Witch Way Out (Witch Detectives #3) (13 page)

“Not this often,” Niall supplied, coming up to us, “which is, in itself, enough to be worrying.”

“We’ll find a way to deal with it,” I said. I wasn’t sure if I was trying to reassure him, the others, or simply myself.

“Will we?” For once, Niall didn’t look perfectly controlled. That in itself was worrying. “We will find a way for you to deal with more situations than you have handled before, while these goblins plot in the background, the coven sends its people around to watch us, and you continue to obsess over your mother’s death?”

“I am
not
obsessing.” Probably. He certainly didn’t get to say it, anyway. After all, it had been his old girlfriend who had killed her. What was it Ulm had said? That Niall had a knack for attaching himself to power?

Maybe I would have said something, except that the door intercom chose that moment to buzz. Fergie hurried over to it, and then hurriedly let in whoever it was.

“Who is it, Fergie?” I asked.

“It’s the coven,” he said.

“I
do
hope we’re not interrupting anything.”

I nearly flinched as the coven’s three observers looked straight at me as they came in. Lucille Forrester, who’d spoken, was holding a stapled set of pages in one hand. Elizabeth and Flora flanked her. Elizabeth was looking around the office calmly. Flora looked a little less placid, as she observed everyone there with obvious suspicion.

The three of them were the last thing I needed right then. Having to be careful not to say the wrong thing, not to do the wrong thing…none of it fitted well with the argument I wanted to have with Niall over all this. There were things I needed to say that I couldn’t risk saying in front of them. And what did it say about my life that I had gotten to the stage where I was hiding things from a couple of my mother’s closest allies?

I forced myself to smile. “Ladies, what brings you here? Can we offer you tea?”

“That would be lovely,” Elizabeth said, cutting off any objections the other two might have had. Marie moved to make it, which was a little odd, given that she didn’t even work for me. “As for what we’re doing, we came over for a couple of things. First, am I right in thinking that congratulations are in order?”

“Congratulations?” I tried to work out what she was talking about, and then I realized what it had to be. “You mean on the archaeological dig case?”

“What else would we be talking about?” Lucille asked in that sharp, teacher-talking-to-a-pupil tone she had.

“We heard there was trouble,” Flora put in. “Some
goblin
trying to kill you and Rebecca? If they think they’re going to get away with that—”

Elizabeth waved that away. “The important thing is that the situation is contained. Right, Elle? After all, you’ve said that the site can reopen, yes?”

I nodded. “Keeping it closed would have caused more problems than it solved. It was starting to make people suspicious. I’ll hand Rebecca my reports soon.”

Reports, plural, the way I always did it for coven jobs. One would be something people could believe, probably about a small pocket of gas that had caused hallucinations, or something else that wouldn’t cost anyone their career. The other…

Flora jumped in as though reading my mind. “We don’t have to wait for reports. We all know that the goblins did this. Just as we know all the other stuff they’re doing.” She looked over at Siobhan then, and there was something in her expression that made the goblin girl take a step back.

“I’m sure things aren’t as clear-cut as that,” Elizabeth said with a smile obviously aimed at defusing the tension.

“Aren’t they?” Lucille put in. “Weren’t you in the room when they briefed us on this ‘prophecy’ of theirs?”

“We’ve only just heard about that,” I said, “and I don’t care what anyone thinks. Siobhan isn’t a threat to anyone.”

“You hope,” Flora said, with another of those looks.

Elizabeth shrugged in a way that was obviously half apology. “Perhaps that is a discussion for another time? We came here to deliver a document, remember? Not to argue.”

Lucille seemed to recall her status as the leader then, stepping forward and holding out the sheaf of papers she held for me to take. Fergie beat me to it.

“Is this what I think it is?” he asked.

“A formal document setting out Ms. Chambers’ relationship with the coven, along with that of her associates,” Lucille confirmed. “If she could sign it, maybe we could get one part of this whole mess over with?”

Fergie smiled in a way that suggested someone had told a joke I hadn’t heard. “After we’ve had a chance to read it through, assuming it’s okay.”

Lucille and Flora both looked like they might say something to that, but Elizabeth got there first. “Of course, Mr. Black. We wouldn’t expect anything else. Would tomorrow be acceptable? We could pick up Elle’s report on what happened. I’m sure everyone just wants to get back to normal.”

I wanted to point out that wasn’t very likely when there were still magical incidents taking place throughout the city, but I knew Elizabeth was just trying to help. She’d always been one of the more conciliatory of my mother’s friends, always there to stop any divisions in the coven from bursting out into actual conflict.

“We’ll see you tomorrow,” Elizabeth said, and the others nodded, even if they didn’t look entirely convinced. The three of them left.

Fergie started to read through the document, while Niall paced a little way off. I could feel his unease. Of course, he hadn’t been exactly happy before the three witches showed up.

“What is it, Niall?” I asked.

Niall ignored that. Instead, he looked over at Fergie. “Well, Mr. Black, is it all in order?”

Fergie kept reading, but nodded. “So far. It looks like what we were asking for. Essentially, the tolerance directive gets extended to you and Elle, no one hurts you unless you start killing people and we all live happily ever after under the coven.”

“
Under
the coven?” I shook my head. “That wasn’t the deal.”

“That’s what it says,” Fergie said. “Well, it says that you would resume the responsibilities of a coven member. Basically, you’d have to take orders from them again, keep their secrets. That kind of thing.”

“Sign it, Elle,” Niall said.

I stared at him. “What? Are you serious?”

“Deadly, and more importantly, I believe the coven is, too. Or do you think that it is a coincidence that they have showed up here with what amounts to an ultimatum at this point? It is one more reason why I wish you had not been back to see the goblins again.”

“To warn them off!” I insisted.

“And does the coven know that?” Niall didn’t raise his voice, but I could feel the anger there. Anger at what he obviously saw as my stupidity. Because obviously, he had been playing the game of politics since before I was born and I knew nothing. “As far as they will have seen, you went Underneath to talk to the goblin leaders. You have a goblin for a friend. They know about this prophecy of the goblins, Elle.”

“And so, you think I should just sign up to be ordered around by them again?” I asked.

“I think that you are not being careful enough with the people you care about. With yourself.”

I looked at him then. “You can’t really think that.”

Niall paused before he spoke again. “I think that you took a goblin into the witches’ library and she was attacked. You went out with a woman who used to be your friend and she was nearly killed. You went down alone into the Vaults, not caring about what might happen if it got you more information on your mother.”

“This isn’t just about my mother.”

“Isn’t it? You have been looking for answers.”

I looked around at the others, searching for some backup. I didn’t get as much as I was hoping for.

“What? You can’t agree with Niall on this? Siobhan?”

“You
were
looking for stuff on your mother in the library,” Siobhan said quietly. “Sorry.”

“And you’ve had me investigating her death all I can,” Fergie pointed out. “Plus, if you signed, you wouldn’t be able to come out with anything you found.”

“That’s not why I don’t want to sign,” I insisted. I wasn’t even sure that I didn’t want to sign. I just felt…I felt like I’d stepped into some strange parallel universe where everyone I knew thought that I should just give up on everything that mattered. Because that was what signing would mean. I’d have to be a good little witch for the coven again, or at least pretend like I was one.

“Things are getting complicated,” Niall said. “I can feel it. You can feel it, too, Elle, I’m certain of that. Too many things are happening at once. Too many sides are trying to manipulate you.”

“What about you? Are you trying to manipulate me?” I wasn’t sure why I said it. Maybe it was just that after the last few days, I had a hard time believing anyone. “Why are you pushing me into signing, Niall? You don’t love the coven.”

“I just want to keep you safe.”

But I could keep myself safe. That was the point. I didn’t know what to think right then. What to feel.

“Elle, just come home with me. We can—”

I shook my head. “I need time to think.”

“Then think at home. I can have the car brought—”

“No, Niall. I need to think. Alone. Just…just give me some space, okay?”

Niall didn’t seem to get it, but it looked like the others did. At least, they didn’t try to get in my way as I headed for the door.

I was going to head home, but right then, I needed to do something, not sit there while too many thoughts made their way around and around my head. I started by simply walking, heading through Edinburgh’s shopping precincts and its tourist trail, heading up through the castle to sit on the battlements and look out.

Why here? Because I’d argued with Niall here over Victoria? Because some part of me wanted to remind the rest about that? What was it trying to tell me? That I knew how badly that ended, or that Niall didn’t always tell me everything? That was the problem with things like that. Information without meaning was useless.

Of course, that was a fair description of so much of what was going on around me at the moment. I knew things, fragments of things anyway, but it felt like none of it fit together, as if I couldn’t see its true shape.

My phone rang. It was Fergie. “Hey, Fergie. Calling to check if I’m okay?”

“Just seeing what you want me to do with the new cases,” Fergie said. Of course, he wasn’t going to admit to wanting to check up on me, even if he probably
did
have Marie and Siobhan standing right next to him wanting to hear the answer. “Of course, if you also want to tell me whether you’re doing okay or not, then as your legal counsel—”

“I’m fine, Fergie. I just need some space to think, that’s all. Tell me about one of the cases.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

He told me. A woman by the name of Irene Waters had lost some gold jewelry.

“New jewelry?” I said.

“Just that day, as it happens.”

“With nothing left but some gold dust?”

“Yes, how did you—”

I sighed. “It’s faerie gold, Fergie. Tell the insurers that it’s con artists who steal back jewelry to resell it. It amounts to the same thing. The jeweler must be in on it.”

“Okay.” Fergie paused. “Do you want to hear the others?”

A man had found his house mysteriously cleaned while he was out. Apparently, he was worried about possible stalkers.

“Brownies,” I said. “Just tell them that you know they’re there. They should go.”

The last of the cases involved “vandalism” of a new Porsche parked overnight and the theft of a wallet from its glove compartment. When the vandalism turned out to be the replacement of its wheels, I told him to check the area where it was parked.

“What am I looking for?”

“A faerie ring, a goblin mound, a flat stone, something like that. This one’s an
old
myth, though back then, it was shoeing horses for sixpence, not changing wheels for whatever was in the guy’s wallet.”

So far, so easy. Sitting up there by the cannon I had practically made explode when dodging a coven hit squad, I felt like some kind of open air Mycroft Holmes, solving cases without ever having to move from my spot. When I was done talking to Fergie, I sat there with crowds going past me, pushing them away so that they wouldn’t bother me and, maybe for the first time in days, just letting go.

It was so beautiful, watching the city from up there. Watching the people going past and knowing that their lives had nothing to do with me. I didn’t miss the days when I would have spent every instant in a crowd like this, locked down and worrying about my sanity, but I did kind of miss the lack of responsibility from the days back before I had to worry about pregnant goblins, a complicated love life, and the hunger that even then pushed at me, pointing out how easily I could pluck someone from the crowd.

I realized that there was something else I missed, too. I missed having someone to talk to. The few friends I’d had back before I realized what I was had been witches. Rebecca had been my main confidante and sounding board. Okay, so she’d betrayed me and tried to kill me, but the worst part was that I didn’t even have anyone I could just go grab coffee with and talk.