2 Witch and Famous by Eve Paludan, Stuart Sharp Page B

missed him a dozen times and not known it, yet some hunch kept me going. Some fragment of memory.
    I opened my senses as wide as I dared, taking in the feel of the people around me, searching for some hint of that feeling that signified another like me. There, up further, heading into the castle, I felt the sharp otherness of another enchanter. It had to be Niall.
    There was a line waiting to get in. I ignored it, pushing power into the men who tried to step into my path so hard that they practically fell to their knees as they let me pass. I headed up through the winding complexity of the old fortress, which had stood up to wars and the displeasure of kings, but really wouldn’t want to be in the way of my current mood.
    The castle. I’d been here before, once, at school, as a child. My main memory of it was of getting lost in its maze of corridors and having to call out for help. As a child, it had seemed such a huge, intimidating place. As an adult, it had seemed like the kind of place to ignore as a tourist trap, the kind of place to quietly laugh about busloads of people from south of the border coming up to see while I got to see all the “real” places in the city. As an enchantress, it looked completely different.
    For a start, I could feel all the layers of history that had seeped into the stone around me. Not in the way that some of the tourists around me would probably claim to feel it. Even the ones with their own “ghost-busting” equipment were deluding themselves. Instead, I could feel layer upon layer of emotion, from the most recent blend of curiosity and impatience belonging to the tourists around me, through the pain of wars and the glory of state occasions, all the way back to the toil and effort of the castle’s builders.
    More importantly, I could see what a perfect hunting ground the place made for an enchantress. All those nooks and crannies dotted around gave someone like me the perfect places in which to trap a human and feed. All those areas that were marked off limits to the general public, in which a skilled hunter could lurk and draw a victim…beckoned. All those potential victims wandering around in their little groups, or better yet, trying to hang back to get the feeling of independence from their tour party. It was tempting. The dark, hungry part of me whispered just how easy it would be to send a tendril of interest over to one of them, to draw them back into a dark spot where I could feed.
    I ignored my hunger, looking through the crowd, following the feeling of an enchanter until I saw…
    Niall was ahead of me. There was no mistaking his bright halo of blond hair, even in the midst of the crowd. His clothes were more subdued than usual, though. A simple dark jacket and jeans seemed so out of place on him but fit so well with the rest of the crowd that he was practically invisible in it. From the way he moved carefully through the groups of people, never striding, never looking up, I guessed that was his intention. I could feel that was his intention, because ahead of me I could feel the steady pulse of power, encouraging people to look away. Encouraging eyes to slide right off him.
    Mine might have done the same, had my other, more magical, senses not been so carefully fixed on the idea of him. I knew from experience that what Niall was doing was almost as good as being invisible. I’d used the technique myself to persuade an art gallery full of people to look away while I’d threatened Rebecca once.
    There could be only one reason for Niall to do it now.
    He was hunting.
    I had been planning to confront Niall straight away when I found him. If I’d found him. I had been planning to walk up to him and demand answers, and this time not to accept “tomorrow” as an answer. Now, though, I found myself falling into step behind him, pushing out my own “don’t notice me” signals to the crowd around me. If I followed, I could see what he was going to do. I had to see what he was