14 Fritzi

14

Fritzi

Otto bends closer to Johann, the two of them talking quietly in the shadowed tunnel. Our candlelight turns everything a pale, flickering yellow, and as their voices drop to a low murmur, I let my mind drift.

Hesitation is tart and uncomfortable. I don't want to ask. I don't want to know.

But if Dieter is already looking. If he already knows…

Otto gets a look on his face. Something pensive, something severe, his brows set in a deepening frown. "Dieter is underground at this moment?"

Johann shrugs. "It's likely. He's been overseeing the excavations personally, but sometimes he goes up into the city to oversee the—" He stops. Swallows. "The burnings."

"If he's in the tunnels now," Otto continues, and I can see the willpower it takes to move on from any mention of burnings, "that gives us an advantage."

"How so?" I ask.

Otto smiles with half of his mouth, a cold, calculating smile. "We've collapsed these tunnels before."

My eyes widen. "You want to bury him."

Otto nods. "Then find the stone in the aftermath."

We told Brigitta we'd be back by nightfall. This was meant to be a scouting mission only, to reconvene and plan for how to take him out together.

My chest tightens. "Can we even access enough explosives in time, or—"

A scream rips through the tunnels. A bright, terrified cry, and I drop in half, hands over my ears, body tensing, ready to flee, ready to fight.

But Otto and Johann only dive toward me, Johann with one hand out like I might fall over, Otto seizing my arms.

"Fritzi?" Otto demands "What's wrong?"

"You didn't hear—" But a warbling cry thuds across my mind again.

Friederike! Holda shouts. He's found it; he's found the stone—

Her voice devolves into shattering wails, so beset with terror and grief and guilt that I stumble again, nearly going to my knees.

"He's—he's found it, he's—" I can only mumble, consumed by Holda's increasing panic, and then I'm scrambling forward, tearing through the thin stone barrier Johann set up to hide his tunnel. The stones clatter all around, but I don't care about the noise, desperation funneling into every limb as I start sprinting blindly through the tunnels.

"Fritzi!" Otto tears after me, and I think Johann does, too, but I'm beyond myself, no thought, only drive.

I see the turns laid out, side routes to take as Holda unfurls the path to me. I don't know if she's meant to; I don't know if this strains the limits of what she can do, but she is panicked, and so I go. Candlelight barely illuminates me from where Otto and Johann bring their flames, but I don't trip, racing into narrowing darkness like I know this path. Another turn, the tunnel slopes downward, going and going, down and down—

The tunnel widens. Opens into a massive circular chamber with stone columns holding the ceiling high above us. The space is lit by torches set into the walls, the floor is covered in an inch of water that makes the space smell of mildew and rot.

And in that space are a dozen hexenj?gers and my brother.

Otto and Johann patter to a stop behind me at the very edge where the hall opens into the room. Otto curses. Johann is silent, his anxiety a tremble in the air.

The j?gers have their backs to us, which is the only thing that saves us for the moment; they're all transfixed on Dieter.

He stands at the far end of the chamber, half inside a massive hole that has been gouged into the wall. Within that hole, I can barely make out a stone table holding up a golden box. Even from this distance, I can see it's encrusted with gems, untouched by dust or grime despite being hidden away. It gleams in the torchlight, sapphires and rubies.

"A reliquary?" Otto whispers, seemingly unaware he's even spoken.

I want to ask him what he means—a reliquary? But I have seen items such as this in cathedrals and churches, one of the many types of treasures Catholics display on their altars.

This Catholic relic cannot be Holda's stone…can it?

Dieter throws back the golden lid and peers inside. He looks so like a character from one of Liesel's stories, uncovering a great treasure, that I'm hit with a pang of wanting to tell her, of wanting this to be a simple story—just a villain finding buried gems, easily defeated.

Then Dieter smiles. Even in the low light, I watch his lips curve as he reaches into the box.

And comes up with a stone the size of his fist, cradled in his palm.

"I'm glad you could make it, Fritzichen," he says to the stone.

He turns and throws his smile at me across the room.

That yanks the attention of the hexenj?gers, who whirl, some dropping construction tools to reach for weapons.

"Ah-ah," Dieter says, staying them. "That is no way to treat my guest."

Another lurch. He's using my magic to control them. A dozen armed soldiers, all held by my brother's control.

Disgust tinges my throat, rises up across my tongue like bile.

I cut Dieter off from overtaking me. There has to be a way to block him from my magic completely—how? How do I break the bond he made?

His face drops into a scowl. "Though you should not have brought company , Fritzichen."

He looks past me, glancing once at Johann, then at Otto.

"Give me that stone," I demand. I know it's useless. I just want his attention back on me and off Otto.

Dieter cocks his head. "Why did you push me out of your mind all those nights ago? We were working so well together. Did you at least do what I asked you to do? Do you have the stone?"

He doesn't wait for me to confirm or deny any of his questions—I feel his grasping fingers of magic, my own magic doubled back on me, picking at my brain, cold, boney fingers that pluck a headache across my forehead.

He's trying to overtake me again.

Panic overwhelms me. A surge of terror, and I grasp for the connection with Otto, for the amulet Cornelia gave me.

Dieter can't get me.

He can't overtake me again.

He seems to realize it at the same moment I do. That scowl grows darker as he heaves himself out of the opening with the gold box, boots sloshing in the water that coats the floor of this wide chamber.

"You shut me out, sister?" Dieter cradles the stone to his chest. "You didn't bring me the stone from the Well, did you?"

"Give me that stone," I say again, though I know it's hopeless.

Dieter grins. He tosses the stone in the air. Catches it.

"No," he says. "No, I don't think I will." He turns to the nearest hexenj?ger. "Kill those two. Bring my sister to me."

" No! " The scream tears out of me at the same moment two hexenj?gers lift crossbows and fire.

There are no plants here, nothing connected to what magic is most instinctual for me, so I'm acting on will only, will and horror, and so I grab at wild magic and pull, up and over, thinking only shield .

The water responds.

In a great lurching wave, the inch of old stagnant water rips from the floor and covers the opening between this tunnel and the chamber in a wall of protection. The arrows thud off it, clattering to the ground on the other side, and through the waving, distorted wall of water, I see my brother take a jerky step forward.

"Unfair, Fritzichen! Play nice! "

More arrows fire, ricocheting harmlessly off the wall of water I hold up, hands splayed.

Next to me, Otto touches my shoulder. "Are you all right?"

"Am I all right? He just tried to kill you!"

"Fritzi. You're controlling water ." He says it with wonder. As though we have time for wonder. As though hexenj?gers aren't currently hacking at this protective wall with swords.

But it is something awe-inspiring.

I haven't gotten to see the bounds of wild magic while hiding my abilities in the Well. I haven't practiced what I'm capable of.

This is the first time I've used magic that isn't associated with plants, the first time I haven't depended on the teachings instilled in me.

I gasp, throat welling, and somehow manage a smile.

"This is all real, then?" comes Johann's still, small voice.

We both turn to him. His gaunt face is gray, and I see in his wide eyes that some part of him had still hoped there was a simple explanation for Dieter's takeover. To what happened in Baden-Baden. The battle in that village was chaos, things that could have been explained away; but seeing a wall of water hold off arrows and swords is undeniable.

"Yes," I tell him. "But we're not all like Dieter."

"I know," Johann says. He quickly crosses himself. "I know. How do we stop him?"

Otto is already pulling weapons out of scabbards at his waist, focus jumping between the soldiers beyond the water and me. "You can manipulate water—what do you think you can do with the rock that makes up the chamber?"

"I don't know," I admit. Sweat starts to bead on my forehead despite the chill of the tunnels, muscles along my back cramping with the effort of holding up the water. A particularly strong hit from an ax makes me stagger; Johann catches me, steadies me upright. "What do you want to do?"

"Our original plan," Otto says, his eyes glinting. "Bury the bastard."

Can I do that? Collapse the room. We can dig out the water stone from the rubble.

I nod, shaking with anger and fear and growing fatigue.

"I think—" I waver again. "I think I'll have to drop the water to focus on the stone."

Otto holds up his knives. Johann has weapons in hand now, too, a short sword he removes from his back and a knife from his waist.

"Do it," Otto says.

We'll have seconds. Maybe less before the j?gers are on us.

Drop the water. Reach for the stones in the ceiling. Bring the room down on my brother without burying us alive.

Holda , I pray, beg, though what guidance can she give me? Her panic is only feeding into mine, and so I close my eyes in one steadying moment and drop the water wall.

The soldiers are right there, weapons midswing to hit the wall again.

Behind them, Dieter laughs.

Laughs .

I look up, reaching for the ceiling, ignoring his cackle and whatever it might mean—

A growl resonates through the chamber.

The hexenj?gers, weapons up, go rigid, frozen by Dieter's will, and that growl rises, rises, thunders like horse hooves.

Dieter's laughter turns to manic glee. He bounces on his feet and looks down at the stone in his hands. "Oh, yes ," he coos. "Fritzichen! Can you feel it? Oh this will be fun ."

Not growling.

Not horse hooves.

Each stone the goddesses hid is connected to an element. Bring all three together, and the Tree can be burned with the final element, fire.

The stone bound to earth is safely in the Well. Abnoba's stone.

The stone bound to air is hidden. Perchta's stone.

But this stone. Holda's stone.

Otto grabs my arm. " Water ," he shouts a beat before a wave rushes up the tunnel behind us and slams into our backs.

We go sprawling into the room, thrown into torment and tumult with the hexenj?gers. Water sweeps up over me, yanking me down and around, flipping me and letting me break the surface only to tug me under again. The torches on the walls snuff out, plunging us into darkness.

I lose Otto in the chaos; Johann cries out, but it's gone; there is nothing other than that growl of water rushing in single-minded focus and my brother's echoing laughter.

It is the summation of every nightmare I've had. Just darkness and Dieter and no escape.

Terror sweeps up over me. It could eat me alive. It will—

I slam my arms out.

No .

He has no power over me now. Not ever again.

NO.

The water around me stops, holds me upright, and I break the surface with a desperate gasp. The lack of light makes it impossible to see where the water's taken me, how full the room is now, and I scream, "Otto!"

The roar is too loud. My brother is too frenzied. The darkness is too potent.

I throw my hand up and light the first thing my magic can latch onto—a stone in the ceiling. Witchlight is an easy spell, one most children learn, and the soft white glow illuminates the chamber.

Water is filling the room, raising us closer and closer to the ceiling. The only free space left is around Dieter, who stands in the middle of a whirlpool, juggling the water stone from hand to hand.

Fury overwhelms my terror.

He's only able to use that stone because of me . Because of my magic.

So I should be able to use it too.

I scream and throw every ounce of my power at my brother. Invisible tendrils like thorny vines latch onto what he's using, his own connection to the water stone.

He falters, dropping to one knee, and his laughter breaks in a startled cry.

" Fritzichen, stop !" he screams, but no , I am not his, I am not his .

The water stone reacts to me. I can feel the moment it separates from Dieter's control and connects with my magic, the element Holda secreted away in this relic.

I sever Dieter's commands. His intentions, vile and dark and twisted, though he still holds onto the stone, grips it in his now magicless hands.

The whirlpool in the room stops. There's a pause, then the water surges into the space Dieter occupies, the only free part he kept dry.

He's hit by a wave and goes down in a gurgling shout.

"Fritzi!" Otto's voice rings out, and I whirl to him, treading water as the chamber levels, but it's still too full, and now the current reverses. Where Dieter had dragged water in, its natural flow is to go out , and so it surges back for the tunnel, carrying us with it.

I struggle to stop the current, to swim to Otto. He's dragged past one of the stone pillars and grabs on, sinking below the surface once before breaking free again. I haul myself toward him, and he reaches out, trying to catch me as the increasing current of water hauls me toward the tunnel.

" Fritzi! " Otto stretches, reaches , arm extended, the other snaked around the pillar.

My mind centers enough that I make the water shove me in his direction, a rocking surge that sends me hurtling into his arms. He snatches me to him and the two of us slam into the pillar, gasping, drenched in the beating waves.

"Where's Johann?" Otto asks.

We turn, eyes scanning the chamber—

Across the room, the current trapping him against the wall by the tunnel opening, is Dieter. He's caught between fighting to keep his head above the surface and trying to regain control of the stone, but I redouble my hold on it, on him, straining with everything I have.

I start to slip out of Otto's arm. He clings to me, but my focus teeters enough that Dieter tries to force his way back into control of the stone.

"I can't hold him!" I shout. "Otto—"

The water level is lowering, fast and determined, but not fast enough. I can barely think in the churning water, the pulsing glow of the witchlight I made over us, the threads connecting me to Dieter, to the water stone—

"Johann!" Otto shouts. He tries to point but can't with both his arms keeping us from being swept away.

I spot a head pop above the surface across from us. The current drags him forward, and he surfaces again, this time with something in his hand: a knife.

The current is hauling him directly at Dieter.

I can't breathe. Can't blink or move or think how to help him in the second between spotting his knife and his body smacking into my brother.

There's a shout. A warbled cry.

The water lowers, lowers, rushing and roaring, a caged, angry beast.

Johann detaches from Dieter. He floats backward for a moment.

He doesn't turn to us. Doesn't move away at all until Dieter pushes again and dislodges the knife that he'd managed to wrest away and drive into Johann's chest.

" Johann! " Otto screams, and I think he might dive to help him, but he stays against the pillar, body strung taut. " Johann!"

Dieter shoves Johann's body again. The current sucks it down, out, leaving a red trail in the water as he's dragged up the tunnel.

The water drops enough that we can stand on the floor.

My knees give out, and I hit the stones, coughing, sputtering. Instinct pushes me to move—I reach out, fighting to do something, bring my brother to the ground—

Otto staggers to his feet. He has no weapons now, grief heavy in his eyes, and he gets one step before he makes a brittle, fractured cry.

I look up across the waterlogged room, hand extended, magic pooling in my chest.

Dieter is gone.