Page 120 of Night of the Witch
But this society should bear some of this with me. That way I am not alone in bearing the blame for what happened to my coven.
So I ask it, and wait.
Cornelia hesitates. Her eyes drift around us, to the bridges and houses and tree-built structures. People move through them, going about their days. Some stop, stare, whisper to each other.
“Yes,” she says, half to herself.
My shoulders stiffen. “…Yes?”
“It is what I have been pushing Rochus and Philomena to do. To leave here, to face this head-on. They have been terrified of the threats facing our kind for so long that we have been forbidden from leaving the Well, and that fear has clouded their judgment entirely. So, yes,champion,” she says with a smile at me, “when you leave here to face your brother, I cantell you that there are plenty who would willingly join you against him. We have been held back too long, and I—” She sucks in a breath. Holds it. “I have allowed us to be held back.”
A weight lifts from my chest. A weight and a sigh and a flutter of bottomless grief.
Honestly, the most uplifting part is seeing her take on some of the responsibility. So it isn’t just me under this, me feeling the guilt.
“That would upset Rochus and Philomena,” I guess.
Cornelia nods.
I swallow, eyeing the path we’ve taken, the way stretching back to that meeting room.
“Something has been building for a long, long while,” Cornelia continues. “Even before my time as priestess. The goddesses have not said, maybe cannot say. But there is—”
“Cannot?”
“They are bound by the rules of their sisters and of the Well. There are limitations, even for goddesses, to keep magic pure.”
Frustration itches my throat. “More and more it feels like purity is just a cover for control.”
Cornelia’s head twitches toward me. I glance up at her, expecting to see derision, scorn—
But she’s smiling. “I think we’ll get along just fine, Friederike Kirch.”
“Fritzi. Please.”
“Fritzi.” Cornelia’s grin pulses wider.
She sweeps her hand out and points to a series of houses built into a lower portion of the tree we’re descending. Brigitta is walking toward one, and another woman is there already, wearing a maid’s apron, her hair pulled up in a work kerchief. She takes Liesel from Brigitta, and the two quietly slip into a house.
“You can have these rooms to rest. We’ll have food sent,” Cornelia says. “That man you traveled with—he will stay with his sister?”
My mouth dips open. “I…suppose so.” He’ll want to spend time with Hilde. But the thought of not sleeping in the same place as him, of not being near him when every moment has been spent in his atmosphere for weeks, knocks hollowly in my chest.
Cornelia nods. “If you like, there is a section of bathing pools at the bottom of this—”
I squeal, startling Cornelia so she jumps and laughs.
“Just down the bottom of this tree,” she explains. “Each one is secluded and has the supplies you’ll need. I’ll have new garments sent to you. And tomorrow morning—” She hesitates. “Tomorrow. I’ll come fetch you myself. And we’ll talk strategy for facing Dieter.”
“Thank you.” I clasp her arm. “Truly. Thank you.”
Cornelia lays her hand over mine and squeezes my fingers. “No, Fritzi.” There’s a depth in her eyes that still speaks of things unsaid, decisions yet to be made. How we’ll face my brother. How we’ll stop him, and the hexenjägers, and fix the injustices weighing us down. But there is hope in her, too, and I dare to let myself believe in it, that maybe I’ve found an ally in all this uncertainty. “Thank you.”
I make sure Liesel is settled—fast asleep in a cozy little bed piled high with quilts—and then I waste no time flying down the stairs to the bathing pools.
It isn’t hard to find the area Cornelia mentioned. A narrow river meanders between the trees, with a series of offshoots blocked by thick oak dividers. A few have towels or robes tossed over them, presumably occupied; I walk until I find one that looks free.
It’s so quiet here. Even with the hundreds of people I know are high above me in the tree houses, and those I can see peppered around, bespelling the barrier, silence reigns thick and relentless, that swollen quiet of a still glen or a spring morning. Is it part of the magic here?
