2 Fritzi

2

Fritzi

Morning light cuts through the council room's high wide windows, searing the headache behind my left eye; tension or sleeplessness, I'm not sure. And though I could easily grab a remedy from the shelves that rim this meeting room, vials of herbs and potions, I stay planted on the chair at the table, hands demurely on the beaten wood, focus pinned on Liesel, across from me.

She busies herself going over a worn piece of parchment, dragging her finger down, back up, down again, lips moving in soundless recitation of notes and lines and details.

I silently try to get my ten-year-old cousin to look at me. I want her to remember that I'm here, that I won't let the council be cruel to her; I want her to remember that Cornelia, at my right, is also here for her and is just as unwilling to let Rochus and Philomena get away with any of their usual combative comments.

Rochus clears his throat from his seat at the head of the table. "Liesel, dear, if you are unprepared to give us this information, we can seek it elsewhere."

"She's fine—" I start.

At the same moment, Cornelia cuts in with, "Give her a chance to—"

Liesel flies to her feet, slams her palms against the table, and hooks Rochus with a glare so sharp that he drops back down into his seat, brows to his receding gray hairline.

"It began," Liesel says, her voice pitched purposefully low, like a growl, "in Birresborn."

I bite my bottom lip. Hard.

All my fears of her being nervous for this recitation were unfounded, it seems. She wasn't quiet to hide her anxiety.

She was… preparing.

Philomena sighs, a quill poised in one hand over a blank sheet. "Yes, we know quite well where you are from—what we need are the details of your journey to the Well, so we might have a record of the things that transpired. We need the details only , so you do not have to—"

Liesel sweeps her arms wide, face going gaunt and tragic. "The day was cool. Cold. Frigid . The air not yet fully winter, not yet autumn. Oh! The chill —"

Cornelia puts a hand over her mouth. Fighting a smile.

I'm not even fighting mine. I grin, wider still, headache forgotten, as Liesel puts a hand to her chest and sways.

"A morning like any other! Until my deranged cousin attacked our village and kidnapped me."

Her voice falters, and she consults her notes, but my chest squeezes, smile dropping off my face.

It is good, though, that she is able to make light of what we went through. This is her way of dealing with what happened to her, and I'm more grateful than I can say that Brigitta has been encouraging Liesel to create this story. And while I had thought it would be more…direct…than what the council needs to put in their records, I can't deny the part of me that's softening and melting at the sight of Liesel so obviously enjoying the act of storytelling.

"Ah," she restarts. "I mean— oh ! The horror of his vile hexenj?ger brigade as it did descend upon our unsuspecting coven! The barriers had fallen, brought low by—" she stutters. Glances at me, once; I almost miss it, but she flurries her hands around in an approximation of something intangible. "By forces ! Mysterious forces—"

"Your other cousin, you mean," Philomena corrects. "We know Friederike lowered your coven's barrier, allowing Dieter and his hexenj?gers to attack. Do not try to soften her role in—"

Liesel makes a crooning mewl, the back of her hand on her forehead. "The vile Kommandant abducted me! I was taken far, far away, across the untamed lands, through desolate forests and churning rivers—"

"Liesel," Rochus tries, "we only need—"

"—to Trier! The capital of the vile hexenj?gers. There, I was imprisoned, unjustly I may add, at the hands of my vile cousin—" She stops. Squints. Realizes, perhaps, that she said the word vile quite a lot already, and frowns at herself before looking down at her paper again. "Only to be rescued from certain death by my cousin! My…other cousin. Not the vile one. His sister. And her brooding warrior!"

My chest squeezes again, but with a snort I can't stop. I wish Otto had been allowed into this council meeting rather than being whisked away to some apparently very important Grenzwache trial; I can only imagine the look on his face at being described as brooding .

Liesel bats her hand in a dismissive wave. "He's not important to the story. I didn't like him at first." She thinks for a moment, shakes her head tightly. "No, the story is better without him—"

"He is a part of your journey," Rochus cuts in. "We need to hear of his contributions as well."

Liesel pouts. "But he didn't do anything. Except carve me a dog." She thinks again. "Well. That part was nice, I guess."

Was it a dog? I remember him saying it was meant to be a horse.

"You cannot discount him as it suits you," Rochus says. "We must hear everything that occurred. Truthfully ."

I turn a distrustful scowl at Rochus. Why is he so interested in Otto's part of this story? Is it merely to know every detail, as he says—or do they hope something happened that they can use to discredit Otto, even with him being chosen as my warrior?

" Truthfully —" Liesel drags out the word "—back across the untamed lands we went!" She flares away from the table, pacing before the high windows that show the treetops of the Well sanctuary rippling off into the distance. "Back through desolate forests and churning rivers—we were on a tiny boat; it was so small. The water, frigid! Now it was winter, fully and wickedly—Fritzi washed my hair and it froze— "

"I did not—" I stop. Think back.

Well. Perhaps I did do that. We were filthy though, having narrowly escaped the explosion of the basilica imprisoning a hundred innocent people that my brother had intended to burn in Trier. Cleaning the ash and grime out of our hair, even with winter-cold river water, had been a necessity.

I cannot believe that that is the detail she fixates on. Not the run for our lives. Not the nights huddled around smoldering campfires, worried that every snap of a branch in the dark was Dieter, come to get us.

No. The worst thing we experienced was frozen hair.

" Child ." Philomena pinches the skin over her nose. "We agreed to let you be the one to give the official account, but we truly need only the details of where you were, what you encountered, and how you passed. This performance is highly—"

"A CRONE!" Liesel shrieks. "Not the Crone, of course, not Abnoba. But an old woman. In a little cottage outside Baden-Baden. Into her home we went, and she captured us three in a pit of thorns and bones."

I frown. "Liesel, the old woman didn't capture us."

"And FRITZI!" She whirls towards me. "Fritzi harnessed the powers of her connection to the Well and freed us from the thorns! Plants bow to her command; greenery is hers to control!"

"I didn't—"

"And that was not even the worst we faced!" She leaps onto her chair, blond braids snapping around her shoulders, blue eyes wild, and face reddening. "Into Baden-Baden we went, me, Fritzi, and her sulking warrior—"

"Sulking," Cornelia echoes, and buries her face in her hands with a giggle.

"To face terrors previously unknown by witches: the most heinous of Christian holidays, a perverted festival of merriment—"

I scoff. "Liesel, do you mean Christmas ? The Baden-Baden Christkindlmarkt?"

"None other!" She teeters in the chair, corrects herself, and gets a far-off look of horror. "They stole our Yule traditions and made them so—so— Catholic ."

"The hexenj?gers , Liesel," Philomena drones. "How did you evade the hexenj?gers ?"

"A CASTLE!" Liesel points at nothing. "A castle, high on a cliff, dark and brooding—or, no, that was Otto—" She scowls, looks down at her notes. "No. He's not important. FRITZI. Dieter came up the hill on horseback, and Fritzi saved us—"

Cornelia has both hands over her face, making a high-pitched, desperate whine that I think is a poorly restrained laugh.

I stand from my chair. "Liesel, I think that's—"

"The trees of the Black Forest awoke at her call! They rushed to our aid! Branches snapped in the morning mist—splinters flew—"

" Liesel ." I try hard not to laugh her name. "I think that's quite enough for now."

Her shoulders sag. "I haven't finished."

"We have enough information," Philomena says to her blank sheet of parchment.

She has been trying to get the exact details of our journey for weeks, for the council's posterity. Cornelia has kept her delayed with insistence that we needed to rest and heal, which were far too true. I had merely intended to just never recite any sort of tale to her, but Liesel had been the one to insist.

I lower back down into the chair, the scars pulling at my chest, my thigh, my stomach.

Philomena only asked once for details of what happened after Dieter magically ripped me out of the Well, what he did to me when he had me chained up in a room in Baden-Baden, what spells he might have used.

The look I gave her was enough to shut her up.

I was barely able to tell Otto. The thought of repeating what Dieter did to me, and having that account written down, made a record—

Absently, I scratch at the brand Dieter left on my sternum. My headache pierces, pain a lightning bolt behind my eyes, and when I snap them shut, briefly, I see—a tree. The Tree, the Origin Tree, the guardian of our magic—

I shake my head, and the image fades. Or maybe it was never there—the light from the windows flares against the veins in my eyelids like branching arms.

Cornelia shoves to her feet. "If we are quite finished?" She doesn't wait for their response; she locks her fingers around my arm and hauls me up, but my gut stays in the chair, a sudden, intense jerk of nerves.

Philomena sets her quill down with a huff.

Rochus manages to look up with a rather sincere smile. "Yes, of course."

Cornelia bows her head. "We will have proper council meetings after she's bonded."

Philomena shoves away from the table wordlessly, lips pursed. Rochus's face goes tight.

For being the leaders of the Well, the sanctuary ordained by the triple goddesses as a haven for witches, they are remarkably bad at hiding their true feelings. Each flash of disdain for me is carved across their faces.

"Yes," Rochus says stiffly. "We look forward to our council bearing Holda's champion."

As though summoned, Holda makes a low hum in my head. He will show my champion proper respect , she tells me, as though I will snap at him to swear fealty to me.

I shrug away her concern, an annoying itch at the back of my mind, and I think that might be the cause of my headache. Her presence comes and goes, and even after months of it, I haven't gotten used to having a goddess not only in my head, but also invested in my life.

"And her warrior," I add.

They will not downplay or warp Otto's contributions to this. Liesel may have, but that's their relationship; she barely tolerates him, he dotes on her, and she goes away with armfuls of sweets and toys and whatever else he's able to scrounge up for her. It's a brilliant system she has, honestly. I don't think he's yet figured out that she truly does worship him.

But as for the council…

Cornelia has accepted Otto, of course. She was the one I did not have to sway, the one who eagerly accepted my role as a goddess-blessed champion and Otto's role as my protector, both of us harbingers of change.

Rochus and Philomena, however, still act as though it will all go away, and they will return to a normal secluded life of being secreted away in the deep dark of the Black Forest, without the troubles of violent hexenj?gers and meddlesome girls from beyond their borders.

Dieter's defeat has made them complacent. Instead of seeing his threat as a need to act to prevent more dangers from others like him from forming, they believe we are safe from any dangers now.

Rochus's jaw tenses. "And her warrior."

Cornelia tugs my arm, and I reluctantly peel away from the table. Liesel has gathered her notes and meets us at the door, her bright eyes snagging on mine.

"Was I good?" she asks, breathless. It is only now that her nerves show, the anxiety I'd thought she had blossoming to the front.

Cornelia leads us out into the pale morning, the sun gleaming down on the little deck that juts off the council meeting room. All around and down below, the Well spreads out, a tangle of bridges and ladders and stairs, cottages nestled in branches and buildings formed to flow with the bends of trunks. The trees are just beginning to think of budding, small bundles of coming greenery clinging to the tips of branches, giving the faintest promise of spring against the gray and brown of winter's palette.

I stop Liesel and cup her face in my palms. "You were brilliant."

She beams. "Really?"

"I was riveted, and I lived through everything you said. Although"—I smile—"I don't remember some of those details."

She shrugs happily. "The stories they tell in Baden-Baden always have things like that—daring rescues. Big heavy words. I may have added a few things."

She's been listening to storytellers down in the village. She goes with Brigitta and her contingent of guards, along with a dozen or so other Well children, the barest beginnings of friendship between the hidden witches of the Black Forest and the mortals who have lived unknowingly as their neighbors all these years.

It's been an adjustment, to say the least. Yet another reason why Rochus and Philomena distrust me and what I represent.

And they have no idea about the truth of wild magic.

"Now," I say to Liesel. "I believe you've missed almost a morning's worth of lessons?"

Her face puckers. "I don't need lessons. Abnoba teaches me."

And as comforting as it is to rely on whatever the Crone might be teaching her chosen champion, my very young cousin…

"Humor me, will you?" I tap her nose. "You are making friends with the other students, at least, aren't you?"

That earns me a reluctant sigh. "Some of them are all right."

"I'm glad; that's—"

"None of them are as good at fire as I am."

"Well. For all our sakes, I should hope not."

She glares at me. Then smiles.

Her arms clamp around my waist in a throttling hug before she tears off across the treetop bridges, blond braids swinging behind her.

"In truth," Cornelia whispers as Liesel scampers off, "I think the instructors of our little school here are all too relieved when Liesel is called away. Did you hear she threatened to burn one of them inside out ? What does that even mean?"

"I could almost understand such a threat—he did try to get her to do arithmetic."

Cornelia's flat look in response has me backtracking.

I sigh. "We worked through it. She did not actually burn him, which I have learned to take as a win."

Cornelia laughs and loops her arm with mine. "Come on, then. The ceremony will begin two mornings from now, but the purification will start tomorrow at dawn, and we have much to still plan for it."

I roll my eyes, but let her drag me down a staircase. "How have we not planned everything already? Though I do appreciate you giving us an excuse to leave the meeting early—"

"That was not an excuse," she tuts, flipping her red hair over one shoulder. "We still have hours of work ahead of us. And I hear your potion should be almost completed, yes?"

The bonding potion. I've been brewing it for the past three days—with, surprisingly, Hilde's help. Otto's sister lives in a little cottage at the base of the haven's trees, the perfect sequestered space in which to think , to brew and measure and create. And Hilde has added some helpful suggestions about beer brewing I've incorporated, ways to heat and add ingredients that complement the bonding potion's particularities. Because this potion, if brewed wrong, will strip me of magic and kill Otto.

But do I even need a potion like this anymore? Couldn't I just focus wild magic on Otto, on connecting him to me, and forgo any of this dangerous game?

Yes , Holda says. Immediate and sure.

I do not think now is the time to bring up wild magic's potency to the council , I say back, even though I'd been toying with that very idea.

It will never be a good time , says Holda.

I grimace. What would Rochus and Philomena say if I refused the potion and performed the bonding with Otto on my own, with just wild magic? I'm still so new with it. So untested. Is now the time and way to both try my abilities and make the announcement to the whole of the Well that they have been lied to about magic's true power?

Playing by Rochus and Philomena's rules is still necessary. They don't trust me. I can't think about broaching the subject of wild magic now; Otto and I have to bond; we have to continue fostering relations with people outside the Well; we have to do a dozen other things first. Maybe then, the council will trust me, and it will be easier to begin taking wild magic seriously.

My head aches, and I rub absently at my forehead—

—before coming to a stop in the middle of the staircase.

"Hold a moment," I say and turn to Cornelia. "You said we have hours of work ahead of us? What could possibly take that long?"

We've been over what the bonding ceremony entails. Otto's preparation will be physical exertion, the skills he will need to hone as my warrior, which he is already off on. My preparation, from what Cornelia told me, involves tinctures and herbs, simple spells of purification and cleansing.

But from the look of sly glee on Cornelia's face, I completely misjudged what she intends to do with me.

That slyness softens into true happiness, and she brushes a blond curl back from my face. "This is the first bonding ceremony the Well has seen in ages," she tells me. "We must get it right. Not just for you, but for us"—she waves around, at the whole of the village, the treetop community bustling—"and all we have accomplished. This is the mark of our future, Fritzi."

"So it's hardly an important thing Otto and I are doing, then."

She gives me a look. "Don't pretend you wouldn't bond with him anyway."

A smile creeps up over me, unbidden and traitorous, verdammt.

I bat at Cornelia. "We hardly need a ceremony for that ."

"Oh, I know. My home is not nearly far enough away from yours. The neighborhood gathers together to complain about your… bonding noises. "

My face heats as my eyes go wide. "No. Truly? No. We're careful not to—"

She laughs, and it's evil, and I have half a mind to push her off the tree.

"I hate you," I tell her, but she hooks my arm again.

"Ah, this is excellent energy to have going into preparations. Annoyance and hatred."

"Well"—payback occurs to me, and my smile is devilish—"maybe you'll also be a cause for complaints once you tell Alois how you feel."

Cornelia chirps her offense and bumps me with her shoulder, but she purposefully shifts the conversation as we continue on, talking idly of the preparations she'll need, the herbs for potions we'll brew. Burdock root and rosemary, mint and sage, all things to burn away impurities and ensure the bonding ceremony is true. And final details of outfits she's arranged for us both, stylings and preparations for every event over the next few days.

Another twinge behind my eye signifies my headache hasn't left, and I fight not to rub at my temple, not to wince.

If Rochus and Philomena only knew how justified they are in distrusting me.

If they only knew how very much change I'm destined to bring to the Well.

Not only opening our hidden society to magicless mortals. But maybe, eventually, opening up all magic to all witches.

The world that the council oversees, that the goddesses ordained, is one of strict adherence to defined rules to access magic. Witches like me, green witches, access the magic by plants, by potions and herbs and green growing things. Witches like Liesel, through fire; witches like Cornelia, through spells that let her bridge the line between life and death. We do not reach beyond our set rules. We do not cross our defined areas.

To do so is to access wild magic. Wild, wicked, corrupting magic.

Or so we were told.

Wild magic, though, is nothing more than what it sounds—magic that is boundless. Magic that, once accessed, allows a witch to do anything .

The day my brother was defeated, I broke my tether to the Origin Tree and gave in to wild magic—just as Holda was always trying to get me to do—so I could realize what she knew, what her sisters deny: that wild magic is a stronger source of power than the stifled, narrow sieve of the Origin Tree. And with the rise of threats like the hexenj?gers, who burn us without cause or trial, we need all the tools we can get.

It is time for witches to reclaim their true power.

It is time for us to stand against the burnings and death and slaughter.

But doing so…is all on me. I'm Holda's champion. After this ceremony, Otto will be my warrior, my bonded guardian, someone I will be able to call on through a connection established by the bonding potion. He'll be in this with me, whatever my fate may be, and my stomach cramps, my headache rages. All I wanted was to free my cousin from Dieter and to make sure Otto was safe.

I don't…I don't want to be a champion.

I'm not sure I can be.

The sooner you are bonded to Otto, the stronger you will be, says Holda in a suddenly clipped voice. Do not let anything get in the way of it, Friederike. This is what you need.

No, it's what our society needs. All the tasks laid before me, the parts I must play, are what our coven needs; what the Well needs; what the council needs.

Cornelia leads me to her cottage, and I go, half-present, half wishing I could glare at Holda.

Is something wrong? I ask.

No, she says too quickly. It's nothing.

It's something . It's always something with these goddesses.

But I do want this ceremony, just not in the way Holda means, not even in the way Cornelia foresees.

I just want him. Otto.

All this, all the uncertainty, and as long as I have him, I think, maybe, I can endure whatever is to come.