Page 60 of Night of the Witch
When I turn, I catch the kapitän’s eyes on my waist.
He looks away, his hand snapping up to rub the back of his neck.
Silence holds. I know he was looking at me; he knows I caught him looking, and it wasn’t even the first time. Yet I don’t yell at him, don’t draw a firm line.
Why?
I should.
But still, I say nothing, and I cross the room to descend the ladder to where he showed me a garderobe I can use to relieve myself. I clean as best I can with the fresh water pumped up from the aqueduct—it still isn’t a full bath, but it’s better than nothing—and by the time I come back up, the kapitän is seated on the floor in the corner opposite the cot, his hexenjäger robes strewn over him in lieu of the one blanket that I’d torn to make my protection satchels. The lantern next to him burns low.
Another cloak is already spread over the cot. The brown one he’d worn in the market.
I have my own cloak still, but I don’t point that out.
“I’ll wake us at dawn,” he says, his eyes shut. “You can spend all day tomorrow teaching the routes to the prisoners and healing any whoneed it. Then, the day of the burning, you’ll have a few hours before the Christkindlmarkt will be crowded enough to provide cover. The midmorning bells are when everyone will need to be in place for the explosion. And you—”
“Midmorning? I thought we were moving on the afternoon bells?”
The kapitän’s eyes flare open, and he gives me a look of such panic that I immediately feel bad for teasing him.
I splay my hands. “Kidding! Midmorning bells, I know. I know the aqueduct paths for the prisoners to take and where Liesel and I will meet you at an offshoot tunnel afterward. I do. I promise.”
He doesn’t settle, his body wound and stiff, even under the cloak. “This isn’t a joke, Fritzi.”
I sit on the cot and bend to take off my boots, my hair hanging over my shoulder, some of it heavy with water from where I’d tried to wash the dirtiest curls without drenching my whole head and risking a chill. “I’m well aware,” I grumble to the floor.
It was easy when I had my potions to distract me.
It was easy when we were in the Christkindlmarkt, and every turn brought a new, glittering distraction.
But here, now, in the silence of his house fort, knowing there will be nothing stretching between me and the rising sun of tomorrow…
I should have gotten ingredients to make a sleeping draught.
The cot creaks as I curl up on it, facing the room, my eyes level with his. I pull his brown cloak up to my chin, and that, along with my thick wool kirtle and the cloak I’m still wearing, almost offer warmth. It’ll still be a verdammt cold night.
The cloak smells like the Christkindlmarkt—spices and frying oil and holly—but something else. A musk that I recognize ashim, just him.
My stomach tightens, and I nestle in deeper.
He reaches to extinguish the lantern, but he’s watching me still. The way he’s been looking at me these past hours is heaped in such intensity that I wonder how he has the energy for it, a focused scrutiny like he can unlock all my secrets just by observing the way I tuck hair behind my ear, the way I pull my bottom lip between my teeth.
But now, his look breaks with a sigh. “I don’t mean to be short-tempered. This is a delicate situation on its own, but without Hilde…” He rocks forward, his brow creasing. “Ineedyou to meet me afterward. I need you to help me find her. I cannot—” His breath hitches. “I’m trusting you in that, Fritzi.”
“You think I’ll run off,” I say.
His lips thin.
I roll onto my back, gaze on the ceiling, the long beams of wood turned to ebony shadows in the fading light.
My eyes flutter shut. “I promised to help you find your sister, and I will. Liesel will be able to find her. I know you have no reason to trust me, but we will meet you in the tunnels.”
“It is a fair trade—you have no reason to trust me either.”
The edges of my lips curl in a smile. “True. Still, I shouldn’t have teased you. I don’t take this lightly, I swear. My mother used to say my cheek would be the death of her.”
Speaking of her is like swallowing a barb. Tears burn the backs of my eyes; my throat swells.
