She would have loved speaking to Perchta like this. She would have loved seeing this barrow. She would have even loved Perchta’s guardian monsters—any creature was her friend.
Tears track down my cheeks. I swallow, keep going, knowing I’m not imagining the sudden sheen in Perchta’s eyes.
“—and how they are interwoven into all my memories of her and my childhood. She sang me to sleep with our songs. My whole family wouldgather to cook our recipes. My coven passed down spells and taught the phases of the moon and the best ways of harvesting ingredients. With wild magic, we don’t need spells or ingredients, but that doesn’t undercut the importance of them as a uniting force.Yougave us that, Perchta. You gave me happiness in your traditions. I haven’t—” I suck in another breath, a gulp, a sob. “I haven’t thanked you.”
Her surprise holds. Sharpens.
“So thank you,” I press on. “Thank you for guarding the things that made my childhood sweet. Thank you for giving me traditions that link me with Liesel, with everyone in the Well. Thank you for connecting us, Perchta. But I wouldn’t be connected to the Alamanni, if they were still around, would I? The ancient tribes’ traditions differed from ours. All these traditions, all these beautiful things you safeguard—they were not always traditions. They’ve evolved. They were once concepts that married to other concepts until they became something we could build a foundation on. They were once ideas ofchange, weren’t they, Perchta?” I’m breathing heavier, begging her to hear me. “Tradition has always been change.”
Perchta’s hand, the one holding the stone beneath mine, trembles. Her shocked face doesn’t change, her lips in a thin, clasped line.
“You say traditions are sacred, that they cannot be altered, but traditionisalteration.” Tears roll down my face so when I try to smile at her, I know it is helpless and brittle. “You are the goddess of tradition, but that means you are also the goddess of change, because change is the mark of the success of tradition. It means we survived long enough to evolve.”
I bow my head at her. The first time I have ever done so willingly, not out of threat or fear.
“So thank you, Perchta,” I say again. “Thank you, Mother, for keeping your children safe enough to let us grow. But we are grown now. Andthat is because you succeeded. You, the goddess of change and tradition.”
“You seek to manipulate me,” is all she says, but her voice is rough.
I don’t look up, hand still stuck to that stone in her palm. “No. I am tired of fighting you. I don’twantto fight you. I may be Holda’s champion, but I am a witch first, and a witch belongs to all three goddesses. I don’t want you to be my enemy. I want you to help me.” Now I do look up at her. “Help me make new traditions for our people so we can keep growing.”
Perchta’s eyes hold on mine. Her face is a mask, as stony as the statues she commanded, as fierce as the monsters that corralled us into this tomb. Her hand, though, trembles under mine, and it is that shake that betrays the emotion in the depths of her eyes, a glossiness that could be agony.
She’s afraid. She’s as afraid as Holda. They have watched our people get beaten and tortured and burned, imprisoned and exiled and murdered. They have seen it all, done everything they could, over and over, to try to stop it, however misguided their attempts were. But in Perchta’s eyes, I see all of the sorrow that went into creating the Origin Tree, all of the terror that has made her the vicious, fearsome goddess of rules that haunted so many children’s nightmares.
She tried to use that fear to keep us safe. But it is no longer time for us to be safe.
“I will do everything I can to stop Dieter from breaking the Origin Tree,” I promise her. “But I do not think I can do it without you.”
A muscle tics in Perchta’s jaw.
The darkness that had been creeping into the edges of the room retracts, chased away by the sudden swell of that ethereal white light. It grows, grows, and I have to snap my eyes shut in the piercing clarity of it all—
When I open my eyes, Perchta is gone.
The statue is back in its alcove.
And the air stone is in my hand.
21
Otto
It all happens in a blink. One minute, Fritzi reaches for the stone the statue holds out; the next, the statue is back in the alcove, and Fritzi is sagging beside me, as if she had just fought a battle herself. Cornelia and Alois don’t even notice, don’t even stop their bickering over Cornelia’s injury, but I can tell.
Something happened.
“Are you all right?” I ask, throwing my arms around her. She leans against me, trusting me to bear her weight for a moment. It is, perhaps, a good thing I am not a witch with all the power Fritzi has; if I were, I would use every ounce of magic in me to carry the two of us far, far away and protect her from ever having to fight again. I am so tired of my Fritzi being driven to the point of exhaustion.
Something in my stance makes Cornelia and Alois look up. “What happened?” Alois asks, noting Fritzi’s hunched shoulders.
Cornelia pushes Alois aside and rushes to her. “Fritzi?”
“I’m fine,” she says, straightening. She holds out her hand, revealing the air stone. Cornelia sucks in a breath.
“Dietercannotdestroy the Origin Tree without all three stones,” Cornelia says, relief pitching her voice high. “Oh, thank the Three! He may have the water stone, but this means magic is safe.”
“And the earth stone is still protected in the Well,” Alois adds. “Two out of three, not bad.”
