They had all fought for me and been condemned.
At the window, a swarm of bees buzzed, and I felt the fire and rage building inside me just as it had all those years ago.
Do not give up on them.
The fury bled out of my heart, and the buzzing ceased.
I would not stand idle, not this time. But I would do it withouthim.I would find a way. I would devise some way to free Margareta, a human way. I just needed a bit more time.
Chapter 20
Katharina
“Where is it? I was sure I had more!” Glass clinked as I shoved aside the loose boards in the sick house storage room. I’d left one vial of valerian tincture; I was sure of it. I had counted my stores just three days ago.
I would go to the vintner. He supplied wine to the Drudenhaus guards. I’d smile and bat my lashes until he showed me which barrels. I’d add the valerian, then I’d make sure it made it to the guards, and while they slept, I’d?—
I let out an animalistic sound. It was a terrible plan. Reckless and filled with opportunities for failure. But I didn’t have time for anything better.
My fingers clawed at the dirt, nails catching on splinters, desperate to locate the lost flask. Perhaps it had rolled. Perhaps I had miscounted. Perhaps?—
I heard the latch of the door.
I sucked in a sharp breath as my forearm scraped against the rough wood, skin tearing as I flung myself backward, covering the hole with my skirt. Blood welled in a thin line, bright crimson. Heinrich—no, not Heinrich—stood in the doorway, his face hidden in shadow. The light from the corridor behind him madeit impossible to read his expression, but I knew his gaze was on me.
“What do you want?” I hissed, pressing my hand against my bleeding forearm to staunch the flow.
He stepped into the room, and the door swung shut behind him. In the dim light filtering through the single high window, his face emerged. His lips flattened, and if I believed it possible, he might have looked saddened. There was a hesitation in the way he held himself, none of the predator I knew lurked beneath.
It made my stomach clench with dread.
“Sister Margareta is dead.”
The words sank like lead into my stomach.
I shook my head. “You lie. It has only been a few hours. They would not have started yet.” Anticipation was its own type of torture.
“I have never lied to you, Katharina.” His voice was soft—tender. “They found her dead in her cell, a small glass vial clutched in her hand. Empty.”
My chest heaved as I tried to control my breathing. The room seemed to tilt around me. The valerian I’d been looking for…the vial I could not find.
She had taken it. Somehow, she had taken it from my stores. Perhaps for Herr Holtzmann, or maybe she suspected?—
“No.” The word came out broken. “No, she wouldn’t—she was strong, she was fighting, she?—”
“She was facing the strappado tomorrow morning.” His mouth twisted into a grimace. “They wanted her to confess not just her sins, but the sins of others.” He gave me a hard look. “She knew what they would do to her body to get it.”
I pressed my hand harder against my forearm, focusing on the sting of the wound, using the pain to anchor myself to the present. If I let go, I would fly apart, and I did not think I would ever return.
“It brings me no joy to tell you this,” he said, his voice heavywith something that might have been genuine regret. “Margareta was a good soul. One of the few I have encountered in this wretched city. I did not wish her harm.” He paused, watching me with those ancient eyes. “Although the choice she made was likely far kinder than the fate that awaited her. The strappado is…not a gentle death. What she chose was peace. A final act of defiance they could not take from her.”
She chose death to protect me.This is your fault. This is all your fault.
“There is more.”
I peered up at him, and something in his expression made my heart stop.
“Greta Welser was taken this morning.” He said it flatly, without inflection, as if reporting the weather. “They found her husband dead, and she tried to run.”
