Merlin,” Selene sighed, rubbing her forehead in irritation, but also not moving from her seat. “Joan, you should have called. I’d have sent a car.”

Ms. Collins cleared her throat. “Should we come back?”

“Nonsense,” Valeria said, having already left Joan to sit back down. “We need your expertise, Grace. When we called Fiona in, she insisted you come with her. She says you’ve studied with her?”

“I did, back home in Atlanta,” Grace confirmed. “She tutored me in spellmaking.”

Fiona smiled, wire-rimmed glasses glinting on her face. “My best student.”

Grace… why is that name familiar?

The room resumed their work as if the youngest Greenwood child hadn’t just returned home to build a life here after seven years away.

Joan let her bag slide off her body, ignoring Merlin’s disapproving glare when it thumped onto the Persian rug.

Valeria forged on. “Fiona’s been throwing around the word prodigy like it’s nothing, but you did always have a flair for the dramatic, didn’t you?”

Joan, staring at Fiona Ganon’s back, watched it stiffen.

“I don’t use the word lightly.”

Valeria’s smile was icy. “I assume you’ve both heard about this ascended human?”

Grace kept darting nervous glances Joan’s way as Joan noisily took a seat in an armchair, but Grace cleared her throat and addressed Valeria. “I have heard, yes. At least, the rumors of a human who seems to be attracting magic.”

“We have eyewitness reports of a human channeling magic into some sort of light spell last night before disappearing into the Night Market. We are beyond the scope of rumors,” Selene said dryly. “Witches on the scene confirmed a spell signature that indicated the human had been cast on.”

“Our top priority is, obviously, ascertaining how this happened,” Valeria said, picking up the threads. “A new spell? A freak accident? We need to know, and we would like you to stay close by, should you have any insight into how one might achieve these ends.”

“Do you?” Merlin said. “Have any insight?” There was a sharp, suspicious gleam to his eye. “Perhaps Wista Redd employed you to—”

“Enough, Merlin,” Valeria cut in. “This is not an accusation.”

Merlin threw up his hands. “Maybe it should be. We’ve been getting nowhere all day—no one can point a finger, but everyone knows a finger must be pointed.”

“So, you’re looking for both the human and the witch who must have changed them? I can assure you, I did not write such a spell,” Grace said. Grace. Grace, Grace, Grace who has ties to Wista Redd in Brooklyn—oh, CZ mentioned her.

“Neither did I,” Fiona said. “I got into town only an hour ago.”

“All we have is your word,” Selene said apologetically, always smoothing over what Merlin had done. “We know Fiona, but you, Grace, are a new player on the scene.”

Joan gnawed on her knuckle to avoid letting out a scream. Selene made meaningful eye contact with her.

Joan removed the knuckle from her mouth, a chastised toddler.

She had to quietly get through being in this room. Despite the fact that she wanted to crawl out of her skin expeditiously. Time away had lowered her tolerance, she could feel that acutely. Merely existing in here made her a bit winded. Her body still knew what her mind had tried to bury—looking at Merlin, she saw every screaming match they’d ever had. Every school play he’d ever missed, every senseless comment that had hurt her feelings. Looking at Selene, she saw every time her mother had apologized on her father’s behalf, then proceeded to tell Joan it was easiest to just do what he asked.

Fiona leaned into Grace subtly, a small signal sent.

“I will submit to a truth spell,” Grace said, her voice carefully level. Rehearsed, like she had expected this. Smart. Or maybe completely naive, to expect this and still walk into the room.

“Perfect,” Merlin said, rolling back the sleeves of his dark gray button-down. “I’ll do the honors.” His eagerness rubbed Joan precisely the wrong way—as did his personality, his dismissal of her, the fact that he had forgotten his own child was coming into town—and she felt she might burst as waves of familiar ire crawled up her chest. She was so, so mentally unstable. Her previous commitment to silence vanished into thin air.

“No, no,” Joan said, just to be a complete dickhead. “Let me.”

“I see your time away hasn’t cured you of your poor sense of humor,” Merlin replied.

“No, I remain deathly ill in that regard,” Joan said.

A smile flickered across Grace’s lips before she crushed it like an ant.

“Be gentle, Dad,” Molly said with an apologetic smile in Grace’s direction. A smile Grace did not return as she faced Merlin’s magic with her spine ramrod straight.

Joan watched with her arms crossed tightly over her chest as her father’s fingers danced in the air. He muttered a string of words under his breath as the truth spell took shape. The most advanced spellcasters could manipulate magic without moving or speaking, but Merlin certainly wasn’t among them.

Not that Joan was in any position to judge.

Magic, latent in the air, thickened into threads and flowed toward him to be caught and manipulated by the bounds of the spell. Unlike most witches, Joan could see it without the help of spelled glasses. Like ghostly hands around Grace’s neck.

“Grace Collins,” Merlin said, “did you write the spell that produced witchhood in a human?”

Grace’s voice came out of her in a burst. “No.”

“Do you know how to craft a spell like that?” he continued.

“Only the basic considerations—you need to first grant them the ability to channel magic, then teach them to shape it. The former is, as far as I know, an impossibility on any sort of permanent basis. Spells fade, eventually, as they use up their magic manipulating the world.”

Words pushed at Joan’s lips. And on a temporary basis? she wanted to ask. Could someone temporarily grant themself the ability to attract magic? But she was not going to help her family with this quest; she was still trying to puzzle out why she cared at all.

Valeria spoke up to tack on a question. “Do you have knowledge of anyone who might be able to create a spell like that?”

“Not specifically,” Grace said. “Any spellmaker could write it, but I can’t think of one who might have possibly solved the problem of how. No one was publishing research on it, at least.”

Merlin did not look particularly strained by the spell, likely because truth spells weren’t so far off from persuasion spells, which were his specialty. Grace, on the other hand, was gripping her handbag so tightly, it was pushing the blood from her fingers.

“Let her go,” Joan cut in.

The room looked at her, as if remembering anew she was even here.

“She can handle it,” Fiona said. She was vaguely familiar to Joan; perhaps they’d met before. If the family wasn’t making her undergo a truth spell, then they must have worked with her rather extensively in the past.

“If you have no more questions,” Joan added. “It’s not good for her, and I can’t imagine you’re winning her favor by forcing her to do this. I thought we wanted her to work for us.”

“She submitted willingly,” Merlin said gruffly.

Valeria waved a hand, and Merlin released Grace after a few moments of deliberate hesitation, just to prove Valeria didn’t control him (even though she did). Grace sagged, looking for a moment like she might collapse entirely under the strain. But as Joan prepared to lunge out of her chair and catch the woman, Grace straightened.

Fiona kept her chin high. They were close, Joan could see that, but not close enough for Fiona to look anything less than perfect before the Greenwoods.

“If I learn anything, you will be the first to know,” Grace said to Valeria.

Valeria hummed a pensive note, sitting back in her chair. “I want you to recreate it.”

“Valeria,” Selene said chidingly. “We agreed that wasn’t a path we wanted to go down.”

“That was several hours ago, when we thought our informants might turn something up and we could squash it or buy it off this rogue witch,” Valeria said. “This is now. Someone’s already cracked it, and I cannot deal with a spell I do not understand. We’re well past simple containment. Grace, recreate this spell. You will have whatever resources you need at your disposal. Fiona claims you will be better positioned to do such a thing than she is, but she’ll help you. Or not; I don’t care which of you it comes from.”

Grace’s lips pressed into a line. She slid a glance Fiona’s way. “I don’t feel that sort of magic is to be messed with.”

Merlin clucked his tongue, a patronizing smile on his face. “Leave the repercussions to us, Ms. Collins.”

Grace’s hard gaze settled on Merlin, unflinchingly. Joan was beginning to feel like she wanted to befriend this woman, and quickly.

“She’ll do it,” Fiona replied. “Her abilities allow her to see and predict the movement of magic; it’s one of a kind and makes her spellmaking more advanced than mine.”

“Of course I will,” Grace said in acquiescence, giving Fiona another meaningful look, and the moment Valeria dismissed them, Grace was out the door.

Fiona hesitated a moment longer, gaze tracking to Joan curiously, but Valeria sent her an impatient glance. “We’ll be in touch, Fiona.”

Fiona’s mouth snapped shut. She nodded, once, and left.

Joan had seen enough social climbers to recognize one on the spot.

“She wants an official place in your employ,” Selene said, once the doors had closed behind them. “You know that.”

“If she can solve this spell for me, I’ll give it to her gladly,” Valeria replied. “We are our reputation; we cannot risk this spinning out of our control. Whoever holds that spell could gain unimaginable financial, political, and social power.”

“Hell, if she can solve the spell, I’ll make her rich,” Merlin said, fingers drumming. “If we can control that sort of magic, we control the humans entirely. An endless supply of people grateful to the Greenwoods for giving them power.”

“That is not what we’ll use it for,” Valeria said. “We won’t be growing the witch population recklessly.”

Merlin huffed. “Like how the vampires can turn anyone they want, on top of biological procreation? They outnumber us two to one. Don’t get me started on the fae population. They have a million kids each, all guaranteed to possess abilities and, worse, outlive us.”

“Then it’s a good thing we’re not at war,” Joan said sharply. Merlin wasn’t the only witch who nervously eyed the vampires’ ability to turn humans, but with the power and money he wielded, he was one of the most dangerous. It was a small mercy he wasn’t technically in charge here, but there were plenty of people like him across the witch world. In California, witches trained in offensive magic and operated as a sort of police presence, enforcing witch rules on other magical creatures.

“Don’t be naive, Joan,” Merlin dismissed, not even paying her the courtesy of looking in her direction.

“The vampires keep track of their own population, produce very few biological children, and there are rules about turning humans,” Valeria said.

“Rules we set in place,” Merlin countered. “Rules that they could, at any moment, decide to stop following.”

Joan groaned, loud enough to make a point, and rubbed her face.

“Maybe you want to go upstairs and shower, my love?” Selene said, not unkindly, but still a clear indication that Joan was absolutely not needed here.

Joan kept rubbing her eyes, and eventually her family settled back into their discussion about next steps, but her brain was humming with new information. I don’t feel that sort of magic is to be messed with.

Was that why this news had freaked Joan out? Some feeling that they were messing with cosmic forces whose consequences could be vast? No, that was too abstract.

Her family was in a real, genuine tizzy with this news, the house was full despite the evening hour, and they were calling in spellmakers, both people they’d worked with before and random witches who had no track record of loyalty, to do things like craft forbidden spells. And it was in such contrast to the HERMES and the buzzy but generally nonchalant way the news had hit all the regular magical creatures in this city. Exciting, but not disastrous.

Joan sat up straighter.

That was it. She didn’t have some personal fear of the repercussions of this power. No, as Joan looked around at her bickering family, she saw why this news unsettled her—because she didn’t know what her family would do.

Because Merlin was already talking about turning his own personal army.

Because Joan wasn’t afraid of what humans might do with the ability to become witches or what another witch might do with this magic—she was afraid, very specifically, of what lengths the Greenwood family would go to in order to protect, to grow, their power.

Shit.