I shake my head. “Not me. Everyone.”
His brows go up.
“We could…we could tie it to everyone who belongs to this land,” I say to Otto. “Everyone can hold a small well of it in themselves, like you said you could.”
“There will still be magic left over.” Abnoba twists her walking stick in her long frail fingers. “But the backlash of magic exploding out of the Tree would be lessened significantly.”
“So it’s possible?” My eyes widen, pleading. “We can give everyone access to magic? Not just witches?”
Abnoba grins. She points between the two of us. “Your mortal is able to access your magic. Bonded pairs could be two witches, sometimes a mortal and a witch, the pairing did not matter. What mattered was thehearts. The souls. That is what determines ability with magic. So these mortals you want to give our magic to—some will be receptive. Some won’t know anything has changed.”
“But they’ll have the chance.” I suck in a shaky breath. “Everyone will have the chance to use magic if they want it. We can do this.”
I turn to Otto, grab both his hands, something tight and feverishwelling up in me. My mouth opens, and I start to explain what I’m thinking, a fumbled, delirious plan, but he squeezes my hands and smiles.
That smile silences me. That smile is a caress on my cheek, a warm beam of sunlight. The connection between us vibrates with that warmth, and I feel his understanding, his acceptance, his surety.
“How?” he asks me, but then he turns the question to Abnoba. “How do we funnel the magic out to everyone?”
Abnoba lifts her hand, and suddenly, she’s holding an apple. She takes a bite with a crack and crunch, juices flowing down her chin. “How, indeed?”
Otto made the apple tree bloom when we were trying to practice him accessing my magic. We talked about intent, and will, and instinct.
“We’ve barely figured out how to use our bond,” I say.
“Will it hurt her?” Otto asks over me. “Will it—”
Abnoba smiles at us. “I do think you’ll be just fine.”
The whiteness around surges brighter, brighter, so bright I have to slam my eyes shut to avoid the piercing intensity—
The smell of smoke has me yanking my eyes open, and I’m sprawled back on the Origin Tree’s roots, my hand on the trunk, Otto next to me, his arm around my waist. The Tree burns, the air sullied with gray smoke and the stench of ash, flames of orange licking up the bark.
And there, not an arm’s length away, is my brother, slumped at the base of the Tree, his skin charred and bleeding.
I can feel his tether to the Tree’s magic. It’s a weak, brittle thing, a clumsy final grasp at magic he can no longer host or access, not since I cut off his bond with me. A final, divisive rendering that can never be undone.
He’s dying. I can feel that too. The slow drain of his life. The smell of his burning flesh.
His eyes meet mine, startling blue against the burnt black and cracked red of his face, and he sneers at me, reaching one trembling hand until he rests it on the Tree over his head, palm flat against the bark.
“Can you feel it, Fritzichen?” he croaks. Then laughs, a sharp, aching guffaw. “No. You can’t, can you? It’smine.”
He’s taking the magic. He’s pulling the Tree’s magic into him, it’s the only thing keeping him alive, and I scramble to my feet, Otto with me.
I put my back to my brother. He doesn’t matter now. Maybe he never did, and I only thought he did because I wanted to love him.
But I want other things now.
Ineedother things. And I’m choosing this, to grab Otto’s hands and stop him from moving higher up the Tree, toward Dieter.
“Wait.” I look up into his eyes. The Tree burns next to us. Dieter lies at the base just across the roots from us, draining the magic into him. It’s a pull on the air, a physical jerk in my chest; it’s such a potentfeelingthat the air should be awash in sparks and glitter and flashes, but there is nothing to see, magic effervescent and ethereal. Somewhere beyond the flames, voices shout, weapons clash—hexenjägers and witches, fighting.
But I cup Otto’s jaw in my hands and pull his forehead to mine and breathe.
“This is our magic,” I tell him. “Not his.Ours.All of ours.”
“That’s our intention,” he says. “That’s our will.”
