Page 139 of Night of the Witch
But through the chaos and the smoke, I see Fritzi.
Let the entire world war around me.
I will save her.
43
FRITZI
Sensations come to me in bursts.
Footsteps. Dozens of them, hundreds, maybe.
Horse hooves.
Shouting.
A voice, one I recognize, distantly, fuzzily, but it’s enough to guide me forward, out of the darkness—
Pain ricochets through me, and I cry out, recoiling into that darkness, the sweetness of its relief.
Fritzi—you have to wake up. You have to wake up, now!
No, no, I can’t—ithurts, I can’t—
“Fritzi!”
That voice again. Otto.
I rear back, spine hitting something rounded, jagged. My wrists tug, the skin scrubbed raw, and I’m only vaguely aware of my arms behind me, chained around a pole.
Not a pole.
A stake.
My nose stings, and that is what drives me fully awake, the jarring shock of smoke billowing into my lungs, acidic and as rough as sand. I cough—that iron muzzle holds my mouth still, and the cough turns into a gag as smoke drives into my throat, coats my tongue in ash.
“Fritzi!”Otto’s voice is closer, frantic. Weapons clash now, swords on swords, pistols firing—who is fighting? The hexenjägers, the forest folk?
My eyes peel open, but there is only smoke, great billowing sheets of it, so thick I briefly wonder if I’m already dead. There’sso much—my eyes fall, and I see the pile of kindling beneath my bare feet, flames licking all around the edges, eating up the snow-damp wood and puffing screens of gray into the air.
I cough again, gag again, and yank against the manacles. My heart stutters, so used to panic now that I’ve gone numb, and I just pull again, pulling, desperate, frantic—
My whole body goes still.
I severed from the Well.
What does it mean?I ask Holda.What can I do?
Her response is swift. A gust of cool air, a surge of light from the orange-gold sunset sky.
Anything, Friederike. Anything.
The only pause I have is in knowing that once I do this, Dieter will realize he never needed sacrifices to gain his power. It was the only gruesome cap on his mania we had—in a way, I understand the limitations that the goddesses sought to impose.
When I face him, it will be all of him, unscrupulous, versus all of me, broken and terrified.
I focus on the manacles. Can I just will them to break?
