Jane sipped a banana-guava smoothie and watched a pair of Taylor Momsen–wannabes struggle through Washington Square Park on perilously high, studded stilettos. “Healthy” my ass, she thought cheerfully as she swallowed the sugary drink. Just crushing up a vitamin in it doesn’t change the fact that it has as many calories as a three-course meal. Dee had gone out to lunch, and Jane had burned farfalle in a halfhearted attempt to prove that she still kind of remembered how to cook. She didn’t intend to try again. Dee was just too good at it for Jane to struggle through measuring and chopping and washing and all that just to be left with a weird, blackened mess in a dirty kitchen.
Besides, it was nice enough weather for sitting outside, and Jane had been driving herself almost stir-crazy since her misfired spell the morning before. She had paced and muttered and tried to put her thoughts down on paper, but instead had wound up drawing scrolls and vines and theatrical masks that had eventually spilled out of the margins and covered the entire page. Finally, Dee had snapped. “I’m going out,” she’d announced, “with or without you.”
Probably with Harris, from the way she was checking her phone every two minutes, Jane had realized after the fact, but she reminded herself that that was even more reason for her to stay away. Dee had promised to keep Jane’s real situation to herself unless she decided to do something reckless, and Jane had been far too shell-shocked by the results of their spell to plan anything. But some dedicated shopping, a tuna sandwich, and now an intense session of people-watching felt like exactly what she needed to get to the bottom of what she had seen.
How is Annette Doran alive? To the best of Jane’s knowledge, Annette had drowned at the age of six while her family was vacationing in the Hamptons. While Lynne and the other grown-ups had gotten an early cocktail hour under way on the veranda, Malcolm had been left in charge of his little sister. But preteen Malcolm’s attention had wandered, and then Annette was just . . . gone. I never asked if they found her body, Jane realized. It would have seemed insensitive. Malcolm had said his sister had been swept away by the waves, but never mentioned a word about what had become of her then.
Jane shivered a little, although the spring day was mild. The sky was mostly blue, pregnant-looking clouds drifting slowly across it. Even in full sunlight, her mind kept returning to the dark coldness of being sucked underwater. Jane herself had nearly drowned once, although that had been in a murky pond rather than in a chaotic green ocean. Gran had saved her then, although it was only recently that Jane had realized that magic had probably played a part in her rescue. Having a witch for a guardian had been the difference between life and death . . . for her, at least. Might it not have been for Annette?
If she had survived, how could Lynne not know it? Could Annette’s fake death have been some elaborate plot of Lynne’s? But there was no way. Malcolm’s entire life from the age of twelve on had been overshadowed by the loss of his sister, and it was Lynne who had made sure that that shadow stayed firmly in place. When he had balked at her nastier demands and more vicious plots, she had reminded him of how he owed her; how he must do whatever it took to make up for letting her precious little girl die.
And the girl was precious: since men could only carry magic passively in their genes, losing her only daughter had meant the end of Lynne Doran’s remarkable family legacy. That legacy stretched back in an unbroken line to Ambika, the very first witch, who had bequeathed her magic on her deathbed to be shared among her seven daughters. Hasina, one of the seven, had gone on to begin a centuries’-long chain of mothers passing their magic to daughters, sisters concentrating their power under the same roof, working together to create one of the most notoriously powerful families—magically or otherwise—in the world. And now it would all end with Lynne, who was so fiercely proud of her position and name; Lynne, who had to face the family tree carved on the marble wall of her parlor every day.
Jane spun the straw in her smoothie, wondering whether her name had been added to that tree yet. She had, after all, married Malcolm. And Lynne had intended to make sure that everything about their union was legal and binding, because it was their eventual daughter who would infuse Malcolm’s bloodline with Jane’s magic, revitalizing the House of Hasina all over again. It was a desperate plan, and Jane knew Lynne never would have resorted to something so complicated and Gothic if she had thought there was any chance that her own daughter might be alive and well somewhere.
A super-thin woman in the fluid, knee-length pants that Jane identified as “over two years ago” surreptitiously tossed about half a pretzel to a pigeon before striding away out of the park. Within moments, the pigeon had been joined by about a hundred of its friends, flapping and jostling their fat gray bodies against one another for the best shot at food.
How could Lynne not know? Jane had found Annette by accident, after all. But the glass unicorn that Malcolm had saved as a memento couldn’t be the only sentimental object of Annette’s that had been lying around after her “death.” In the absence of a body, surely Lynne would have exhausted every option, both mundane and magical, to find out for sure what had happened to her daughter. Even if she didn’t know Dee’s exact spell—which seemed unlikely, given how long Lynne had been practicing magic and how many generations of witches she had learned her craft from—she must have had ways of verifying that Annette was really gone before giving up on her.
Jane slurped at the remains of her drink, thinking hard. Whatever Lynne had done to find Annette obviously hadn’t worked, because Annette was still alive and Lynne still didn’t know it. Whatever had stopped Lynne from finding her daughter had not stopped Jane. I could actually find her, Jane realized in a flash.
She didn’t know where the depressing little studio apartment had been, which was a problem. But she was pretty sure that the sitcom she had seen secondhand was on the BBC. That didn’t narrow down Annette’s location much, it was true, but still: if Jane could redo the spell, she might see something that did lead her more specifically to the location of the flesh-and-blood heiress to the Doran magic. And if I found her, Lynne would give me anything. She would give me more than anything: she would lose any reason for chasing me and Malcolm in the first place. It was perfect: Lynne would be willing to let Jane go about her life, and she would be grateful enough to want to.
But the unicorn shattered, Jane remembered sadly. She was completely out of Doran-owned objects, and so had nothing to use to find Annette or Malcolm. Still, though, the mere fact of Annette’s existence meant that there was hope. If Jane could find her somehow—maybe Dee could dig up another spell, or maybe Jane could somehow get another item of Annette’s—then Jane would never even need to fight Lynne. She could just give Lynne her daughter and go on her merry way. The thought alone was intoxicating.
Two pudgy little boys ran full-tilt toward the pigeons, who flocked into the air in a heavy, thrashing mass. Jane watched them carefully, trying to decide if she should abandon her bench and move farther away from the central fountain. The outer branches of the park’s paths were a little more peaceful, but still good for people-watching, and pigeons or no, she didn’t feel ready to leave the park entirely. In the meantime, she settled for glaring at the giggling boys, only realizing after the fact that her habitual sunglasses made that compromise basically invisible. The boys took off, careening around the lip of the fountain pool toward the wide white arch that reminded Jane so achingly of home. The pigeons, emboldened by the remnants of the pretzel and their natural New Yorker cockiness, were already settling back down.
Jane watched them idly, waiting for the disparate threads of thought to come together in her head. Just like the pigeons, she reflected smilingly: they seemed chaotic but could resolve into a coherent pattern at any time.
One pigeon broke away from the flock, hopping and pecking until it was completely clear of its cohorts. Vulnerable, Jane’s brain supplied automatically, and she realized that she was probably reading a little too much into the birds. It’s just me, she told herself sadly. I’m vulnerable and cut off from the people who love me—most of the ones who are still alive, anyway. But how can I put them in danger just to make myself feel safer?
A red leather boot kicked at the lone pigeon, scaring it back to the safety of its flock. Jane’s gaze followed the boot up a camel-hair-sheathed leg, the riding pants clinging so obediently that Jane could see every contour of the kicker’s lean calf and thigh. Her eyes traveled onward, over a red leather jacket that matched the boots, and then on to the sharp point of a chin and violently high cheekbones with tanned skin stretched over them like Saran Wrap.
I know that skin, Jane’s mind shouted at her as her gaze reached the woman’s oversize sunglasses. She didn’t even have to register the short black hair to realize that she was looking right at the mystery woman who had frightened her out of her old coffee shop.
It was true that the two places in which she had spotted Mystery Woman were connected by the A, C, and E trains. It wasn’t exactly impossible that the same person might be in both. But she could feel in her bones that this was no coincidence: this woman had been in the coffee shop to watch Jane, and she was watching Jane from behind those huge reflective lenses right now.
“I want to know who you are,” she whispered, her lips barely moving, as she focused on the mystery woman a few benches away. She pushed the sensitive tendrils of her magic toward the woman’s mind. “A fan? A reporter? A henchwoman? What do you know about me?” But her magic ran up against a smooth, blank wall, and Jane grimaced. She searched for a few more seconds, looking for any kind of opening, but she knew that it would be futile. Mystery Woman was a witch.
Jane slid off her bench and headed for one of the paths out of the park. She could feel Mystery Woman’s eyes following her, and in a burst of inspiration, Jane turned back and tossed her empty smoothie cup toward the trash can behind the swarm of pigeons. The cup missed, falling instead into the middle of the flock and sending it wildly skyward again. A shower of feathers littered the ground, and the air around the flock grew thick with dust.
Jane hurried away down a paved path, trusting the beating gray wings and angry shoving of beaks to hide her from view. She didn’t turn around again, even once she had reached Washington Square West safely and alone.