2 Witch and Famous by Eve Paludan, Stuart Sharp Read Free Book Online Page A

that?”
    “It’s not his fault.”
    “Of course it’s his fault! If he did it, it’s his fault.” I reached out to put my hand on her arm. “You should walk away, Siobhan. Just leave him. He’s not good enough for you. He is dragging you down with every decision he makes about his own life, and you are letting him decide for you too by staying with him.”
    “I love him, Elle. And it’s complicated.”
    She was the second person today to tell me that her relationship was complicated. I shook my head. “Not from where I’m standing. You’re still young. You don’t know how things are.”
    “You’re the one standing in the sun,” Siobhan snapped back. “What am I meant to do? Leave the tunnels? Come up here and slowly fry? I love the up-world. I love it as much as any goblin can, but I still can’t live up here. I’m sorry about the petty cash from your office and breaking into it to…sleep together. I know that was wrong. We just wanted a place to go and be alone. I love him, Elle.”
    I sighed. “Oh, Siobhan. You can’t be with him. He’s destroying you.”
    “Leave it, Elle. Please, just leave it.”
    Again, I was all too aware that I could have made her come with me. I could have pushed emotions into Siobhan to make her get away from Dougie. Even made her stop loving him, given time. I could have done all those things, and every one of them would have been evil. Even when I thought they were the right things for Siobhan. Maybe especially then. Regardless of what I was, I didn’t get to make those kinds of decisions for other people. There had to be a stopping point, or what was I?
    I asked what I’d come up there for again, instead. “Vampires, Siobhan. Enchanters. Whatever they want to call themselves. Are there any in Edinburgh besides me and Niall?”
    Siobhan shook her head. “Not any that I know about.”
    “You’re sure?”
    “I just said it, didn’t I?” There was an edge to her voice that was clearly designed to shut the conversation down. Well, of course she was going to be angry with me, after I’d just told her to dump her boyfriend.
    Unfortunately, I couldn’t leave it like that. “It’s important, Siobhan. I need to be certain. It is a matter of life and death. Are there any other enchanters in Edinburgh?”
    Siobhan shrugged. “I don’t know about any. If I hear anything…”
    Which was the other reason I couldn’t push Siobhan into coming with me. Down in the dark of the goblins’ world, she could find out things that I couldn’t. She could maybe hear something that would point me in the direction of the killer. Up here, she might be safer, but she couldn’t help me. Not everything that was dark and evil hid down in the depths where Siobhan lived, but enough things did that I needed to know about them.
    “All right, thank you,” I said, heading off down the hill, past some of the trees that lined the way. I took out my phone again, trying Niall once more. This time, I got through.
    “Elle?”
    “Niall, is everything okay, you sound—”
    “It’s fine,” he assured me. He paused for a second. “I’m sorry about this morning.”
    “So am I. I need to talk to you. It’s about the case I’m working on.”
    Another pause. Face to face, I might have had some sense of the reason for it, but over the phone, there was nothing.
    “Can it wait?” Niall asked. “I’m in the middle of something.”
    “This is a murder, Niall,” I said.
    “And I will help all I can, but this is…business.”
    “What kind of business?” I asked. He seemed to have so much business, so many deals going on at once. It was another area of his life where it felt like Niall hadn’t let me in completely yet.
    “A meeting. One I cannot put off. I will call you as soon as it is done, I promise. And Elle?”
    “Yes?” I couldn’t keep some of the exasperation out of my voice.
    “I love you.”
    “I love you, too,” I said, although I accompanied it with a sigh as I hung