Her affinity was never in plants, but she taught me their uses all the same. Nutmeg and mistletoe and nettle and more. Nutmeg and mistletoe and nettle. Nutmeg and—
What do I need them for?
I’ve missed him. I miss her. I miss them both, but Dieter ishereand right now, I can’t remember why anything else ever mattered.
He holds out a hand to me, palm flat.
I point off into the council room. Toward a body that fell.
Dieter grins. He leaves me briefly to cross the room. There’s shuffling, a thump, no words spoken or cry of alarm.
There’s an emotion I should be feeling. The person he’s searching—I know her. I know her. He’s touching her, and I should feelsomething—
He comes back with another stone in his hand. The air stone, and his smile is the sun. It is a cataclysm of everything I’ve ever wanted, Mama and my brother,happy, and I feel myself smile too.
“Three stones and one spark,” he recites, turning the spell into a song. “Water, air, earth. And fire in the heart.”
Dieter pulls me to my feet. There are so many bodies on the floor around us.
But my brother is happy, so I am as well.
We walk out of the council room and stand shoulder to shoulder at the balcony railing, looking over the whole of the Well.
People go about their day. Witches living their sad little lives, unaware that Dieter stands in their presence.
They’ll learn soon enough.
He slips the air stone into the satchel around his neck. It clunks against the water stone, and there is another I see tucked away with them now too: the earth stone. The one Rochus and Philomena guarded.
Again, an absence of emotion that I should feel. A reaction sparks. My breath quickens, or tries to, wings beating frantically only to—
I stop.
And watch my brother.
He pulls the water stone out and holds it to his lips, rolling it back and forth across his mouth, until he’s swaying with the motion of it, like wind bending branches.
“It’s time,” he sings into the stone, and from far below, at the base of the trees, screams erupt.
I look over the balcony edge. The bloated streams that crisscross the Well begin to burble and roil, bubbles and foam rippling across the surfaces. People nearby, far, far below us, begin to exclaim and point, shouting concern—
It is too late.
The waterways explode in showers of glittering droplets as hexenjägers surge up the banks, the water birthing them straight into the Well.
“I hid them in the water,” Dieter tells me, eyes alight in mischief, still swaying, still rolling the stone across his lips. He used to look at me this way in Birresborn, when he’d been naughty, and I would giggle over his antics. “The Well’s defenses couldn’t stand in water. Not againstthis. Let’s leave them to their business, Fritzichen.” Dieter turns for the stairs.
Shouts and cries clog the air now, warriors diving into battle, hexenjägers slaughtering them, swords and arrows and cries of pain.
I don’t move.
Something, again, something, I should…I shoulddo something…about this. Or back in the council room, there’s someone I need—
“Fritzichen,” Dieter snaps.
He’s angry.
I jump, shame coursing through me, and when my attention meetshis where he stands a few steps down the landing, his smile doesn’t reach his eyes.
