Page 89 of Night of the Witch
But she sits up straighter, her gaze boring into my soul. “He’s not just trying to break the wards that protect the Well. He’s trying tobreak the Well.He has wild magic, but if he has access toallmagic without needing to be connected to the Well…”
There will be no limits on what he can do, no requirements of sacrifice or evil acts or rules. He’ll have all the magic in the world. He’s already started trying to break the wards from here, but nothing of what he’s done so far has brought them down or even really hurt them.
My chest goes cold, matching the frigid wind that drifts past us, fluffing the hair around Liesel’s face. “The forest folk will be willing to help us, then, if they know that that is his intent,” I say, barely feeling the words.
Liesel shrugs, her eyes fluttering in a slow, tired blink. “I tried to figure out what all he knows, but—”
“No—you’ve told us enough,” I cut her off. “Rest now.”
I help her lie down on a cloak I spread out, and I pull the edges around her, tucking her in as tightly as I can. The fire stays burning next to her, casting orange and gold against her face, and her eyes are shut almost instantly, lips parted in a smallO. Her hand is clasped under her chin in a fist, and I see the edge of something sticking out of her fingers—pine needles. The little animal Otto had carved.
My chest twists, aching.
I remember when she was a babe, how she’d slept like this in my Aunt Catrin’s arms. Holding a toy. Innocent, soft.
Tears sting my eyes again, and I sniff, hard, looking up into the wind to dry them.
“Our paths align, at least,” Otto says softly. “We can make for the Black Forest. Using the rivers, we can reach the town of Baden-Baden. It borders the forest.”
I hang silent for a long moment. Wondering what conversation wewould have if our paths didnotalign, if his sister was elsewhere, but Liesel and I still needed to get to the Black Forest. To the Well that Dieter is trying to break into, to corrupt.
“I’m going to get more firewood,” I say. It’s a lie—Liesel’s fire will burn now without added fuel. Otto doesn’t know that.
I shove to my feet and push into the forest, trying not to move too frantically, but the moment I’m far enough away from the makeshift campsite, I run. I only get a few paces before I realize how utterly stupid that is; I need to stay close, should any jägers pop up, should Liesel awaken with nightmares and only Otto is there to comfort her. But I need—I need to beaway, to run, tomove, to—to—
I drop against a tree, and all the sobs I’ve fought down, all the grief that’s been waiting patiently in my gut to destroy me, finally comes out.
Sobs rupture up my throat and shake through my limbs, and it’s all I can do to keep my feet. My mind plays over and over the image of Aunt Catrin holding Liesel in her arms as a babe, that one innocent memory breaking me when nothing else has been able to. But it’s gone now, Aunt Catrin, Liesel’s innocence—it’s all gone,because of me. Because of my brother. Because I was a fool, a love-blinded fool who thought Dieter had been banished for something simple and childish, not forwild magic, not for—
A twig cracks behind me.
I whirl, hands up, body immediately going alert.
But it’s only Otto. Palms out flat toward me, eyes wide in apology.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he says.
I grunt frustration and scrub at the tears I know he saw. “You should’ve stayed with Liesel. I’ll be back soon.”
“After you gather firewood for the fire that hasn’t needed fuel once.”
My hands go stiff, rubbing at my cheeks, and that stiffness surges down my body.
Otto takes a step closer to me. I fold my arms, jaw set and eyes still hot.
“It wasn’t your fault,” he says.
I laugh. It’s hollow. “You have no idea what is or isn’t my fault.”
“I know your brother. And I know his madness is nothing you can control.”
“But it is.” My voice croaks, drags against my tongue until I swear I can taste blood. “Because I let him in. I let down the wards that protected my coven. I let him into Birresborn.Me. I did that. I’m the reason—” I gag on a sob, and then I’m falling apart anew, sobs ripping me in half, half again. “I’m the reason they’redead. He killed them all. Because I let him in and refused him.”
“Refused him?”
It all pours out. Words I can’t stop now, they’re free. “He came to Birresborn to get me. He wants me to bond with him. That potion I told you about. The one that can connect a witch to another person—two witches bonded, though? Two witches who use wild magic, bonded by that potion—he’d have all the power he needs. He’d use my body like an extra store of magic, and he’s so powerful I’d be unable to stop him.”
“But you have to take the bonding potion willingly.”
