The forest’s undergrowth snags around my legs as I trudge forward, huddling deeper into my cloak. It’s too big—I stole it off a line two villages ago, along with a wide-brimmed hat to ward off the chill alongside my thick wool kirtle and linen shift. The cloak smells like horses.
Just keep walking. One step. Another.
I should have stayed in Birresborn long enough to get supplies. Real supplies, warmer clothes and food and more than the handful of empty potion bottles in the leather pouches that hang from a belt around my hips.
But every moment I waste is another moment that the hexenjägers get Liesel closer to Trier.
So I walk. And I keep walking.
Another step.
Another.
“We should go to the forest folk,” Aunt Catrin begged my mother and the Elder council.
I hear the echo of her plea now.
We should have gone to the Black Forest. Why did we let it get this far?
Elders whisper the command to children from the moment they can recognize the dangers around us. “Go to the Black Forest if anything happens,” they say. “The forest folk will keep you safe.”
But asking to be taken in by the forest folk, the goddess-chosen guardians of the source of our magic hidden in the dark deep of the Black Forest, is only a solution used by the most desperate of covens and witches. The thing we are to do when we have no other options—getting there requires traversing the many, many miles between us and the Black Forest, evading hexenjägers and whatever other prejudices lurk in the surrounding territories.
And most of it sounds like a bedtime story, anyway. Too good to be true.
Especially for a witch like me.
The forest folk guard the source of our magic, the Origin Tree—one colossal fixture composed of three trees braided together, each older than time itself, one birthed from each goddess and infused with their magic. The Origin Tree’s power gives all magic life, and the forest folk ensure that the Well of magic that springs from the Origin Tree stays protected from corrupting forces—like wild magic.
Witches—good witches—access the Well’s magic through the rules laid down by the goddesses and enforced by Elders.
But other witches—bad witches—can access a different sort of magic, a magic of chaos and corruption, spoken of in just as hushed tones as the forest folk, but fearful tones, cautious and terrified.
A witch can do anything, anything at all with wild magic, the sorts of magic that the hexenjägers fear us for. But a witch can only draw on one source, so to access wild magic, they must sever their connection to the Well, then connect to wild magic through evil acts of sacrifice, revenge, and murder. The longer they draw their power solely from wild magic, the more their soul twists and rots, until they are that which they seek: evil, through and through.
When I mix potions, the spells I speak tether me to that Well of uncorrupted magic, and infuse the potions with power.
When Liesel speaks her spells over lit flames, the words connect her to the Well and pour magic into her veins and let her see the answers to questions in the heat of the fire.
When Mama speaks her spells over bones or fur or animals, those spells tether her to the magic, and let her control creatures or portend warnings in bones and more—
Or she used to. She used to be able to do that.
My heart bucks, bruises, and I push on my chest, hand fisted.
The forest folk and the Origin Tree are protected by the goddesses, hidden away in the impassable bulk of the Black Forest. It’s almost a fairy story, but now…
Why didn’t we leave sooner?
Why did we stay in Birresborn?
The thought has been a persistent itch in the back of my mind since I left. Mama’s words roll through me: The hexenjäger threat is our responsibility.
There are no other covens left to stand against them now. A few burned; more fled to the Black Forest. We have failed in that then, too.
No—I failed in that. I led everyone to slaughter.
Guilt is iron, it is lead, a weight in my lungs, invisible and intangible but relentless. So when I shake myself to focus, or focus as much as I can in my exhaustion, the guilt does not go away—it shifts, retracts, but there it waits, like my grief, watching and patient. Both know they will conquer me eventually. Both know I am as good as decimated under their power. They are in no hurry.
I swallow a spurt of nausea, my mind flashing with images, the grotesque transformation of people I loved into corpses. The hexenjägers were thorough; I couldn’t find any trails taken by others who might have gotten away.
But someone else had to have escaped. Right? And if they did, they would be heading to the Black Forest. My aunt. My cousins. Any of the little ones. They all knew, from the moment they could talk, “If the hexenjägers come and Birresborn is no longer safe, go to the Black Forest. Go to the forest folk. They’ll take you in.”
But Liesel didn’t escape.
My eyes blearily drift to snatches of sky through the canopy, gauging my direction, but I’m tired, and I ache. Keep walking, keep going—
I imagine my cousin shivering in a cold, dark cell, her little body racked with sobs as she awaits an unjust trial at the hands of the hexenjägers in Trier.
Another step. One more. Everything in me hurts, battered in the coming winter chill, but the pain is deeper than surface discomfort, my muscles wrenching in a way that reminds me, with every beat, I am alive.
The grate of ashes in my lungs—I am alive, I lived through the plumes of smoke.
The cuts on my fingers and arms—I am alive, I lived through clawing my way out of the cellar.
The grit in my eyes—I am alive, I lived through the sobbing as my mother burned.
Alive. Alive.
The word taunts me, and I keep walking.
How many days has it been since Birresborn? My stomach rumbles, and I pull one of the tubers I foraged out of my leather pouches. It’s crunchy and tasteless, but it silences the hunger pains, one small relief in the endless thunder.
It’s well past midnight, whatever day it is. Winter is thinning the forest’s canopy, but enough of it remains that even the palest moonlight is kept at bay. The air is crisp, mixed with the humidity of a recent rain-not-quite-ice that lingers on my cloak in mushy droplets. There is moisture in every breath that smells of coming snow and decaying plants and dense, saturated dirt.
I feel my way onward, relying on touch and sound to move. There are no shadows even here; all is impassable darkness, so I wouldn’t know if I was being followed, would I?
No. I’m scaring myself unnecessarily—if I was being followed, the hexenjägers would have set on me when I stole these clothes. It’s just the darkness playing tricks on my mind.
And exhaustion. That ache is beginning to go deeper than the rest.
Stop thinking. Stop complaining. Just walk.
I check the sky for my direction; I cannot see the stars. Darkness only, everywhere. Am I still going south? My heart hammers, pushing panic through my limbs.
“Folk of the forest, herbs and charm,” I say the lullaby to myself as I take another step. My voice sounds foreign and rough to my own ears. “Keep good children safe from harm. Folk of the forest, grass and bark. Leave bad children in the dark.”
That’s a lie. Leave bad children in the dark.
The bad ones aren’t in the dark. They’re right here, right next to us.
It’s such a lie that I hiccup a laugh, but it cracks in my chest, and pain shoots out, choking me until I sob—verdammt, not again, not again.
The sob begets more, and my eyes burn with tears. How does it burn still? Haven’t I cried out all the smoke and ash?
I find a tree trunk, lean my weight on it. I’m so tired; keep walking.
Another step, and something tethers around my foot.
I scream. It’s a hand—a hexenjäger grabbing my ankle, face in a monstrous snarl—
My arms flail, and I slam to my knees. Nothing more happens, no clawlike fingers dragging me for a stake, and when I turn, feeling over what tripped me, I find only an arched root.
A root.
Not a hexenjäger.
My whole body deflates, and schiesse, how I hate myself. A tree root. I screamed and gave away my position because of a tree root.
The chilly dank darkness closes around me, thicker than a quilted blanket. My limbs start to give way, and in a wash of calm fuzziness, I droop closer to the damp undergrowth.
A shake, and I scramble to my feet and slap my cheeks, hard. Stay awake, unverschämt!
Another step. Another. I spot a gap in the foliage overhead—I’m still heading south. Mostly. Good.
Another step.
Another.
One by one, all the way to Trier.