Page 114 of Night of the Witch
“Watch your step,” the guard says, that tinge of amusement in his voice still, and this time, Brigitta swats his shoulder.
“Restrain yourself, Alois; she doesn’t need your cheek.”
“Oh, I beg to differ, Brigs.”
“Don’t—we’re onpatrol.” She spins away with an eye roll. “Pretendyou have decorum, the Three help me.”
“She loves me,” Alois whispers to Liesel, but his eyes flick to mine, too, and as Liesel giggles into her palm, I grip my jaw tight.
You can trust them,comes the voice.
I steady myself on the railing. It’s different knowing who the voice is now.Whatit is.
My lungs shudder.But do I trust you?
Brigitta leads us to a massive chamber so high in the trees that the landing before the door takes us above the canopy. The wind here is warm springtime, winter held at bay by the magic of this place, but the height is what takes my breath away; we are at the top of the Forest, thetop of theworld. The blue of the sky is endless and infinite and makes me feel so startlingly small that I’m grateful for it. I am inconsequential beneath it. I am dismissible.
I manage a stuttering inhale before Brigitta opens one of two ornately carved doors, the pair of them making another triple moon symbol in polished birch.
“You will meet with our council,” Brigitta says and ushers us inside. “They demanded to know the moment you arrived.”
“Well, nice that they knew we were coming,” I mumble, then hiss at myself. I can’t let my nerves get the better of me. I can’t make these people my enemy—at least until I decide what to do with all of…this.
Inside, the room is airy and light, the walls a soft lavender, with massive windows that show the top of the forest rippling out into the distance on all sides, green leaves stretching on into the swath of blue sky. The walls of the room are lined with shelves that hold books—dozensof books, actually, more than I’ve ever seen in one place—and scrolls, all manner of potion equipment, and magic relics of the sort we had in Birresborn: bones and twigs and satchels.
I’m so taken by the supplies here—more than my whole coven had at their fingertips, and the continued reminder of the Well’s luxury leaves a tang of anger in my mouth—that I almost miss the flurry in the center of the room.
Three people are facing the door. They look up from where they had all been crouched over a table set with such an array of spell components that I can’t guess what they’re casting. Angelica and burdock root—warding? Two tall wax candles with a thread between them—severing? There’s other things, but the eyes on me draw my focus.
Liesel and I stop just inside. I feel my travel-grime and river-dampness so heavily that my cheeks heat—these people are utterly spotless, their clothingso fine that I’d never hope to wear the like, their hair styled in either pin-straight sheets or done up in twisted knots with greenery set into the loops.
And here Liesel and I are, dirt-smeared and bloodied, hungry and thirsty and sore from sleeping on the ground.
Whatever flimsy upper hand I may have had shrivels and dies.
“Our champions,” the center man says, his voice tight like he’s fighting to stay cordial, to not recoil at our appearance. He rises from his bent position and claps his hands, hair so blond it’s nearly white. “Abnoba has long prepared us for your arrival. Liesel—she is delighted by you.”
“She talks to you too?” Liesel steps forward, a smile in her voice.
The man beams at her. It transforms his face, a fatherly aura in his kind eyes. “Not as much as she speaks with you, I imagine. Your bond with her far surpasses what even we can achieve. We are the priest and priestesses of the Well. I am Rochus. This is Philomena.” He motions to the woman who stands straight and bows her head at us, her voluptuous curves hugged by a striking aqua gown that looks so like the one Perchta wore in my vision that I wonder if it’s the same. “And Cornelia.”
She looks around my age. With the same copper hair as Alois, she stays bent over the table, one finger tapping a rhythm on an unrolled scroll. I can’t figure out the way she’s looking at me, her eyes squinted, calculating.
“Dismiss your subordinates, Wächterin Brigitta,” Rochus says, a noticeable dip in his voice as his formality breaks.
Brigitta’s eyebrows lift. “I assumed we would remain and escort them to lodgings shortly. They have traveled far—”
“And will be put to usenow, Wächterin. There will be time for resting afterward. Dismiss your subordinates. You may stay if you insist.”
Brigitta looks at us, and her unease puts me even more on edge.
She nods at Alois and the other guards and ducks off to the side as they leave, and Rochus takes a step toward us, his arms spread.
“We are in dire need of your assistance,” Rochus says, his smile tight. “You no doubt are well aware of the threat pressing at our borders. The goddesses have sent you to us at the proper time—”
“Because we are their champions?” I wave at myself, at Liesel, hoping he sees how absurd this is. Liesel is ten years old.
Her childhood has been cut short, and already Abnoba demands more of her.
