Page 108 of Night of the Witch
“Does wild magic…talk?” I ask.
“Talk? Heavens, child. It’s a tool. A hammer or broom could sooner talk.”
“No.” I shake my head. No—it was wild magic. It was—it was tempting me to use wild magic, to sever from the Well, just like it tempted Dieter.
But all this time. The voice wasHolda? The Maid.
Why would agoddesshave asked both my brother and I to use wild magic?
“No?” Perchta’s touch on my neck turns feral. She grabs a handful of my hair and wrenches my head back to glare down at me. “You refuse Holda’s mantle? Very well. You are of no use to us—”
“No—no, wait!” I seize her wrist, clinging to her wrinkled, soft skin. “Please. Please—I didn’t know it was her. I didn’t know she wanted me to—” Should I tell Perchta that Holda has been asking me to sever from the Well? Dread numbs me, and I lick my lips. “To do what? What does Holda want me to do?”
Perchta studies me. I gasp in her grip, letting all my panic show, my confusion, my desperation.
“She hasn’t told you?” Perchta rolls her eyes and releases me. “Too like her. She will be the end of us with her need to mask and ease.”
I scramble back, rubbing my sore head, limbs still freezing, but the air has changed. It isn’t the deadly chill of winter now—it’s warmer, calmer. The air is scented with the faintest trickle of earthiness, like tilled dirt is all around us, though it’s still just the river and rocks and muddy snow.
Perchta returns to her tree stump. She arranges her skirts around her legs, and I stay on the ground, cowering like I could sprint away at the first opportunity. But where would I go?
“Holda has been allowed to choose another champion because it is her mess that must be cleaned up,” Perchta says. She winces, more in annoyance at herself for some slip. “Though Abnoba was also forced to seek a new champion—the threat of the hexenjägers whittled away previous chosen ones until all three of us had only your coven left to select from, to find someone worthy of standing against the tide of the hexenjägers.”
My brows pinch. That’s why all three of the goddesses’ champions were from Birresborn. Because we were all that was left on the outside.
Perchta continues, “Holda first selected Dieter.”
“She chose my brother to fight the hexenjägers?”
“The irony is not lost on us.” Perchta flicks a nonexistent speck of grime off her spotless gown. “Her choice was ill-advised, to be sure. But we were running short on options. Abnoba had hers, and what a champion that girl will make! Holda swore she saw such promise in that boy with his healing affinity. And I had mine.”
That sends me to my feet. I grip my arms around myself, shaking now for a new reason. “My mother. You chose them to fight for you?”
“Why else would one choose a champion?”
“We just thought it was being goddess-blessed!” I can’t keep the shocked horror out of my tone. “We thought Liesel was blessed by Abnoba. We thought my mother was blessed byyou. But not tofight, just to receive your favor!”
She bats her hand. “How very shortsighted of mortals. I would think that beingyour mother’spatron would afford me more respect, but alas. You have forgotten many of her teachings in so short a time.”
“I haven’t forgotten. I—”
“Do not interrupt me, child. You want an explanation? Then be silent. You and your cousin are, as pitiful as you may be, our best chances of salvation—all because of whatyouallowed to happen to your coven and any remaining witches who could stand and fight. And, need I remind you, you got my championkilled.”
I twitch back, eyes tearing as Perchta stares at me like she is a hunter and I am her prey.
“Oh, yes. We know all too well the truth behind Birresborn’s fall,” she says. “Our final coven in this part of the world. Our last chance at havingchampions out in the world who could fight against external threats. All of the other witches who managed to escape to the Well, who made it through the barrier, are broken and wounded and unfit to stand in a fight, let alone be our champions. Birresborn was our last hope in every way, and in one act of shortsighted loyalty, you destroyed our final chance to preserve our way of life.”
Tears trickle down my cheeks. How was this goddess my mother’s patron? But I know—she is the embodiment of all Mama’s worst chastisements of me, lessons and scoldings and harsh, barking orders. And she’s right. About everything. I’ve barely functioned under the oppressive weight of what I let happen to Birresborn, and hearing her say exactly what has weakened me all this time yanks a pitiful sob from my lips.
I wrap my hands over my mouth, trying to stifle it down, trying to cap itagain. But it’s coming and coming now, sadness and agony, and I fall to my knees again, sobbing at the Mother’s feet, and I am a child utterly.
Blubbering, I cave forward. “Why didn’t you help us?” I sob, hapless and broken. “Why didn’t youstop it?”
I don’t realize until I ask it how poignant the questions are.
Why was the fate of Birresborn entirely onme?
Why, if the goddesses knew we were the last coven, did they not step in and help?
