Page 128 of Night of the Witch
Rochus ignores her. He takes a step closer to Liesel, his hands out, but the girl shrinks into me, and I wrap my arms around her, glaring up at him. The priest squats down, eye level with her, ignoring me.
“Liesel, you need to bond with me. Champion and warrior, as the goddesses designed our people to work together.”
“And together, we will go to Baden-Baden and save Fritzi?” Liesel asks.
He hesitates.
Hehesitates, and I know at that moment he intends to leave Fritzi to her brother’s devices. To leave her to die.
My arms tighten around Liesel, but that child has seen the way adults lie and manipulate, and she knows what Rochus means.
“You still want to run,” she says coldly.
“We have to—” Rochus starts.
“What kind of warrior could you possibly be?” I snarl, and for the first time, the man looks directly at me. “Neither my god nor yours would choose a coward as a warrior.”
“I’m not a coward for trying to protect my people! For trying to protectmagic!”
A million curses rise to my mind, but before I can say a single one, Liesel speaks, her voice soft but certain. “You are,” she says, and Rochus reels back as if he’d been punched.
“Well, I’m not.” The youngest priestess speaks loudly, drawing attention to her. “Cornelia,” she says by way of introduction, nodding at me. “I don’t need my goddesses to tell me the right thing to do. Brigitta, summon every guard willing to become atruewarrior. We do not patrol tonight. We go to war.”
“The council does not approve of this action!” the other priestess snarls, blocking the door as Brigitta moves toward it.
“If the goddesses don’t want us to fulfill our destinies,” Cornelia growls, “then they should not have given us a destiny in the first place.”
“Do you intend to fight the very gods you serve?” Rochus asks, eyes wide.
“Yes,” Cornelia says emphatically.
“Me too,” Liesel says, her voice still calm. “And if you don’t get out of the way, Philomena, I’ll just set this entire place on fire.”
Sputtering, the priestess finally moves aside. She and Rochus storm out, Brigitta rushing past them, a horn to her lips, sounding an alarm.
Alone now, Cornelia turns to us. “I can reasonably count on fifty, maybe a hundred to join us tonight,” she says.
“I don’t think that will be enough,” Liesel says.
I didn’t get a full glimpse of the number of hexenjäger troops Dieter brought with him from Trier, but he has enough to turn this into a bloody battle. Even alone, however, Dieter is more powerful than I can comprehend.
“We need something that can take him down,” I mutter.
Neither of the others heard me. Cornelia is focused entirely on Liesel, speaking directly to her. “The bonding potion is the most effective way to sever the Well from this world, but there are other ways. Messier ways. I don’t trust Rochus not to try them if the battle fails.”
“He would rather break the Well than let Dieter have it,” Liesel says.
“Perhaps.”
“That bonding potion you keep talking about,” I say, loud enough to make the others listen. “That’s what we need.”
Cornelia looks confused.
“The goddess Holda called me a warrior, and not just any warrior, butFritzi’swarrior. I take the potion with her, and together we take down Dieter.” I know this is the way it has to be. I cannot let Fritzi be in a position to kill her own brother; that would break her. But if I have some of her power, I can do it.
Cornelia, however, is shaking her head slowly. “You don’t understand the danger of this potion.”
“Fritzi warned me about it.”
