If God had to send me a real witch 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 his voice—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.
Bertram stands there in his sodden boots, eyes straining. There’s some light from ventilation shafts here, and his gaze roves over us, hopeful and then crestfallen.
“So, Johann couldn’t catch the witch,” Bertram growls.
What an arschloch. I don’t bother hiding my contempt. “Johann wasn’t holding the witch’s chain,” I snarl. “She made the torch go out, but you were the fool who let her go.”
“She had demons’ help!” Bertram protests, eyes going wide. “Something slammed into her with the force of ten men, ripping her from my grasp!”
Johann squeaks in terror, but I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smirking. A demon with the strength of ten men? My shove against Fritzi had not been gentle, but Bertram is letting his fear overtake his senses.
Good. That will work in my favor.
“Come on,” I growl to the two others as I lead them out of the tunnels and toward the long iron spiral staircase that goes from the aqueduct all the way into the Porta Nigra. Our steps echo in the stone chamber as we ascend.
By the time we reach the top of the Porta Nigra, I know the silence has done more work than anything I could have said. That’s one of the few valuable lessons I’ve learned from being a hexenjäger—even an innocent will confess to a crime if left with nothing but guilt and silence. Johann’s eyes are as wide as a saucer. Bertram’s face is downcast as he mutters a prayer—one that will not be answered.
Because, much to all of our terror, Kommandant Dieter Kirch has returned to Trier.
Even before we reach his office, I can tell that he’s back. A cold fear crackles among the hexenjägers on duty here. Everyone is on high alert; the salutes that follow me as I lead Bertram and Johann down the corridor snap like whips.
I knock on Kommandant Kirch’s door.
“Enter,” his voice calls, deep and resonant.
I push it open.
Kommandant Dieter Kirch is a tall man with broad, rectangular shoulders. His blond hair curls at the end and brushes his starched shirt collar. Everything about the man screams strength and power, from the muscles straining against his clothes to the hard edge of his jawline as he inspects us. But the thing about the kommandant that gives him more power and respect than other men is his eyes.
There’s something…eerie about his eyes. They are a simple blue, a common enough color, nothing remarkable, but…it’s as if shadows move behind his irises, the colors seeming to swirl if you look at them too long. It is impossible not to feel uneasy under his unflinching gaze.
Kommandant Kirch takes a moment to drink in our appearance. Wet boots, stained breeches, waterlogged cloaks.
“Where is the witch?” he demands.
I have worked with Dieter Kirch for years; he knows what I mean when I sweep my hand toward Bertram.
The kommandant glares. Bertram actually takes a step back, bumping into Johann.
“From what the other men in your patrol said, this witch was…powerful,” the kommandant says.
I nod once, sharply.
Dieter turns to me. “You went to fetch your own sister to be burned?”
I nod again, slower this time.
Dieter strides forward. “It takes a…strong man to turn in his family.”
“She was not family,” I lie. “She was a bastard child; my father whelped her with a witch. Not my birth mother,” I add, reminding everyone in the room that unholy blood does not run in my veins.
Dieter nods slowly. “Still,” he says, and there’s a tone in his voice I almost don’t recognize. Pride? “And then a powerful witch took her.” His voice is grave. “That witch ensorcelled your sister and sent her…”
“Elsewhere,” I finish. “Perhaps to hell, where her kind revel.”
“Perhaps.” He smiles impishly. “My, what fun my men have been having. The troops I took with me burned a coven that fought back with magic, and now this little witch is spiriting other witches away!” He giggled, the sound pitched high, but then his shoulders slumped. “I suspected some of the men were feeling a bit…disheartened. Unaware of the depths of their mission. Now they see what we are up against, though, now their passions are stoked.”
Dieter walks slowly past me, toward Bertram. “You,” he says.
Bertram looks as if he’s about to piss himself, but he squares his shoulders. “Yes. Sir.”
“Do you doubt the holiness of our cause?”
“No!”
“But you are to blame for the witch’s escape.”
“No! No, I—”
Dieter shakes his head, and Bertram closes his mouth so quickly his teeth clack. “It was not a question.” The kommandant’s gaze flicks to me.
“I held the torch as we went through the aqueduct. Johann guarded the rear. Bertram held the witch’s chains.”
“She caused a wind to blow out the light!” Bertram says, stepping forward in his own defense, his eyes wild with fear. “And demons—there were demons that ripped her from my grasp, demons that spirited her away!”
Kommandant Dieter Kirch raises an eyebrow and stares at Bertram with the full force of his pale eyes until Bertram’s voice stutters to silence.
There it is. The guilt and quiet that does all the work for him.
“There were no demons,” Dieter says finally, his voice brooking no argument. “You are a hexenjäger blessed by the saints. No demon could lift a hand to you. Unless you invited them in?”
“No!” Bertram says immediately. “I’m pure. I’ve been to confession; I have no sin for them to exploit!”
Dieter raises one finger, and Bertram is silent again, trembling. We all watch as Dieter strolls around the room, his boot heels clacking on the stone. “This room was once the cell of a saint, did you know that?” Bertram nods, but Dieter’s not even looking at him. He continues speaking, casually, as if this were a chat. “Saint Simeon. He became an anchorite, enclosing himself into this very chamber as if it were his tomb, dedicating every moment of his life to prayer.”
Dieter turns to face us fully, opening his palms toward us as if in veneration. “And then,” he continues, “a flood happened. The Moselle River rose and rose, and the people of Trier? They blamed Simeon for causing the flood. They called him a witch.”
Dieter crosses the room, toward a window made of glass pieces held tight with lead solder. He touches one of the panes. “They threw stones at this building, trying to get to him and kill him. And then the waters of the river receded. All was well.”
“Was he a witch, sir?” Bertram asks when Dieter does nothing more than stare at the glass pane.
Dieter strides back over to Bertram, footsteps heavy, and slaps him across the face.
“No, you fool,” he spits, his tone no longer casual but enraged. “He was a saint. And you—you,” he snarls, “are the unverschämt who cannot tell the difference between a witch and a saint! You are the unverschämt who drops a chain and blames made-up demons.”
Before any of us can react, Dieter grabs Bertram by the collar and drags him across the room. Bertram’s hands scramble to his neck, choking, but that’s not the punishment Dieter has in mind.
He kicks open a door to a small stone chamber and throws Bertram inside. Bertram crashes into the wall, spinning around even as Dieter slams the door in his face, turning a large iron key.
“Saint Simeon purposefully chose to become a recluse and dedicate himself to God,” Dieter tells the locked door in a calm, even tone. “May you learn something from his strength.”
I swallow, looking at the stone closet. It is narrower even than the aqueduct. There’s not enough room inside to sit on the floor. Bertram will be unable to spread his arms out—he would barely be able to lift them in such a constrained space. To say nothing of the fact that he has no food, nor any means to relieve himself. The tight space makes it impossible to do anything but stand in the dark.
It is a tomb.
Behind the locked door, I hear a strangled, choking sob.
We all know that Kommandant Dieter Kirch will not open the door for days at the very least. The last man who was punished in this way nearly died. When he emerged, he was pale and shaking, unable to do more than crawl out of the kommandant’s office on all fours, begging for water.
Kommandant Kirch turns to me and Johann. “Dismissed,” he says pleasantly.