I do not have to ask where Dieter leads me; we’re heading straight to the Porta Nigra. He walks without speaking, but it’s as if he’s having a conversation silently with himself. He smiles, tilting his face up, a chuckle in his throat before he pauses, counting the fingers of his right hand against his left palm. His head cocks, and he nods as if agreeing with something, then strides forward, setting such a quick pace that I must jog to keep up, my black cloak flapping behind me.
It would be odd if I had not seen him act this way many times before. Dieter Kirch is often focused in such a single-minded way that it is as if the entirety of the world around him evaporates. It’s easy, I suppose, to walk through the city as if only your own thoughts matter when everyone else makes way, the crowds parting before him like the Red Sea.
He pauses at the steps leading up to the Porta Nigra, his pale blue eyes finally focusing on me. “You’ve earned it,” he says, nodding again, clearly agreeing with himself. A decision has been made, and I have been found worthy.
“Thank you, kommandant.” I don’t ask what, exactly, it is I’ve earned—any questioning of Dieter could rescind whatever my prize may be.
The prize for capturing his sister, I think, bile rising in my throat as I ascend the steps a pace behind the kommandant. Everything I’ve learned in the short time I’ve known Fritzi has taught me her strength, her resilience, her goodness. How could Dieter Kirch have come from the same blood, the same home as Fritzi? I push the thoughts down. My father would ask the same of me—how could I be his when I believe and act the opposite of him?
The answer is simple.
We are not born into our nature; we choose it. And although the people and places around us may influence our lives, our decisions seal our fate.
Dieter holds the door for me as I step inside the Porta Nigra, at the ground floor church. The bells start tolling for Terce. A fair number of people stand inside as the priest prepares the liturgy, everyone pausing in their morning work for the psalms and prayers. Dieter and I move along the back of the church, skirting the narthex. No one glances up at us; it’s common enough for hexenjägers to enter the church and make their way up the stairs to the offices above. But more than that, the people are focused on repentant prayer. Christ’s mass at the end of the year may be about the celebration of his birth, but Advent is a time of contemplation, a remembrance of the end—not just of the end of the year, but the end of life, the end of all ages.
Advent is the dark before the light. And while Christmas is coming, Advent lasts four weeks. A month of solemnity before we can have a day of joy.
“Nunc, Sancte, nobis, Spiritus,” the priest’s voice intones as Dieter and I mount the steps in the south transept. I pause at the top as the hymn ends. Dieter strides ahead of me down the hall, but despite my years of practice, I need to work to school my features. My hands are shaking; my heart is racing. I can’t give myself away, not to the kommandant, but…I don’t know how long I can wear this mask. Not with her behind iron bars.
Not when all I want to do is murder Dieter for all the suffering he has caused the world in general and her specifically.
I bite my tongue until I taste blood, focusing on the pain. Downstairs, the priest switches from Latin to German.
“This is a time for peace,” he says, a law we all know. By the decree of the Pope, no violence is allowed during this time of year. “And we must thank the archbishop for bringing us peace now, through the deaths of the evil witches plaguing our city.”
There is a murmuring of thanks and agreement throughout the people in the nave. From my position at the top of the steps, looking down at the congregation, I stare hard at the faithful.
An old woman near the back, glaring defiantly at the priest, her lips pressed firmly shut. A young couple, turning away together. A man covered in grime and soot—he must have come into the church between jobs—his head down, his jaw set.
There is still hope for true peace. That gives me the strength to go on.
I let the door slam shut behind me as I step onto the second floor of the Porta Nigra, the private headquarters of the hexenjägers.
“Come,” Kommandant Kirch orders me, annoyed at my lingering pause. Dieter leads me into his office, and I eye the little closet that Bertram had been locked up in. Bertram had said he was given a reprieve from his punishment, but I suspect it is less about Dieter forgiving him and more about the kommandant finding another prisoner to enclose in the tiny torture chamber. I wonder which jäger had the misfortune to find himself in such a fate.
Dieter sits easily at his desk, his long arms draped over the sides of the chair. “There is an irony, don’t you think, in how you went to fetch your sister but brought me mine instead?”
I nod silently.
“I think you see that my sister is the more valuable witch to burn, though, no?” Dieter asks casually. His voice is conversational, as if we were discussing our evening meal options.
I am unsure of what to say. We had already acknowledged that Fritzi was a true witch, but that was before I knew she was Dieter’s sister. Now if I lay such a claim upon her, it may seem as if I’m indicating there is something wrong in Dieter’s family blood.
Her mother—his mother—was also a witch, I think. It is in the blood. But not in him…?
Is that why he hates witches so much, because the power should be his birthright, and he has no magic of his own? Such rage as his must be fueled by something, and envy is as much a reason as any.
“The men often compare you to your father,” Dieter continues. He waves his hand, indicating that I should sit. “But I have noticed that you never do. You rarely mention him.”
I perch on the edge of the seat, my nerves alert. “No,” I concede.
“I don’t remember my father. I barely recall Fritzi’s. My mother raised us alone.” Dieter picks up a knife and starts scraping the tip along the inside of his nails, cleaning them. His blue eyes flick up at me. “I killed her. My mother. I watched her burn. I did not step away even after the flames turned her skin black and her head bald. I watched every second of it.”
My blood is ice water, but I do not move. Dieter’s voice is so calm, so casual.
“The stench was—” He shudders, as if that was the worst of it, the smell. “But you know, it was fascinating too. You’d be amazed at how resilient the human body is. How long it can last.”
“God made us in his image,” I say hollowly.
“It eases my soul,” Dieter continues, “knowing that you would be willing to do the same to your sister.” The knife in his hand stills, the point still driving under his nail in a way that makes me wince. But his eyes turn to me, burning with intensity. “You would, wouldn’t you?” he asks, now with a manic fury beneath his words, his voice rising. “You would watch Hilde Ernst burn. You would hear her screams and not flinch away. You would cut her, crisp, from the stake after, yes?”
A tiny bead of red blood seeps from under Dieter’s nail from how hard he drives the point into his nailbed. “Yes,” I whisper, watching the blood stain his cuticles red.
“I knew you were the man for the job!” he says buoyantly. He spins the knife around, driving the blade into his desk, piercing a parchment that bears the archbishop’s seal. “You light the fires tomorrow morning, and then there’s something else you may be able to help me with.”
“Kommandant?” I ask.
Dieter stands and moves over to the tiny stone closet, unlocking it. He shoots me a shy smile, as if he’s naughtily sharing a bit of stolen cake. With his boot, he kicks at the door, opening the closet and exposing the person trapped inside.
I go perfectly still. I cannot trust myself to show any reaction at all, so deep is my disgust.
The girl inside the stone chamber is small enough that she can sit on the floor, her knees drawn to her chin, but there are cuts and scrapes all along her pale skin to show how uncomfortable she is in such a cramped space. Her cheeks are hollow, her skin sallow—she has been denied both sunlight and food. She blinks as if pained, clearly trying to adjust her eyesight from the pitch black inside the stone closet. She holds her hands up over her face, and I see that she has clawed away her fingernails, red blood on each tip, in a futile attempt to fight against the immovable stone.
Dieter squats in front of the child, bouncing on his heels. He cups her cheek, and the girl snarls, trying to bite his hand, but he is too quick, chuckling at her.
“Is she to be burned tomorrow as well?” I ask hollowly.
At the sound of my voice, she turns her eyes to me. There is such fury in her look, such pure, unadulterated hatred. She is no more than ten years old, but I have no doubt she would kill me in an instant if she could.
“Liesel? Oh, no,” Dieter says. “No, I have different plans for her.”
I frown, wondering what power this little girl has. She must be able to do something Fritzi cannot do; why else has Dieter kept her here rather than burn her alongside Fritzi and the others?
Dieter doesn’t notice my consternation. “Something else for Liesel, yes.” He turns to me. “And you will help.” There is a finality to that last sentence. His voice went from cheery to flat in the space of a breath, assuring me that I will help see his plans to fruition whether I want to or not. He barks in laughter, the sound so sudden that both I and the little girl jump. “Fire, for Liesel? Oh, no, no, no.” He stares into her, his tone going vicious. “No fire for you, Liesel. No. Fire. For. You.”
With that, he slams the door shut again. I hear a short scream from the girl, and I hope she wasn’t injured further by the abrupt, unyielding door.
Dieter turns and meets my eyes, that eerie pale blue color piercing into me. My mind is in a panic. This is Liesel, Fritzi’s cousin—another true witch, the one Fritzi hoped to save. And Dieter has her. But not with the other prisoners.
Even if my plan tomorrow works and Fritzi is able to free all the innocents from the basilica, Liesel will still be Dieter’s prisoner, trapped in a stone chamber above a Catholic church in the heart of the hexenjäger headquarters. Unreachable. Doomed to a fate worse than the stake.