He looks past me, glancing once at Johann, then at Otto.
“Give me that stone,” I demand. I know it’s useless. I just want his attention back on me and off Otto.
Dieter cocks his head. “Why did you push me out of your mind all those nights ago? We were working so well together. Did you at least do what I asked you to do? Do you have the stone?”
He doesn’t wait for me to confirm or deny any of his questions—I feel his grasping fingers of magic, my own magic doubled back on me, picking at my brain, cold, boney fingers that pluck a headache across my forehead.
He’s trying to overtake me again.
Panic overwhelms me. A surge of terror, and I grasp for the connection with Otto, for the amulet Cornelia gave me.
Dieter can’t get me.
He can’t overtake me again.
He seems to realize it at the same moment I do. That scowl grows darker as he heaves himself out of the opening with the gold box, boots sloshing in the water that coats the floor of this wide chamber.
“You shut me out, sister?” Dieter cradles the stone to his chest. “You didn’t bring me the stone from the Well, did you?”
“Give me that stone,” I say again, though I know it’s hopeless.
Dieter grins. He tosses the stone in the air. Catches it.
“No,” he says. “No, I don’t think I will.” He turns to the nearest hexenjäger. “Kill those two. Bring my sister to me.”
“No!” The scream tears out of me at the same moment two hexenjägers lift crossbows and fire.
There are no plants here, nothing connected to what magic is most instinctual for me, so I’m acting on will only, will and horror, and so I grab at wild magic and pull, up and over, thinking onlyshield.
The water responds.
In a great lurching wave, the inch of old stagnant water rips from the floor and covers the opening between this tunnel and the chamber in a wall of protection. The arrows thud off it, clattering to the ground on the other side, and through the waving, distorted wall of water, I see my brother take a jerky step forward.
“Unfair, Fritzichen!Play nice!”
More arrows fire, ricocheting harmlessly off the wall of water I hold up, hands splayed.
Next to me, Otto touches my shoulder. “Are you all right?”
“AmIall right? He just tried to kill you!”
“Fritzi. You’re controllingwater.” He says it with wonder. As though we have time for wonder. As though hexenjägers aren’t currently hacking at this protective wall with swords.
But it is something awe-inspiring.
I haven’t gotten to see the bounds of wild magic while hiding my abilities in the Well. I haven’t practiced what I’m capable of.
This is the first time I’ve used magic that isn’t associated with plants, the first time I haven’t depended on the teachings instilled in me.
I gasp, throat welling, and somehow manage a smile.
“This is all real, then?” comes Johann’s still, small voice.
We both turn to him. His gaunt face is gray, and I see in his wide eyes that some part of him had still hoped there was a simple explanation for Dieter’s takeover. To what happened in Baden-Baden. The battle in that village was chaos, things that could have been explained away; but seeing a wall of water hold off arrows and swords is undeniable.
“Yes,” I tell him. “But we’re not all like Dieter.”
“I know,” Johann says. He quickly crosses himself. “I know. How do we stop him?”
