Witch Way Out (Witch Detectives #3) (22 page)

“Apparently.” I looked around at all of them, and I let my spell fall. “This isn’t a discussion. If you want, if you think that this is something you can’t live with, then you can come at me and try to kill me. But before you try that, you might want to think about this. Is there anyone here without an open wound? Is there anyone I couldn’t rip the life out of with a touch?”

That seemed to get their attention. What did it say about the world that they’d ignored me when I’d tried reasoning with them, but they listened to me
now
?

I sighed again. “Go home, all of you. Go
home
.”

I gave them a push, and both goblins and witches started to move away, either down the hill or back into the tunnels.

“And remember,” I said, making sure that Kal, Flora and Lucille could hear me. “This is my home. I will do whatever I need to do to protect it.”

Slowly, in ones and twos, they faded away into the growing darkness. Some of them ran. More of them walked, looking exhausted by the battle. I let them go, standing straight, knowing that I couldn’t afford to show any weakness. I waited until they were all gone before I pulled Niall and Rebecca tight to me, doing my best to hide my tears.

“
Now,
it’s over.”

It wasn’t over, of course. Far from it. Life is always too big and complicated to be sorted out in one moment, and giant political messes aren’t any different. Still we got the basics of what we wanted. The morning after my stand on Arthur’s Seat, the goblins had disappeared back underground, while Lucille, Flora and their battle witches were nowhere to be seen.

I knew because I looked. I went around the city, looking…
feeling
, for witches. What I would have done if I’d found any battle witches, I wasn’t sure. Beaten them up and thrown them out? Told them to leave? Drained them? I knew that I would have had to do something, because I couldn’t risk having them so close to the people I cared about, but how far was I really willing to go?

I thought about Nea a lot whenever I asked myself that. Some part of me insisted that I ought to be cracking up over killing her. After all, I’d drained her in cold blood. Yet, I couldn’t feel bad about it. Not when it had been the only way open to me to save Siobhan and her baby. Not after everything Nea had tried to do. Did that mean that I was one more step along the path to becoming a monster? I didn’t know.

Kal came and took the body away for me. I got the feeling that he did it mostly for the excuse to check on Siobhan, because he didn’t say much about being forced back underground. He didn’t say much of anything to me, and I could feel the strange mix of emotions coming off him all the time he was there. A little gratitude that I was protecting Siobhan, and maybe even that I’d stopped his people from being slaughtered, but plenty of grief and anger, too. Oh, and fear. Kal, the most warlike of the goblins, was afraid of me.

Apparently, he wasn’t the only one.

I was walking through one of Edinburgh’s main shopping precincts a few days after the battle, window shopping more than buying. I only spotted the young witch because she happened to stop and turn to look in the same shop I did, giving me a good view of her face in the reflection from the glass.

“Nina, hi. How are you feeling?” Part of me was a little surprised to see her there, because I associated her inextricably with muddy fields, but it made a kind of sense. After all, the university wasn’t all that far away. Of course, students like her would be around town.

She started at my voice, taking a step back.

“Oh, God. I didn’t know it was you. I’m sorry. I
tried
looking for somewhere else to live, but I still have my course to finish, and—”

I held up a hand to cut her off. “Nina, what are you talking about? I just wanted to know if you were okay. You recovered from the accident?”

Nina nodded, but she still looked like she might bolt at any moment. “You mean you aren’t here to…you know?”

“Um, no, I
don’t
know,” I said, frowning slightly. “Hold on, you think I’m planning to hurt you?”

Nina bit her lip. “You said…you said that we have to be out of the city.”

I reached out to put a hand on her shoulder. She flinched. “I said that the coven had to get its kill teams and its representatives out of the city. It isn’t the same thing. This is your home, Nina. I’m not trying to get rid of you.”

“But they say that at the Archive—”

“I bet they say all kinds of things about the Archive. If we’re really lucky, one or two of them might even be true. It was nice seeing you again, Nina.”

I left her there, my urge to shop spoiled slightly by the encounter. I headed toward my offices, passing by the coven’s local offices on the way. Those stood empty, with a “to let” sign outside them. Apparently, they’d taken me seriously on that score, although from what I understood the Archive were still there. I hadn’t dared to go back yet.

When I got into my offices, things were a lot quieter than they had been during the chaos of the coven’s visit. The coven had stopped stirring up trouble, the goblins had stopped looking for their brand of “fun” on the surface, and for the moment at least, everything was quiet. Which meant that when I went in, Fergie was idly reading the latest case law, while Siobhan had gotten to that point of boredom where even making multi-colored chains of paperclips seemed like a good idea.

“You’re both okay?” I asked as I got in. They nodded.

“No sign of the coven trying to make things tricky for us legally,” Fergie said. He sounded almost disappointed. For the last week or so, he’d been geared up for the kind of low-grade legal battle we’d been fighting before. I didn’t know whether it was a good thing that the coven hadn’t gone back to that, or simply a sign that they had gone beyond it when it came to me.

“Siobhan? How are you and the baby doing?”

“Fine.”

“Fine?” Fergie countered. “She’s been after my haggis again.”

“You’ve never heard of cravings?” Siobhan shot back. “You know, ones that don’t involve nibbling on people at the full moon?”

I smiled. “Yes, you’re definitely both back to normal.”

That was, despite appearances, a good thing. We’d taken Siobhan to the hospital after the attack on her, and between us, Niall and I had managed to keep the doctors distracted enough that they didn’t ask too many awkward questions about the odd way their patient looked. They gave Siobhan an ultrasound scan, and she actually cried when they told her that she had what looked like a very healthy baby girl taking shape inside of her.

I was glad of that, although I was still more than a little worried by this prophecy of the goblins. Not because I believed in it, exactly; I had yet to meet anyone who could predict the future with any accuracy. However, the
goblins
believed in it, and the coven probably believed in it enough to take it seriously. Enough that Elizabeth had been prepared to send a killer after Siobhan, at least. It wouldn’t be easy for her or her little girl, growing up at the center of someone else’s certainties about what she would be. Maybe I could help. After all, I knew a thing or two about other people being terrified of what I might turn into.

Niall stepped out of my office, looking as beautiful as any man could. He smiled. “Did you get caught up in shopping?”

“Something like that. Did you know that some of the ordinary witches in the city think that I want them gone?”

Niall shrugged. “If that is the only way people misunderstand your intentions in the coming days, we will all be very lucky.”

I sighed. “You’re probably right. Have you heard anything about Rebecca?”

Rebecca had more or less disappeared after we took on the coven. She wasn’t at her home, her office was empty, and she wasn’t answering any calls. That worried me in all kinds of ways. Had the coven taken her? Had the goblins? Had she assumed that the ban on the coven extended to her? Had she done something…stupid?

It was possible. After all, she had found out far too much truth about the people she’d been working with, far too quickly. She’d done everything Elizabeth had asked her, because she’d assumed that Elizabeth was working in everyone’s best interests. She’d killed Elizabeth when she found out just how big her betrayal was. She had to be going through a lot right now.

“I have not heard anything from her or about her,” Niall assured me. “If she were going to get in contact, she would talk to you, Elle. All we can do is wait.”

True, but that didn’t make it any easier. I’d only just started to get my friend back, and now she was gone, vanished into thin air. When did giving her space spill over into not looking for her like I should?

“Shouldn’t you have business?” I asked Niall. “Not that I’m not very glad to see you.”

Niall smiled. “That seems to me like enough of a reason to avoid a few meetings. Besides, I wanted to make sure that everything was okay here.”

Meaning that he’d been playing bodyguard for me when he really should have been focusing on the deals at the heart of his ever-shifting business. I expected Siobhan to complain of being watched over like that, but after everything with Nea, she seemed to be a lot better about it.

“Oh, there was one other reason I came around,” Niall said. “Something about a stationery cupboard?”

It took me a moment or two to get what he meant. Then I blushed slightly. I leaned close. “I thought you vetoed that idea as undignified?”

“I did,” Niall whispered back, taking a moment to kiss me just below the ear. Instantly, my senses sang with the nearness of him. “I have decided that perhaps I should un-veto it.”

I laughed. “Is that even a word?”

“Oh, I hope so.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s a nice word.”

I shook my head. “No, I mean why do this?”

Niall kissed me then. It was hard not to melt into that kiss. “Because I love you, undignified moments and all. I don’t want to lose those bits of you. I want you to know that whatever happens next, I am still me, and you are still you. Oh, and because, on reflection, it sounds like it could be a great deal of fun.”

Yes, it did. Although it occurred to me that I didn’t want a full office for this.

“Siobhan, you can head home early if you like. I’ll let you know if anything comes up.”

“Oh, I’ve got a good idea of what’s going to be coming up. Have fun.”

That was enough to make my blush deepen.

“Fergie—”

“Mr. Black, I believe that Marie is waiting for you at my home,” Niall interjected. “She said something about scented candles.”

“I’ll see you both later, then,” Fergie said. He was out the door so fast that I was sure he blurred at one point.

“Honestly, werewolves,” Siobhan said. “One click of the fingers and they come running.” She looked over at Niall and me. “Okay, okay, I’m going. The pregnant girl can only move so fast, you know. Oh, Elle, before I forget, there’s a package for you on my desk.”

She left and Niall caught me around the waist. “Forget the package. Whatever it is can wait.”

I stepped back playfully. “But then I’d be wondering about what’s in it all the time that we’re in the stationery cupboard, and I’d rather focus on you.”

“Oh, would you?” Niall’s smile was just as playful. “Well, I’m sure I could find ways to distract you if I tried.”

“Really? Prove it.”

He did. Oh, how he did. We made love in the stationery cupboard, and we laughed our way through most of it, even while our skin glistened with sweat and power flowed back and forth between us. It didn’t have the terrible beauty and passion that we so often seemed to have in bed together, but there was joy in it, and laughter, and love. For me, that was more than enough.

When we came together, I felt our power pulse out through the city, and I knew that I’d made the right choice. That it hadn’t even
been
a choice in a lot of ways. Edinburgh was mine. It belonged to me and I belonged to it. Here with the man I loved and friends around me. This was home.

We lay together afterward on the floor of the cupboard and I stared upward at the rows of formerly very neatly stacked pens and pencils, notebooks and legal pads.

“What are you thinking?” Niall asked.

“I’m thinking that we’re going to need to tidy up a bit before the others come back.”

“True, but since they won’t be back until tomorrow, there is still plenty of time for that. And to try out a few more areas of your offices.”

I liked the sound of that, but I also knew that sometimes, it was better to keep Niall waiting. “Oh, and I was thinking about that package Siobhan was talking about.”

“Still?”

“What’s wrong? Didn’t distract me as well as you hoped?” I kissed him again. “If all this has taught you anything, it should be that I work my way through every distraction eventually.”

“Oh, I think it has taught me more than that, Elle. But for now, go open this package. The quicker you do that, the quicker I…” Niall smiled and shook his head.

“The quicker you’ll what?”

“You’ll find that out once you’re done, won’t you?”