Page 35 of Night of the Witch
I glare at the opening in the ceiling.
Whatever game this hexenjäger is playing, whatever test Kommandant Kirch is putting me through…
I’mdone.
I’m getting out of this cellar, and I’m going to find Liesel, and we’re going to the Black Forest.
Are you really going to them?asks the voice.Why go all that way when I am right here to help you?
I snort.Where were your useless questions when the kapitän had me in his arms?I shoot back.You’re slipping, Darkness.
I’m talking to the voice more than I ever have before.
This can’t be good.
I pull to my feet. My hands are still manacled—I’ll have to take care of that too. But for now, all I need to focus on is getting out of this cellar.
There are enough crates stacked against the wall that I can create a crude tower to climb.
Grim, I cast one last look at the impassable cellar door that leads out to the tunnels.
“I’m getting out of here, jäger,” I promise to the silence. “Then I’m getting my cousin and we’re going to the forest folk.”
10
OTTO
If God had to send me arealwitch to contend with, why did he have to send me one that was such a pain in the arse? Her magic was strange, and I can only hope she told me the truth when she said she had protected Hilde, not hurt her. Magic, I can handle.
Her mouth? Not so much.
I take a deep breath. That’s not fair. She’s scared and alone, and how is she to know the black cloak of the hexenjägers is a disguise to me and not a truth? Still. It would be easier if it were Hilde here, Hilde helping.
Sorrow makes my steps falter, my breaths stutter in my chest.Hilde.If I can get this witch to trust me, she’ll tell me where my sister is. I don’t think she did anything to harm Hilde, just…sent her elsewhere. Perhaps far away. But that doesn’t matter. I will find and save her and…
One thing at a time. I rush through the aqueduct system. First to Johann—he’s closer.
“No one came through, Kapitän!” Johann says, a tremble in hisvoice—partly from fear, but mostly from cold. It’s winter, and we’re both wet to our knees from icy river water sloshing over our boots.
He’s right to be afraid, though.
“What happened to your torch?” he asks as I brush past him and retrieve a fresh one from the basket by the aqueduct entrance.
I’d tossed it. Had to. If I’d taken the torch out of the tunnels, it would have been apparent that I quenched the flame in the cold river water, not that it died in some witch’s wind. Plunging the torch down had been the quickest means to getting the darkness I needed to hide my actions as I took Fritzi.
I knew Johann and Bertram wouldn’t be able to navigate the dark as I could. I am more familiar with the tunnels under Trier than anyone, even the kommandant. I have often walked them without any torches, counting my steps and feeling for the cues to know which tunnel is which.
The dark never scared me. I have lived too long in it.
“Come on,” I growl without answering his question, leading him back through the tunnels after lighting the new torch.
Johann makes no comment as we head toward the Porta Nigra, one of the few paths he knows. Had the hexenjägers looked at the tunnels as more than a means of transporting prisoners, they would know that Fritzi could only have gone in one of six different tunnels that didn’t lead into a dead end. If any of them had bothered to map out the tunnel system, they would know where each of those six tunnels goes, and how a person can escape through them.
But no one knows those routes except me.
Johann sniffles behind me. I don’t look back, but I know the boy is truly scared now. Not of the dark. Not even of the witch. Of the repercussions of losing her.
I don’t speak, setting a quick pace through the cold water. Soon enough, the tunnel opens up, broadening at the base of the Porta Nigra.
