Page 16 of Night of the Witch
Unverschämt, you idiot!
I must’ve tripped again sometime last night. I’m sprawled over the roots of a tree, tucked up alongside a gnarled bush and at least out of sight of anyone passing by. There are no main roads around, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other travelers hoping to avoid soldiers or hexenjägers.
A groan, and I crouch forward, trying to will my headache away. A layer of frost coats my jacket, skirt, and boots. The solstice hasn’t yet passed, but winter is approaching hard and fast and relentless.
I need to forage—if it frosted last night, most useful herbs will soon die off under the winter chill.
But Liesel could be in Trier by now, if the hexenjägers who took her didn’t detour.
What few hours of restless sleep I managed have cleared my head enough that I realize I can’t very well show up in Trier sleep-deprived and manic. The headache thuds dully across my scalp, and I wilt between my bent knees.
Schiesse. How have I survived even this long? I’ve let grief drive my every action, and look where it’s gotten me.
Deep breaths. Just take a moment to—
I breathe again. Sniff tentatively at the air.
Smoke.
I didn’t dream that.
I fly to my feet. My body seizes from the hard ground, and I bite down a wince, rubbing a kink in my back and warmth into my limbs as I try to figure out where I am.
The sun is not yet high—barely dawn. I’m still angled more or less south, maybe a little more east now, and I sniff again, tracking the direction of the smoke like a morbid hunting dog.
There—that way.
I stumble forward. Sleep hazes my mind enough that I only half-think to ask myself why I’m goingtowarda fire. But I’m hooked, drawn like a fish up a line.
The forest pulls away a few paces later into a small tidy clearing. A single thatched-roof house sits far back from the trees, its plaster walls white and clean, its crisscrossing wood boards in need of paint but solid. A chimney at the rear belches smoke into the air over the soft brown slopes of the dried straw roof.
I hover at the edge of the forest. My mind is still in a fog, and I stare up at the smoke like it will unfurl answers across the sky. Liesel can read signs like that.
My stomach grumbles, pointing out another area I’ve failed spectacularly in. I haven’t kept a steady supply of food.
Well, where there’s a house, there’s people; and where there’s people, there’s food.
Mama drilled our coven’s laws into my head before I could even walk. We put good into the world, and our Well of magic feeds on that good. Putting negative into the world feeds wild magic, and we do nottouchwild magic.
But I’ve already stolen a few things since leaving Birresborn. And stealing isn’t really puttingbadinto the world, is it? More like…taking good.
I survey the clearing, see no one from this angle, and creep up to the house.
There’s a back door that opens into a small garden, and the wall has a few haphazard windows strewn across the back. Whoever is inside could easily look out and see me, but my stomach flips again.
I’ll risk it.
The garden’s dirt is upturned, soft with recent harvesting. There are a few crops left, the sturdier late-autumn ones that can withstand frost and chill. Winter greens and squash.
I drop to my knees, rip two orange squash off their vines, and start to duck back for the forest’s edge.
From inside the house, something slams. A table overturning maybe, or a chair smashing to the floor.
“You monster!” a woman screams.
I scramble, but not for the clearing; closer to the house, flat againstthe wall and out of sight of the windows. But it isn’t me she’s yelling at—there’s more crashing within, clear signs of a struggle.
And in that noise—boots. The jangle of swords, the unmistakable rattle of weaponry.
