Nothing is further from the truth.
As if acharmcould protect you fromme.
I watch her draw closer. I should be flattered, really.
My little sister needs a whole brigade with her just to face me. Does she think that will be enough to kill me?
She will fail.
Howdelightfulthat she is delivering herself to me, though! The anticipation! Such fun. A little game for us to play until she offers me her magic on a platter.
I shall suck that magic from the marrow of her bones.
And then I will use it to break the walls that hold all magic back. I willburntheir precious Tree, and the magic of the world will flood intome.
They have tried for so long to hide so much from me. All of them. All of them liars. Everyone lies.Everyonelies. The only thing real is power.
My mother told me when I was young that she loved me, no matter what. But then I realized there were conditions to her love, just as there were conditions to wield magic.
“I will always love you, my only son,”she whispered to me just before she banished me from the coven.“But I cannot allow you to put your sister in danger.”It wasso obviousshe cared more about Fritzi than me. My sister and I are special. I knew Fritzi was powerful even before the goddess chose her. Had my mother truly loved me, she would have let me drain Fritzi oh so long ago.
Holda lied to me, too, when I was a child. She regaled me with the delights of wild magic, and told me the limitations were not real, but when I dared to believe her, when I had theaudacityto truly believe the rules of magic were nothing more than false restraints, when I tried to test those rules she claimed not to care about…
She quit speaking to me. A goddess can lie as well as a man, better even. It didn’t take me long to realize the stories she whispered in my head were only half-truths. Because if I was a witch with wild magic, how much more powerful could I be if I were a god with the powers she tried to pretend she could not share with me?
Holda whispers to my sister now.
Good littleobedientFritzi. Trusting little sister.
Who could have possibly guessed thatFritziwould lie to me the most, would nearlykillme and strip me—me!—of my power.
Now, the only lies my sister tells are to herself.
That she is loved.
That she matters.
That she is safe.
Safe. How amusing the thought.
Nothing fun is safe.
12
Fritzi
The journey we take to Trier is a stark contrast to my desperate escape months ago with Otto and Liesel.
This time, we do not travel on the barest dregs of resources, scrounging for rations in markets, Otto, Liesel, and I posing as a family to avoid scrutiny. Now, it is clear to all we pass that, though we are pretending to be pilgrims, we are not to be trifled with. No one dares to intercept us, and we travel well stocked, taking crowded barges up the rivers instead of a rowboat. The size of our party means we do not have to duck to hide from hexenjägers—in fact, thereareno hexenjägers, not in any of the towns we pass through, and at first it is a relief. Everyone gives us a wide berth, eyeing Brigitta and her guards, clearly wondering how so many muscled people became seemingly pious worshippers traveling to Trier, but we are, ultimately, untroubled.
I feel the difference between these two trips like a lifting of a weight. The responsibility to stop Dieter is mine—he is my brother, from mycoven. But it is no longer justmestanding against him, and I cannot pretend that the guilt and burden of stopping him is only on my shoulders now. I have support, I have aid, I have a whole contingent of Grenzwache guards at my back.
And I have Otto at my side. Always.
Though the guards’ support becomes mildly less reassuring when their faces go from the focused glower of a serious mission to utter enchantment with each town and landmark we come across.
This is the first time they have left the Well, I realize, the first they have set foot farther than Baden-Baden, and for a few unguarded seconds whenever we arrive somewhere new, these hulking, vicious witch guards become delighted, wide-eyed children. Alois is the most terrible at hiding his blatant wonder for the surrounding world, gawking at markets and little village taverns as though he’s popped into a story being sung over a fire. Brigitta chastises him, but the wonder is refreshing, an innocent break from the purpose of our journey.
