Murmurs ripple and sway around me as I crouch on the soiled cobblestones. Everyone is careful to only speak as loud as is necessary, eyes darting to the cell door in furtive glances that grow bolder and bolder.
They are reciting the routes they must take.
The groups I have divided them into.
I hear their whispers—
“The midmorning bells.”
“We go left, left again, then right, up a ladder.”
“In these clothes? We look like prisoners; we’ll be spotted for sure.”
“No, there will be supplies waiting; we’ll be fine.”
—and I sink further into myself, eyes on my lap, body utterly spent as the setting sun bursts orange haze through the one high barred window.
The bag of potions hanging from my belt has only three remaining vials now, two protection, one healing that I selfishly keep for Liesel. When I find her. I have distributed the rest, carefully calling them healing tonics. Or rather, Jochen, the old man who’d first spoken to me, distributed them—I am the kommandant’s sister. They’re willing to trust the whole Three-damned floor erupting underneath them at the behest of a rogue hexenjäger, but their eyes went round in terror at the idea that the kommandant’s sister smuggled in things to help heal them. Until Jochen downed a vial and was able to stand up straight for the first time in months, he’d said.
More than one person is gravely wounded, sad excuses for bandages hanging around pus-thick cuts. Others cough into rags spotted with blood. One woman has a child whose face is gaunt and green, but she cradles him to her chest, the lot of them sipping gently on the few healing potions I’d managed. The prisoners think the potions are simple healing tonics.
All I can do is sit here now, mission fulfilled for today, playing over and over in my mind images of what Dieter is doing to my cousin.
He left when she was small, but even then, she’d been incredibly powerful. Mama and the other Elders had taken her under their charge early, teaching her advanced spells and preparing her for the great destiny that the Crone goddess Abnoba had planned for her, whatever it might have been.
I flinch.
Whatever it might be.
She was the one who helped me find Dieter in the first place.
Liesel had crouched over the low-burning embers in my cottage and held her hands closer to the heat than anyone else could bear, her brow furrowed in concentration, her little lips puckered tight.
“He’s…close,” she said with surprise. “In Trier. A big, dark building there. I see him…in an office? He’s important.”
“He’s alive?” I gasped. Alive—and close enough for a letter to reach him in a few days. I could address it to him and send it just to Trier, and hope that, if he truly was important enough, it’d find its way to him.
Liesel nodded. Then she winced and yanked her arms back and stared at her hands in a darker sort of surprise, confusion and caution as she rubbed her thumb over her palm.
“Something’s wrong, Fritzi,” she whispered. “With him, maybe. I don’t know.”
“It’s all right—we’ll help him now, whatever it is.” I gathered her into my arms and kissed the top of her head. “Thank you, cousin.”
She wriggled. “Stop—Mama just braided my hair! You’ll mess it—”
“Danke, danke!” I gripped her tighter and planted kisses all over her cheeks. “Kindchen, schnucki—”
“Stop! Friederike!” She went limp enough to slip through my grasp and rolled away across the floor. “The Three, you’re the worst. We’re not children anymore.”
“Oh, yes. You’re ten years old and a full maiden now, hm?”
She patted her hair, checking that it was still in place. “Of course.”
“So you wouldn’t have any interest in, say, sneaking into the stash of sweets my mother just brought back for my birthday?”
Liesel paused, hands on her braids, lips in a flat line.
“Well,” she said. “Maidens like sweets, too.”
What does Dieter want with her?
Is there something he wants her to find? Something to do with wild magic, maybe—or other covens? Wild magic needs evil to feed on. Does he not get enough from the hexenjägers?
What more could Liesel do for him?
She’ll fight him. She’ll fight him with every ounce of strength she has, fire at her command and in her soul, and my stomach heaves, because Dieter will break her. There was nothing in his eyes, no sanity or love or empathy.
He’ll break her.
And he’ll enjoy doing it.
I do my best to curl up as small as possible on the damp floor, using my arm as a pillow and wholly ignoring the stench of whatever is streaked on the stones. My eyes close, my breathing evens, but I won’t sleep.
All these people will escape tomorrow; Otto will make sure of it. I know I promised to help him find Hilde, but I am not leaving this city without my cousin.
You will die, the voice says. Both of you. Without me.
I pinch my eyes shut tighter.
And hum to myself
That lullaby. The one Otto sang to me.
How many stars are in the sky?
Count them all as we fly by…
Morning comes, a dull gray sky that threatens snow, a heavier chill in the air as the cage of condemned begins to stir. Coughing and shivering wrack bodies with equal measure, and I can’t tell if the trembling is from the frigid temperature or nerves. Either way, I am up well before the midmorning bells, my body rigid as I stand in place.
Jochen has taken position next to me, though I know his legs must ache to stand so long. He gives me a reassuring nod.
Too early, some people begin to shuffle toward the far wall, away from the coming explosion.
“Don’t draw attention,” I hiss.
Jochen repeats the command, and it catches; a few people peel back, treading uneasily over the doomed portion of the floor.
Three hexenjägers stride past the cell door.
Two more. Checking on us silently, then away.
Half a dozen come. These ones jeer and kick the bars. “You scum ready to meet your fate today? God Himself smiles on this purge of evil!”
The prisoners nearest the door flinch, but they don’t respond. If the hexenjägers notice that their silence comes from an intense focus, they don’t show it; they continue out, their laughter echoing over the stone walls.
My heart aches, cold and weighted in my chest, each thump a second passing, and I have nothing to do but count the time.
It should be almost sunrise, the first bells of the day. Almost—
The churches throughout Trier seem to take a collective breath, and then a cacophony of chiming and gonging rings across the city: the sunrise bells.
They won’t ring again until midmorning.
I count the spaces after, minute by minute, swaying back and forth on numb feet.