We head up to the trees, with Alois trailing behind us—not under Brigitta’s orders, I presume, but to be closer to Cornelia. We bound over the wooden bridges connecting the village in the trees, and I drop back.
“So, when are you bonding with the priestess?” I ask, nudging Alois in the ribs.
“Shut it,” he growls, frantically looking ahead, but Cornelia and Fritzi are deep in conversation and haven’t noticed us.
“I had no idea you were so besotted,” I say, letting my voice get a little louder. “I wonder what tattoo she’ll give you…”
“Shut. Your. Mouth.” Despite his words, a lovesick grin smears across his face.
“Maybe a jar of honey, since you’re so sweet.” I punch his bicep lightly. “Right here. Or perhaps the rune for pie? She could be your Schnucki, your little sweetie pie.”
Alois shoves me, and I stumble, barely catching the railing and preventing myself from tumbling through the branches. “Sorry, Schnucki,” he says sheepishly, and I can’t help but laugh, noting the way his red hair blends with his red neck.
Alois darts ahead once he makes sure I’m all right, side-stepping around Fritzi and Cornelia to reach the council room doors first. I make a big show of sweeping my arms out, bowing like the most pretentious lord of a castle behind the women, and Alois rolls his eyes at me as hepushes the door open. Despite my teasing, he does make sure Cornelia and Fritzi step inside first, then pretends to shut the door in my face.
Inside, the hearth is cold, the only light barely filtering through the closed curtains over the windows.
“What’s that smell?” Cornelia asks.
Something sharp and metallic.
Alois lights a tinder, sparking a torch to flame. I grab Fritzi’s hand and jerk her close. She slides a little on the floor, wet with—
Blood.
The flickering torchlight bounces off pools of blood drying into a darkening, sticky puddle, leaking from the necks of Rochus and Philomena, lying across the floor. Their robes, caked with dried blood, are the only things that identify them as the priest and priestess of the council.
“Where are their heads?”Alois gasps as Cornelia lets out a choking sob.
Manic hysteria floods me, and I whirl around.
A thud and a wet, rolling sound, followed by another thud. Two heavy objects, skidding through the blood. Philomena’s hair wraps around her face from the momentum of being tossed at our feet, but Rochus’s beard catches on something, an uneven board or a nail, and the mouth cracks open, teeth sliding through the sticky blood, eyes rolling up at us before the head slides to a slow stop.
I raise my eyes as Dieter strides forward, wiping his hands with a handkerchief as if he had a little dirt on them, not the remains of gore from Rochus and Philomena’s decapitated heads.
24
Fritzi
I cannot spare more than a glance for Rochus and Philomena. My body springs into action before I can make rational sense of anything; I flare my hands and fling my intention into the wild magic simmering within me, around me, until one word channels into my focus:restrain.
Vines come slithering across the floorboards, punching up through the wood planks. They twine around Dieter’s ankles before he lifts the stone nestled in a pouch against his chest and every speck of water within the plants sucks out, beads of moisture hovering in the air, withering the vines to dried husks.
“My turn,” Dieter coos, and punches the air between us.
Alois, closest, dives at him. Cornelia cries out while scrambling for spell components in her bag. Otto draws a sword, his face pale as his boots trek through the puddles of blood.
The water Dieter ripped from my vines gathers into an orb as wide as his chest. It slams first into Alois, and he flies back, smashing into awall of shelves. They all come down around him as he crumbles, vials and jars and plants shattering in the impact when he drops in an unconscious heap on the floor. Cornelia shouts, twisting toward him, and that beat of pause is enough for the water orb to pivot and collide with her, tossing her across the council chamber as effortlessly as if she were an empty flour sack. She spins through the air and crashes somewhere far off, hidden behind tables and furniture.
Otto remains, and I scream, voice tearing against my throat, wordless, senseless, as Dieter bends, controlling the water orb to double back. Otto slashes at it, cuts it in half, but that only serves to make it so two floating, writhing water masses descend on him, one surrounding his sword arm—and one surrounding his head.
He bucks, eyes peeling wide in instant horror within the unsteady ripples of the water orb, mouth moving in the soundless gaping of drowning. Bubbles of air break from his mouth, and the water turns his cry into a muted garble of noise.
“Stop!” I scream and lurch toward him, hands up, already calling wild magic—
Something yanks on my chest. I stumble, make it close enough to grab his arm.
Otto is drawing on my magic.
