Page 121 of Night of the Witch
It’s peaceful. Deliriously so.
And that peace feels like a warning.
Dieter is just beyond this border, trying to figure out how to break his way in here to corrupt the Origin Tree with wild magic. Without me bonded to him, without Liesel to give him answers, he’ll use more sacrifices to fuel his powers—but is that even right? Whatiswild magic, if it is connected to ours, if Holda wants me to use it?
What do you want?I ask Holda as I work my way to the bathing pool. The oak dividers are massive, folding one alongside another like a series of doors mended together, each pane etched with an image of a tree.Thetree, I realize, the one from my dreams. The Origin Tree.
There is much I cannot tell you, Fritzi, Holda says.You heard why.
What Cornelia said,I guess.You are kept from telling me by the rules you and your sisters exist by. So all this secrecy is because you’re trying to tell me something, but you’re prevented from saying it. You tried to get Dieter to figure it out too.
Yes.No pretense. No delay.
And your sisters, I start, hesitation seizing me,they disagree with whatever it is you want me to see. They don’t want you to tell me. That’s why this secret was bound in magic.
Again, no delay.Yes.
I sigh, rubbing my forehead, feeling the dirt there. I can’t deal with all of this right now, not now. After a bath, I’ll find Otto and talk this through with him. Or just kiss him senseless, and—
I step around the last divider to see a small, dark pool fed by the river,surrounded by smooth stones large enough to lie on, the break in the trees letting sunlight pour in, warming the space.
Otto is in this pool.
Every thought in my brain fuzzes into echoing silence.
He’s naked, waist-deep next to the largest river stone, bent forward. His face, hair, and neck are covered in some kind of lathered soap he works from a bar in one hand. A breath, and he plunges beneath the surface, then pops up again, the muscles down his torso and across his back flexing and shining in the water.
I make what has to be the most horrifically unflattering noise that has ever come out of my mouth. Something like a whimper, like a scream, like a strangled giggle.
He whips around, water spraying.
And sees me.
A blush starts in his cheekbones and flows down his neck, beneath the curled brown hair across the contours of his chest, his flexed arms, the smoothVthat feeds down his hips and deep beneath the water.
I’m staring. And it’s been silent between us for so long that Otto smiles slowly, wading a step closer. It raises him up, not quitethathigh, but the level of the water is lapping dangerously low now, and my internal thoughts are an incoherent jumble of panicked shrieking and desperate whines.
“You’re all right?” he asks, dragging the soap through the water, leaving a trail of bubbles.
Always the first question. Making sure I’m fine.
The Three save me, he is not helping my chaos.
So I don’t fight it.
After everything that’s happened. Everything we’ve been through. We’rehere, safe for the time being, and I will take full advantage of this moment.
Because it might be our last.
Whatever tomorrow brings, it will drag us into stopping the hexenjägers and fighting my brother and his madness. Whether that involves all parts of the Well is yet to be seen. Tomorrow might even involve fighting Rochus and Philomena first.
The immensity of these possibilities and the weight of their outcomes has all of my insides cramping tight, seizing up the way Perchta grabbed ahold of my muscles.
My eyes fall from Otto’s, severity descending over me in a wave of startling clarity, and I let my cloak drop to the forest floor behind me.
I kick off my boots, peel off my stockings.
Otto watches me, his eyes getting progressively wider.
