Page 145 of Night of the Witch
With effort, I peel my eyes away from my brother.
Around him, forming a haphazard half circle of shaking weapons pointed at Dieter, stand some of his jägers. Many can’t seem to decide whether to gawk at the forest folk or at their kommandant, but the pulse deep in their eyes speaks to revelations unfolding, truth emerging, awe taking root.
Johann is first to step forward. He looks up at me, and I realize the sight I must make, bleeding and burnt and disheveled on a now smoldering pile of kindling, forest folk flanking me, broken manacles dangling from my wrists.
He nods at me, apology heavy in his eyes, and he faces Dieter.
“Kommandant Kirch,” he says, pushing his voice loud. “You are under arrest.” A pause. His throat works. “For the use of witchcraft.”
Two other jägers step forward, one pulling out a pair of manacles, and Brigitta, next to me, makes a choked noise of objection.
“He isourprisoner,” she starts, but I seize her arm.
With my other hand, I reach for Otto. The rush of this victory is quickly catching up with me, and I can feel my legs straining to hold me, the ache from my brands demanding to be the center of my focus. He immediately sweeps in, his arm going behind my back, his grip tight on my upper arm.
I meet my brother’s eyes again. I let him see every bit of my pain, every piece of my fury, as my thoughts roll over themselves.
The forest folk would imprison him. Maybe, eventually, execute him.
But Iknowwhat will happen if the hexenjägers take him. I have seen firsthand the reception awaiting an accused witch in a Catholic church, no less one who possessed an entire brigade of jägers and hid his power from them for years.
They will strip him to nothing. And only then will they burn him.
“No,” I say, to Brigitta, to the forest folk who are poised to sweep in to push away the jägers. “Let them have him. He deserves a taste of what he has done to us.”
It’s Cornelia’s gaze I feel on me. She sits astride a massive white horse, and when I look at her, she nods, her brow pinched, understanding resonating.
“Rochus and Philomena will hate this,” says Brigitta. But there’s a gruesome smile in her voice. “All the more reason, then.”
She cuts her head at the forest folk, and they step back, giving the hexenjägers room to approach Dieter.
I let the vines fall from around his body.
The jägers grab him, wrestling him into irons, and he spits and kicks. “Worms!You don’t know what you are doing! You will regret siding against me,you will regret—”
They haul him off into their swelling crowd, a mass of black-cloaked jägers, all solemn, all shocked.
Otto helps me down from the kindling pile. As my toes touch the cool stones of the town square, Johann alone lingers, his face dirt-smeared, blood caked along his neck.
“Kapitän,” he says to Otto and comes to attention. But something in him weakens, a tremble of fear. “We could use you back in Trier. I know the archbishop will dismiss any accusations Dieter made against you, and—”
“My place is here,” Otto says immediately. He looks at the side of my face, back to Johann, to the forest folk spread around the milling jägers. “Besides, I think we will have a need for an intermediary, now that the world has seen who truly lives in the Black Forest.”
Johann’s face pales. That hesitation is reflected tenfold in the jägers behind him.
What has revealing the forest folk done to their already ripe fear of witches and magic? The reason that the goddesses created the Well at all was to help soothe the violent fear that normal people have toward us.
Whatever the repercussions. Whatever the prejudice.
We cannot keep hiding.
No, Holda agrees, and I hear the smile in her voice, teary.Now, thanks to you, we will not.
My chest bucks.Thanks to me?
You are my champion,she says.I have long searched your world, hoping to find one worthy of the task I set forth. I thought that it could be your brother. But no, Friederike—it was always you.
I can’t get air into my lungs. Black spots spray across my vision, and I stagger, leaning into Otto, shutting my eyes for one moment, just one moment ofrest.
