Then...
“Villieldr.”Her voice is so quiet it’s almost as if she didn’t say it at all, her eyes closed.
It starts with the shimmer of the high summer, just barely. Sofie’s eyes fly open as the sensation runs from her mind’s eye to the actual flesh of her skin.
“Hold it. Concentrate. You’ve got it...” I say just under my breath.
The shimmer shifts into a haze. And then, blessedly, her arm becomes hot, unequivocal purple wildfire.
24
Runa
BY MIDNIGHT, WE’RE FLUSH WITH SATISFACTION ANDcompletely drained. Not only has each witch successfully pinned down the wildfire magic—both restricted to a single torch-like arm and allowing it to take over one’s whole body—but they’ve also learned the shield spell I used in my fight with the castle guards.
In the morning, I plan to teach them how to put a man to sleep. And then, when night falls again and it’s relatively safe to be out in plain view, I plan to teach them more uses for the wildfire spell, including how to blow the flames onto a specific target with magic-made wind. But for now, we can call this a triumph.
Everyone begins making motions to bed down for the night, Sofie and Agnata heaping quilts by the fire, Katrine carefully stowing away her little library collection in her trunk. Tandsmør is already out, a poof of orangefur curled next to the hearthstones.
Exhaustion hangs off my bones—I haven’t slept since the night before the wedding, and even then, I was playing catch-up. That lack of sleep piles upon my shoulders, adding to the weight of what has happened since I last slept—the wedding, the murder, the failure, Alia’s death, and my own uncertain fate. Focusing on the U-boat plot and our magical breakthrough has kept it all from dragging me down. Yet deep in those same weary bones, I know I can’t sleep. Not yet.
I stand on stiff legs and accidentally make eye contact with Will, who whispers, without missing a beat, “Would you like to get some air?”
“Yes, please.”
We step out the door and into the sweet heart of midnight. The sky is clear of storms, but there’s a restless wind kicking up from the water, bringing the sea to me. Closing my eyes, I inhale deeply, letting the scent fill my nose, throat, lungs.
For the first time, I feel like an outsider to the sea. Though I’m standing in a field and not on the beach, it’s as if I’ve got the tide lapping at my heels and the waves at my back, my toes gripping the dry land as I straddle these worlds.
The moon sits low over our shoulders, fat and silver. The light of it bathes Will’s hair in a fuzzy halo, and highlights the hair sparkling on his cheeks like individual grains of sand.
“Can I ask you something?” he says after a few steps into the cooling night. It’s going to rain again, and that promise sits in the air between us.
When I don’t say no, he looks me right in the eye so there’s no escaping. “Do you want to go back?”
I’m not sure if he’s asking because he wants me to teach him more, or because he doesn’t think they can pull off our plan without me, or even because of the way he couldn’t stop the color from rising in his cheeks when my hand touched his. Whatever the reason, I tell him the truth.
“It doesn’t matter if I want to,” I say. “I broke my promise to the magic. It won’t be kind.”
“From what I’ve seen of you, I firmly believe you can do anything.”
He says it with a sort of openness that makes me blush, and I hope he can’t tell under the moon. I dodge, looking at the grass smashed flat beneath our feet. “You’ve been talking to Katrine.”
A smile kicks up on his mouth. “She may have told me the story of Annemette and her four days. And that you’re hoping for inspiration in those old magic books.”
“It’s home. At this coming dawn, I’ll have a day, or I’m here forever. I have to try.” He nods, and a shock of realization nails me right between the eyes. “You can go home, can’t you? To your chickens in Aarhus?”
Will’s nose scrunches a bit as he frowns. “I’m afraidhome is a dicey prospect once they realize I didn’t go there after Niklas’s murder. And considering what we have planned with the U-boats, it will be an impossibility.”
“What we’re doing or how we’re doing it? It’s magic, yes, but... but the magic is in your blood. Someone has to be a witch in your family. They’d understand, wouldn’t they—”
Will twines his fingers in mine and the surprise of it cuts me off cold.
“We don’t discuss our abilities any more than we discuss what we’ve already lost with this war. If I go home, and my family chooses to protect me, it’ll mean them sending me off to be conscripted by the German army.” His eyes lift from our twined hands to mine. “If they call me a traitor on the spot, I’ll be turned in to the Havnestad crown without so much as a good-bye.”
“Your family would do that to you?”
His lips tip up, but there’s something sad in it. “There’s nothing quite as dangerous as a child who thinks he knows better than his parents and acts on those instincts.”
