One minute, I’m holding her.
The next, she’s gone.
I stare down at my hands, now empty, my mind stuttering over the concept of how a person can simply disappear.
“Fritzi,” I whisper, my entire being bereft at the loss of her. I look up, the pool now eerily quiet and empty.
“Help!” I scream, panic raising my voice to a fever pitch. “Help!”
The bath was private, but in moments, guards come rushing in, led by Brigitta. They have weapons already in hand—some with blades, some with vials of potions or spells weaving through their fingers. Brigitta stops short when she sees me alone.
“Fritzi was here,” I say urgently.
A look of confusion flashes across the guard’s face.
“Fritzi was here,” I repeat, “and then she disappeared.”
Gasps filter through the crowd of guards, but Brigitta holds her hand up, demanding silence. “What do you mean?”
“She said Dieter’s name, as if she saw him, but there was no one else around. And then she stood up, and I reached for her, and…” My hands open and close in the empty air. “She was gone.”
“Breach!” one of the guards shouts. I hear footsteps on the wooden walkway beyond the door, more yelling. “The wall has been breached!”
Brigitta turns to a man with copper hair who stands at attention beside her. “Summon the council,” she orders. She sends more guards elsewhere, to check the perimeter, to inspect the trees, but that is useless.
Dieter hadn’t been here. He had taken Fritzi by some foul magic.
“Come with me,” Brigitta says, motioning for me to follow her. My heartbeat thunders in my ears, numbing my other senses, forcing me to replay the image of Fritzi fading from my grasp over and over in my mind.
As we walk higher into the trees, I pause, shaking my head. “Where are you taking me?”
“The council needs to be informed of this,” Brigitta says.
I shake my head more forcefully. “Liesel needs to be informed.”
“The council are the highest officials in the Well.”
“And Liesel is not only a powerful witch with a direct connection to a goddess, she’s also Fritzi’s cousin.” And Dieter’s cousin, I think but don’t say. “I need to go to her. First.”
Brigitta hesitates.
“We don’t have time for this,” I say in a low voice.
She nods tightly and leads me in a different direction, but then grabs one of her guards and orders him to bring the council to the champion’s room. Good. From the way Fritzi spoke of them, it will do this council well to be reminded that while they serve the gods, they are not themselves gods.
In moments, Brigitta knocks at a door. When Liesel doesn’t answer, I push past Brigitta and open the door. “Liesel,” I call.
It’s a mark of how tired she is that she doesn’t immediately get up. The room can only be described as cozy, with fresh flowers spilling out of every jar and window, filling the room with a sweet, warm scent. Flickering candles burn low, and dozens of colored glass balls in various sizes hang from the ceiling. At a word from Brigitta, the glass balls light up, filling the room with a magical glow.
“What’s going on?” Liesel asks sleepily from the bed.
I drop to my knees in front of her. “Dieter has Fritzi.”
The girl’s instantly awake, shooting up in the bed. She swings her legs over the side and rushes to the closest table, wrapping her hand around the candle flame as if it were merely a flower to pluck from a garden. She turns her palm over, the flame burning in her open hand, and stares deeply into the fire.
Behind me, I hear the arrival of more people—judging from the gold embroidery and haughty expressions, these must be the priest and priestesses Fritzi spoke of. They draw up short, watching Liesel perform her magic, but one of them—the youngest, a woman—pushes the others inside and closes the door so that we’re alone.
“She’s in Baden-Baden,” Liesel says with authority. “But there’s a…cloud around her. My powers are blocked.” She grips her hand into a fist, and through the smoke rising between her fingers, she meets my eyes. “It’s Dieter.”
The priest behind me sucks in a breath. “He should not have been able to breach the protection barriers around the Well.”
“I’m not sure he did,” I say. “I didn’t see him—only Fritzi did. I don’t think he was actually here; I think he just found a way to pull Fritzi out.”
“Still,” the priest says. “It’s a bad sign. His magic, at least, crossed the barriers.”
He continues talking, and the priestesses chime in, conferring with each other about what this means for the Well. But my eyes have not left Liesel. I see the fear blooming inside her, the paralyzing, horrifying terror.
“We will get her back,” I vow to her.
“I don’t think she understood before,” Liesel says, her voice a whisper, only for me. “Dieter is my cousin and her brother, but…there’s something wrong with him. It’s not the wild magic. I think he’s just…wrong.” Her eyes blur with tears. “He’s going to hurt her,” she tells me, carefully enunciating each word, as if trying to make me realize the depths of his depravity.
“I won’t let him,” I say, my voice cracking. This is the second time someone I love has been whisked away before my eyes, but I didn’t understand fully what magic was when Hilde went away, and by the time I did comprehend, I knew Fritzi well enough to trust Hilde was safe. Now, though?
Now I know Fritzi is not safe.
I know that Dieter will not kill her outright. I know he will torture her. I am not there to protect her. I am not there to save her. What use is a goddess calling me a warrior if I cannot even fight? My breath comes out in a shuddering release, and for a second, I let the fears spooling inside me tighten around my mind, and I can hear nothing but Fritzi screaming, feel nothing but the hollow knowledge of my own uselessness.
And then I look at Liesel. I see her swallow down her fear, her tears. “What do we do next?”
Liesel meant the question for just me, but the others hear it. “Liesel, it’s up to you now,” the priest says.
“Rochus!” the youngest priestess says, abashed.
Rochus ignores her. He takes a step closer to Liesel, his hands out, but the girl shrinks into me, and I wrap my arms around her, glaring up at him. The priest squats down, eye level with her, ignoring me.
“Liesel, you need to bond with me. Champion and warrior, as the goddesses designed our people to work together.”
“And together, we will go to Baden-Baden and save Fritzi?” Liesel asks.
He hesitates.
He hesitates, and I know at that moment he intends to leave Fritzi to her brother’s devices. To leave her to die.
My arms tighten around Liesel, but that child has seen the way adults lie and manipulate, and she knows what Rochus means.
“You still want to run,” she says coldly.
“We have to—” Rochus starts.
“What kind of warrior could you possibly be?” I snarl, and for the first time, the man looks directly at me. “Neither my god nor yours would choose a coward as a warrior.”
“I’m not a coward for trying to protect my people! For trying to protect magic!”
A million curses rise to my mind, but before I can say a single one, Liesel speaks, her voice soft but certain. “You are,” she says, and Rochus reels back as if he’d been punched.
“Well, I’m not.” The youngest priestess speaks loudly, drawing attention to her. “Cornelia,” she says by way of introduction, nodding at me. “I don’t need my goddesses to tell me the right thing to do. Brigitta, summon every guard willing to become a true warrior. We do not patrol tonight. We go to war.”
“The council does not approve of this action!” the other priestess snarls, blocking the door as Brigitta moves toward it.
“If the goddesses don’t want us to fulfill our destinies,” Cornelia growls, “then they should not have given us a destiny in the first place.”
“Do you intend to fight the very gods you serve?” Rochus asks, eyes wide.
“Yes,” Cornelia says emphatically.
“Me too,” Liesel says, her voice still calm. “And if you don’t get out of the way, Philomena, I’ll just set this entire place on fire.”
Sputtering, the priestess finally moves aside. She and Rochus storm out, Brigitta rushing past them, a horn to her lips, sounding an alarm.
Alone now, Cornelia turns to us. “I can reasonably count on fifty, maybe a hundred to join us tonight,” she says.
“I don’t think that will be enough,” Liesel says.
I didn’t get a full glimpse of the number of hexenjäger troops Dieter brought with him from Trier, but he has enough to turn this into a bloody battle. Even alone, however, Dieter is more powerful than I can comprehend.
“We need something that can take him down,” I mutter.
Neither of the others heard me. Cornelia is focused entirely on Liesel, speaking directly to her. “The bonding potion is the most effective way to sever the Well from this world, but there are other ways. Messier ways. I don’t trust Rochus not to try them if the battle fails.”
“He would rather break the Well than let Dieter have it,” Liesel says.
“Perhaps.”
“That bonding potion you keep talking about,” I say, loud enough to make the others listen. “That’s what we need.”
Cornelia looks confused.
“The goddess Holda called me a warrior, and not just any warrior, but Fritzi’s warrior. I take the potion with her, and together we take down Dieter.” I know this is the way it has to be. I cannot let Fritzi be in a position to kill her own brother; that would break her. But if I have some of her power, I can do it.
Cornelia, however, is shaking her head slowly. “You don’t understand the danger of this potion.”
“Fritzi warned me about it.”
“It’s a highly complicated spell. It’s meant to bond, yes, but if it fails, a witch would lose all connection to magic entirely. One or both of you could die.”
“Liesel can—” I start, but she interrupts me.
“I don’t know that spell.”
“But you do,” I say, turning to Cornelia. “Fritzi told me you were making the potion already.”
“Yes, but it’s not complete. And I cannot get it now. Rochus and Philomena will stop us.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, concentrating on everything that Fritzi had told me about the bonding potion. “A beer base,” I say. “My sister can give us that.”
“I could bring the last ingredients needed,” Cornelia says doubtfully. “But this plan seems unwise. I am not a potion-maker; Philomena is, but she would never aid us.”
“A last resort,” I promise her, a new idea forming in my mind. “But when it comes to Dieter, we need every weapon we can get. If all else fails…”
Reluctantly, Cornelia nods. If this potion fails, it may kill me or kill Fritzi’s magic, but everyone in the room knows there are worse things than death when it comes to Dieter.
Every second counts. Liesel and I rush from her room down to the forest floor, and I lead her to Hilde’s cottage. Cornelia heads in a different direction to ensure the troops are ready and to procure the needed ingredients.
“That was a long bath,” Hilde says, swinging open the door. “I heard the horns—what’s going on?”
Liesel and I charge inside. “I need your beer,” I say.
“Yes, let’s get drunk when the alarms are sounding,” Hilde says, staring at me flatly.
“It’s for a potion,” Liesel says. Hilde visibly melts in front of Liesel; the girl looks angelic, even when awoken from sleep in the middle of an emergency.
“What do you need?” Hilde asks.
I go over to her fireplace, looking at the murky liquid bubbling in the cauldron over the low heat.
Another knock on the door. Hilde opens it, and Cornelia steps inside. “Priestess!” Hilde says, shocked.
“I’ve brought the rest.” Cornelia holds out a small basket, and Hilde looks inside.
“This is poison!” she gasps.
I take the basket from Cornelia and start adding in herbs, among them belladonna and henbane.
“Otto, what is this? No one can drink this now!”
Cornelia touches Hilde’s elbow. “It will not be poison when it’s finished.” A dark look crosses her face. “Although I confess to not fully understanding your intent with this, Otto.”
The door opens a third time, and Hilde whirls around. “What now?”
“Just me.” Brigitta steps inside. Her eyes linger on Hilde, but she quickly turns to the priestess. “We’re ready.”
“The potion is not,” Cornelia says. “This must be done with care.” She casts a dubious look at the cauldron, and I can tell she’s on the brink of telling me not to even bother trying this.
Damn it all. Every second counts, and while this potion may be key…
Brigitta moves closer to Hilde, quickly explaining the situation.
“This is too rushed,” Cornelia adds, doubt lingering in her voice. “It’s too dangerous. We need to go—now—and—”
“Liesel, help me bottle this,” I say.
Liesel reaches for the ladle as Hilde hands me an empty bottle.
“Otto, a potion is not merely a mixture of ingredients. The spell must be spoken, and—” Cornelia starts.
I ignore the rest of her protests as I pour the brew through a funnel into Hilde’s bottle. The hot liquid burns my hands, but I stow it in a pouch Hilde offers.
I tie the bag securely closed and glance up and see Liesel watching me. I have come to know the girl as well as I know my sister, and I recognize the look in her eyes, the slow nod of approval.
I straighten and look at Cornelia, who is still protesting this plan. “Fritzi knows the spell,” I say. “I spoke to her about it before, in Trier. I know she knows the spell. All you have to do is get me to her, and she can complete the potion. We will be bonded, and together, we will have enough power to kill Dieter.”
The bag weighs heavily on my shoulder, but I do not flinch as I meet Cornelia’s eyes. Liesel steps a little closer to me, slipping her hand into mine.
“Potions do not work like that,” Cornelia says in a low voice, but there is doubt.
“Magic isn’t working the way it should,” I remind her, pointing to Hilde, who was spirited away here in an explosion of power that belied Fritzi’s intent. “It’s worth it to try.”
“We have to go,” Brigitta says. She moves closer to Cornelia. “Let him have hope, even if it is false.” Her voice is a low whisper; she did not intend for me to hear, so I pretend that I didn’t.
I don’t know why I don’t tell them what my real plan is. I just keep thinking of the way Fritzi was furious at the council, the way her expectations for the haven of the Well, the safety of the goddesses, were belied. Magic is not always the only answer, even if none of these witches can see it.
Hilde whips her head around to me, concern flashing on her face. I give her a silent look. In a house like our father’s, we both learned to communicate without words. She frowns but accepts the way I shake my head, telling her: Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.
Cornelia sighs, defeated, then turns and leaves Hilde’s cottage with a swish of her robes.
“Be safe,” Hilde tells me, wrapping me in a hug made awkward by the way Liesel refuses to relinquish my hand. My sister turns to Brigitta. “And you too. Be safe.” She stands on her tiptoes to give her a kiss. As they break apart, my sister shoots me a questioning look, and I grin back at her, thrilled to see her so in love.
I crouch in front of Liesel. “You stay with my sister. You can trust her. I will bring Fritzi back to you.”
Liesel nods. I know she wants to come with us, but she is still a child. And I cannot live with the idea of allowing her to fight.
“And you bring Otto back to me,” Hilde murmurs to Brigitta. The other woman chuckles, her lips on Hilde’s neck, but Hilde pulls back, stands on her tiptoes, and whispers urgently into her lover’s ear. Brigitta’s eyes snap to me, so I have little doubt my sister was speaking about me.
As soon as Brigitta and I exit the cottage, I turn to her. “How are we going to get from here back to Baden-Baden in time?” I ask, a new worry twisting inside me.
“Do not fear,” Brigitta says, her lips carving into a smile. “Transportation is the least of our worries.”