“Here, my dove.” His voice seemed farther away now. “Just a little farther.”
The voice came from deeper in the woods, and despite every instinct screaming danger, my feet moved toward it—toward him—as they always did. The may wine made everything feel distant, dreamlike.
“That’s it,” his voice encouraged, so perfectly Heinrich’s that my heart clenched. “Come to me, Katharina. I’ve waited so long.”
Branches cracked behind me. First, to the left and then to the right, as if multiple things moved through the underbrush, converging on me.
“Heinrich?” My voice came out small. This was foolish. I wasn’t frightened. I wasn’t?—
“Yes,” the voice answered, but now it came from above, from below, from inside my own head. “Come to me.” It was no longer just a voice; it mingled with a low throbbing, like the wings of a thousand insects.
Fear gripped my insides, cutting through the wine’s haze. This wasn’t right.
I turned to run, but the forest had changed. Every direction looked the same—dark trees stretching endlessly, no sign of the town’s lights, no sound of the celebration. Only his voice and the buzzing.
“Don’t run from me, Katharina.” He sounded hurt now. “Haven’t I always protected you? Haven’t I always cared for you?”
Tears streameddown my face as I stumbled through the underbrush.
Something pale stepped out from behind a tree ahead—the child in white. But when it turned, I saw it had no face at all, only smooth skin where features should have been.
I screamed as phantom fingers tugged at my waist.
“Heinrich?” I spun around and swore the shadows tore at my clothes, my skin. I flinched from fingers so hot they felt like ice. I swiped at my face, trying to push it all away, that infernal buzzing drowning out all thought.
“Katharina, it’s me.” The buzzing ceased as warm, solid fingers gripped my shoulder.
I opened my eyes to find warm, deep brown eyes crinkled with concern.
“Heinrich, is it really you?” I cupped his face in my hands, the rough stubble of late evening a comfort beneath my trembling fingers.
“Who else would I be?” He gave me a small grin, one that calmed my racing heart. He placed his callused palm over my hand and ran the other up my cheek, tucking a stray curl back into my cap. “You were calling my name. I saw you run into the woods and feared…”
I was safe.
He was here, and I was safe.
Without the incessant buzzing, the only thing I heard was his soft breathing, the steady rhythm of it. We were close—closer than we ever allowed ourselves to be. Suddenly, the cool night air felt sweltering, and my pulse quickened as I watched his Adam’s apple bob.
“Are you all right, Katharina?” My eyes snapped up to his face but found him distracted, his gaze lingering on my lips.
“Yes, I thought I saw…” The words trailed away as one of us shifted—I wasn’t sure who—and the weight of his chest settled against mine as he leaned over me.
Our eyes met, and all the words I should have said caught in mythroat.We shouldn’t. It will put you in danger. It will damn us both.
Instead, I said, “I liked watching you with the children. You’re a natural storyteller.”
He chuckled softly. “So you were watching me?”
Warmth flooded my cheeks. “Well, you watched me run off into the woods, so…what?” He laughed again.
“Even in the darkness, you radiate such light.” The corners of his eyes lifted with so much joy it made my heart ache.
“Heinrich, you shouldn’t say such things.” I dropped my gaze; his was still too intense.
“Why not?” he asked, an innocent air to the question. “It is true.”
“Because…” That wall—the only thing that kept him safe from me, from the taint of my reputation. I tried to brace the last crumbling pieces that kept us apart, but we’d both been chipping away at it ever since he first asked me to become his student, and I was tired of it. I wanted to tear it down, and under the Witch’s Moon, I couldn’t resist any longer.
