It’s not random.
This wound is a mirror of Otto’s tattoo, same shape, same spot. Only there was something on my chest in that spot already, one of the scars my brother gave me, the ones that allowed him access to my magic, tome.
He used my fingernails to claw the shape of a tree into it, gouging the scar tissue to make branches that spread up my clavicle, roots cut down into the top of my breast, the skin puffy.
My eyes sting. It takes me a moment to realize it’s from tears.
I hold a hand up to one of the branches cut into my body. I can see where my own curved fingernail fits into the red line on my skin.
I did this.
He did this.
It was his actions, but my body.
I am so sorry, Friederike, Holda says, her voice thin.I should have guarded you more thoroughly. I should not have trusted others to hold against his determination.
But she can’t surround me in her magic all the time. Not with Dieter doing who knows what, and all the magical preparations she should be making to counter that—she can’t,shouldn’t, have to protect me all the time. I should be able to defend myself.
I did this. I dropped my power too low. It was foolish.
Cornelia reaches forward again, tears tracking down her cheeks, but she sniffs, hard, and squares her shoulders as she touches the pendant hanging across my shoulder. “I’ll redo the spell,” she tells me. “I should have redone it earlier, maybe. I…I’ll recast a protection spell every morning from now on—”
There’s that noise again, that high-pitched crooning of my manic giggle, and I can’t stop it. It comes and comes and I’m shaking so hard the world around me starts to sway.
“Liebste,” Otto says. “Can I hold you?”
I nod.Yes, and I send it across the bond, I think I do, I’m dissolving beneath these vibrations, this laughter, why can’t I stop? It’s not funny. None of this is funny.Why can’t I stop laughing?
Arms come around me. Pull me gently into the cage of his arms, and I wince when the wound on my chest gets jostled.
“I w-was careless,” I try. Maybe speaking will help. Maybe I just need to talk. “I sh-shouldn’t have let my ma-magic get so low.”
Otto smooths his hand up and down my back. “I knew you were low on magic. I shouldn’t have—” His hand clamps on my elbow.
“When we get back to the W-well,” I manage, “I’ll ha-have Rochus and Philomena train us. Or s-someone. Anyone. We can’t keep—”
“We can help,” Brigitta offers. I’ve never heard her voice so still. So…empty. “We should have been helping all along. We can put you through training exercises. I can devise ways to test your limits. We’ll figure this out.”
I nod. Nod again. I can’t stop, and that weird, grating laughter carries on in my throat.
“Shh.” Otto holds me tighter and I let him, burrowing into his arms and his wide chest. His presence pushes down on my shaking and fear and responsibilities until I let loose one more giggle, and it shatters into a sob.
“I’m here, Liebste, I’m here,” he says, because I’m falling apart against him, body shaking now with heaving sobs that come from the very pit of my stomach, making me gag.
I think I talk again. I think I beg him for something, but I don’t even know what. I just know I’m exhausted. Physically. Mentally. Brigitta offered to help; Cornelia will cast protection spells; I’m not alone, but I’m so tired, tired of being afraid, tired of fighting, tired of bearing all these burdens and knowing Otto bears them too. And I’m tired of my body, so very, disgustingly tired offeelingmy body, of wounds hurting and reminding me of Dieter, of the way I can’t escape the pain he’s left behind. I’m in a cage in this body, andhemade it that way. I have no idea how to cleanse him out of me. I have no idea how to make this my home again, and he keeps invading it.
“You’re still you, Fritzi,” Otto says into my hair. How much of that did I say out loud? My sobs slow, body empty of magic and emotion. “You’re still you. And I’m yours, too, and I’ll do everything I can to bring you back to yourself. You’re here now. You’re here, Fritzi, and I love you.”
He keeps saying that.You’re here, and I love you.
I suck in a breath. My first full one in who knows how long.
“I love you, too,” I say back to him, and it’s weak and trembling, and my throat is cracked from sobbing, but he sighs like it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard.
We’re only about a day and a half from Baden-Baden and the Well, but night is falling fast, and we—or at least, Otto, Cornelia, Alois, and I—are exhausted. Brigitta seems torn between wanting to let me rest and wanting to get both the air stone and me back to the Well and under protection as soon as possible. As Brigitta argues with Otto over whether we should risk travel right now, I sit next to the fire.
Cornelia helped me wrap the wound as best we could, but my chemise is stained with blood, and I look like a horror creature, red-drenched and disheveled.
