21 Otto

21

Otto

It all happens in a blink. One minute, Fritzi reaches for the stone the statue holds out; the next, the statue is back in the alcove, and Fritzi is sagging beside me, as if she had just fought a battle herself. Cornelia and Alois don't even notice, don't even stop their bickering over Cornelia's injury, but I can tell.

Something happened.

"Are you all right?" I ask, throwing my arms around her. She leans against me, trusting me to bear her weight for a moment. It is, perhaps, a good thing I am not a witch with all the power Fritzi has; if I were, I would use every ounce of magic in me to carry the two of us far, far away and protect her from ever having to fight again. I am so tired of my Fritzi being driven to the point of exhaustion.

Something in my stance makes Cornelia and Alois look up. "What happened?" Alois asks, noting Fritzi's hunched shoulders.

Cornelia pushes Alois aside and rushes to her. "Fritzi?"

"I'm fine," she says, straightening. She holds out her hand, revealing the air stone. Cornelia sucks in a breath.

"Dieter cannot destroy the Origin Tree without all three stones," Cornelia says, relief pitching her voice high. "Oh, thank the Three! He may have the water stone, but this means magic is safe."

"And the earth stone is still protected in the Well," Alois adds. "Two out of three, not bad."

Fritzi and I exchange a look. We have already seen how powerful her brother is with just one stone. It's not enough that we protect magic and the Well. We have to protect the people Dieter is willing to plow down to get what he wants.

Johann's empty eyes, the slight blue tinge to his lips, his lifeless body on the wet stone floor...

"I know," Cornelia says, noting Fritzi's sour face. "But it's something . And we can celebrate this for the win it is."

I glance around the room. The shattered remains of the statues crackle underfoot, while the one that offered Fritzi the stone is now standing straight and tall again, its arm molded against its side. "Let's get out of here first," I say.

Cornelia and Alois agree, turning at once to the corridor that opens up to the large room we fell into.

"Are you truly all right?" I ask Fritzi quietly. My muscles are tense; I'm weary from the battle but not as tired as I should be. Thanks to her. She gives me a confident nod of assurance, but if her step falters even once, I will carry her out of this damned barrow.

She doesn't falter, though. Her fingers are white around the stone, clenching it so tightly that I can hardly see its smooth surface beneath her grip, and she quickly catches up with Cornelia and Alois.

The entire area feels darker and claustrophobic. "Does…does this area seem smaller than before?" I ask, looking around.

"Yes," Alois comments. "And…" He points to the corridor we just exited. Rather than a narrow passage and door, the wall is widening, as if the rooms are merging. The tables fold away, the offerings sinking out of sight into the dirt. The alcoves blend into the walls; the statue stutters forward. Every blink brings the linen-wrapped corpse closer, but there's no obvious movement, just a constant readjustment of my eyes. The torches are gone, and with it, all the light except that from the hole above us. The only standing sandstone statue shifts, embedding itself into the earth of the barrow, the shards of its brethren sinking down, lost in the dirt.

"This barrow wasn't just a tomb," Fritzi says, her voice bouncing off the walls as they close in around us. "This was a place Perchta graced. She gave me the stone, and then she left. Which means…"

"The magic that has sustained this barrow, making it larger on the inside, is disappearing," Cornelia finishes. "We have to get out of here before we're buried alive!"

The circular walls line over and over again with layers of earth, each coil tightening around us. But the ground, too, is rising, bringing us closer to the opening.

"You first," Alois tells Cornelia, and before she can protest, he grabs her by the waist, lifts her up so her feet fall on his knees, and pushes her by her rear toward the opening. Hands reach down, and I almost call out a warning, but then I recognize the voices above—Brigitta and the other members of the Watch.

"Come on," I tell Fritzi, grabbing for her. She's going to fight me, insist that Alois go up first, but Alois is on my side. He shoves her to me, and I scoop her up, lifting her lithe body higher even as the dirt under my feet boosts me closer to the top. Our friends grab her wrists and pull her the rest of the way.

I turn to Alois. The walls are so tight now that I cannot throw my arms out on either side. The once vast series of chambers is now one tiny room. There is barely space for both Alois and me to stand, our knees butting against the low bronze couch with the linen-wrapped corpse, the body outline surely nothing but bones, but still, definitely, human.

"You next," I tell him, prepared for a fight, but Alois just nods eagerly, eyes wide and terrified, stepping into my scooped hands and jumping up. His legs kick, hitting me in the shoulder. The hole above us is starting to constrict as well, the passage narrowing.

"Otto!" Fritzi cries, the sound strangled.

With no one to offer me a leg up, I jump on the bronze couch the corpse rests on. I feel the old bones crunching under my feet, and I say a quick mourning prayer, but I have no intention of joining this person in their grave.

Pushing up from the table, I jump toward the hole, arms raised. I can feel hands grabbing my own, yanking, but the dirt closes around me. I kick, trying to raise my body, but there's no room to move my legs. Soil clogs my eyes, my nose, my mouth. I part my lips to shout, but mud washes past my teeth, choking me. I cannot see, cannot hear. Terror floods my mind, and even as I feel the arms pulling me, my body doesn't budge, encased in earth as if the hill itself had formed around me.

A crackle of magic burns in my chest, near my tattoo. A sob claws at my throat, blocked by mud, unable to escape, as I realize that my fight with the statues has drained Fritzi dry of her own magic. It will return, of course, but she cannot save me now.

And then the hill explodes.

A burst of wind so violent that my entire body and the top half of the barrow rips through the earth, dirt and mud and rocks swirling in a tornado that's cut into the ground with a surgeon's precision. My body, which had been tightly constrained, now flies free, my limbs flailing like a rag doll. I go up, high, my back bending awkwardly—

And then the wind stops.

I drop, dimly aware of the thuds of countless clods of earth and pebbles falling onto the ground, skittering over the grass. I have one instant where I remember the way the bones of the corpse crunched under my feet and wonder if my bones, too, will crunch into the dirt, when a billowing burst of wind buffets my fall, pushing my chest up and my legs down, until I settle back on the ground.

I stagger, dropping to my knees. Alois rushes forward, clapping me hard on the back, and I spew bile and mud, choking on rocks that tumble past my teeth. When I breathe, I can still smell dirt. My fingernails are shredded, black with soil and red with blood. My eyes are blurry and burning. Someone brings a skin filled with water, and Brigitta dumps it over my head, washing away some of the dirt that had been pressed into me. My teeth still crunch with grit, and I grab another waterskin, swishing and spitting.

"Thanks," I choke out, my eyes on Fritzi, streaked with dirt from her own ascent. She holds the air stone in her palm.

She had run out of magic, but the stone had given her more.

Fritzi passes the stone to Cornelia and grabs my hand, rubbing my grimy knuckles.

"Well, that was exciting. Let's never, ever, ever do that again," Alois says. He stands and offers me a hand to help pull me up.

"By each and every hell of each and every god on this planet or any other, what is going on?" Brigitta snarls, eyes flashing from me to Fritzi to Alois to Cornelia and back. "You four disappear in some mist and then pop out of the ground like daisies?"

"It wasn't like daisies," Alois muttered.

"It felt like I exploded out of the ground," I add.

"You did," Fritzi allows. "Sort of. I had to drive the air into the barrow, and then pull it all out again at once."

"What happened to you ?" Cornelia asks the guard leader. "Did you see the monsters?"

Brigitta shudders. "We all did." She gestures to the Watch members. "Like horrible masks floating in the mists."

"Not masks," I say, remembering the spindly front legs of the running beast, the odd jaw and drooling tongue flapping about. "Full monsters."

Brigitta shakes her head. "We saw only masks, driving us away from the barrow. And the mist was so thick, we could not see or hear everyone. It wasn't until later that we realized you four were well and truly missing."

"Why us?" Alois asks, looking at Cornelia. "The goddesses have chosen Fritzi—well, one did—and Otto's hers, but why us?"

"Perchta is the goddess of tradition," Fritzi says in a low voice. "She likes those who adhere to it."

"Fine, you're a priestess," Alois allows, gesturing at Cornelia, "but I'm not exactly Perchta material."

"You held your own," Cornelia says. My eyes are raw from the dirt, but I think I see her blush.

"Maid, Mother, and Crone, can't you see it?" Fritzi says, exhausted. "You two obviously work well together. You could be bonded. That's why Perchta allowed you to go into the barrow. She approves of the bonding tradition, and she's—"

"Playing matchmaker?" Brigitta asks, gaping.

Fritzi shrugs but then casts a sly glance at Cornelia. My eyes are definitely not deceiving me; Cornelia and Alois are both bright red now.

"Well, that would explain things," Brigitta mutters.

"No, it doesn't!" Alois says too loudly.

"Oh, just admit you've been pining over her like a mooncalf."

"I—but—" Alois sputters.

"Really?" Cornelia asks, turning to him, and Alois's attempts at denial taper off into a mouselike squeak.

"Enough!" Brigitta bellows. "I want a report on what happened now. "

"We need to regroup," I say through a raspy voice. "But not here."

"I'll cover the basics," Alois offers, and that, at least, satisfies Brigitta. Alois explains with shocking efficiency the basics of the events as we stumble away from the barrow, toward the horses that, somehow, are calmly grazing in the field below. This area feels too open and defenseless, though, and no one protests when I point to the plateau beyond the barrow, the location of the ancient city.

Nothing remains but a few broken walls and random street pavers, but the road up the cliff is accessible, and the trees provide cover. It's a good location. I can see why the tribes met here, why it never fell to the Romans. I can tell the others like it too. They feel safer in the forest. Perhaps there's still a bit of Perchta's protection on this land.

When we reach a small clearing off the ancient road, with the stony remains of a low wall alongside, I suspect that we've actually entered the ruins of some barrack. Fitting, then, that Brigitta declares we'll camp here tonight, with assurances that Cornelia, Alois, Fritzi, and I are to rest only, not participate in the watch.

Cornelia kneels by the fire as soon as it's made, and even though it's not particularly chilly, she stretches her hands to the flames.

Fritzi comes up behind me. "Sit," she orders me. "People who get ripped out of ancient barrows using goddess-blessed elemental magic get to take a break."

"You need to rest too," I say, but I don't protest when she pushes my shoulders down.

"I have something else to do," Fritzi says, giving me a wink as she loops her arm in Alois's to go for a "walk." I don't think Perchta is the only one matchmaking right now.

Cornelia shoots me a sardonic look. "Please don't ask me about him," she says in a low voice.

"I wasn't going to." I pause. "Actually, can I talk to you about the goddesses?"

The priestess straightens. "Of course."

Behind us, the rest of the watch gives us space, as much privacy as we can afford in a camp. I have no idea where Alois and Fritzi have gone.

I glance at the fire. I feel foolish, but I still lean close to the flames and say, "Liesel, if you can hear us right now, please go away. I would like a private conversation."

Cornelia snickers. I have no idea if Liesel is actually in the flames, eavesdropping, but I decide to risk it anyway.

I pull out the golden crucifix I keep with me always. "This was my father's," I tell Cornelia.

"Ah," she says, clearly unsure of what else to say.

"I hate him," I say. Her eyes widen, but she doesn't interrupt. "I hate him, currently, still, even though he's dead, and the only comfort I have when I think of him is that he burns in hell." I look down at the gold, warm from my skin. "I have hated him ever since he accused my stepmother of witchcraft and had her burned alive for it. But even though he did it in the name of our God, I did not hate God."

Silence lingers, broken by popping embers. Eventually, Cornelia says, "Do you hate your god now?"

I frown at the crucifix. Can you hate someone you're no longer sure is real? Those are the words I cannot quite voice.

"You see your goddesses," I say instead. " I have seen your goddesses. At least Holda. And I know Liesel speaks to Abnoba, and I know Fritzi just walked away from a meeting with Perchta. I cannot deny your goddesses exist."

Cornelia's eyes grow soft. "Do you worry that because our goddesses are real, your god may not be?"

I cannot look away from the crucifix. I cannot stop biting my lip, even when it hurts.

Cornelia puts a hand over mine. "Do you know why the goddesses gave us the three stones, warrior?"

I nod. I was in the library when she, Philomena, and Rochus spoke about how the stones are protective, a means to remove magic from our world if it becomes too dangerous.

"They gave us the stones because they wanted to give us a choice ," Cornelia says, emphasizing the last word when I raise my eyes to hers. "The way I see it, it's impossible to have a choice without options. What use is the gift of magic if it was forced upon us? We chose magic, and we chose the goddesses, and we choose now to fight to continue protecting both."

My jaw is still too tight to speak. Cornelia's smile is sympathetic and full of understanding. She and Fritzi aren't too far apart in age, but there's a deep wisdom to the priestess that I think may come from her different connection to Holda. The goddess chose Fritzi to fight for her, but she chose Cornelia to speak for her.

"Otto," Cornelia says, "I must confess that I don't know terribly much about your religion. But I have read some of the book you worship with."

"The Bible?" I ask.

She nods. "In the beginning, wasn't the whole story of an apple really about choice?"

I suck in a breath, my fingers clenching around the crucifix. The very first story of the Bible, the story of the Garden of Eden, revolved around Adam and Eve's choice to take the apple from the Tree of Life. God could have removed the tree, surely. He could have made Adam and Eve never fall for the temptation. If God is all-powerful, as the priests say, He could have made it so that Adam and Eve simply never had a choice.

But He didn't.

The point of the first story of the Bible is that he gave humanity a choice .

"Not every witch can hear the goddesses," Cornelia goes on, turning back to the fire. "I counsel some who are upset about it. I recognize that it's not exactly fair for me to be so certain in my beliefs when I have proof of Holda's voice. But at the same time, I envy you, Otto Ernst."

"Me?" I ask, surprised.

"In a way, all of the gods have given us the gift of choice. Except for those of us who've had godliness thrust upon us. I will never know if my faith could ever be as strong as yours, because I have never had to decide whether or not to have faith."

She reaches over and touches the golden crucifix in my palm. "Do you want to believe in your god?"

Emotion wells in my throat. I do. My rage sustained me through the loss of my mother, the years infiltrating the hexenj?gers, the horrors I witnessed. But my faith gave me purpose. My faith gave me peace.

My faith enabled me to act, rather than to burn.

"For what it's worth," Cornelia adds, smiling when she sees my face, "Holda doesn't care who you believe in, or why. She's judged you worthy based on you as a person, not your faith. And the fact that your god's not brought down lightning upon us makes me inclined to believe he finds your actions worthy as well."

"He's not Zeus," I mutter. "I don't think lightning is used as a deterrent."

She shrugs, laughing. "Either way, I'm just glad you wanted to discuss religion instead of …" She doesn't say his name, but red stains her cheeks again.

"Well, if we're talking about choices, I do think you could make a worse one than him," I start, prepared to fully lift my fellow guardsman up in the priestess's esteem. "He jokes, but he has a good heart. And he's always the first to fight—not because he's vicious, but because he cares so much about protecting…" My voice trails off as Fritzi and Alois return from the nearby grove. "What on Earth happened to you two?"

They are both absolutely filthy in mud, head-to-toe.

Fritzi shoves Alois. "It was his fault."

"Was not!" Alois says. "I was trying to forage some mushrooms, and—"

"And they were poisonous , and this idiot was about to just pop them in his mouth!" Fritzi interjects.

"Yeah, and instead of telling me not to, you rammed me so hard—"

"Well, I didn't expect you to just fall over like a startled goat!"

Cornelia, who'd been trying to suppress her laughter, snorts loudly.

Alois's argument stutters and dies on his tongue, and he starts to wipe away some of the mud. Which only smears it more.

Standing, Cornelia offers her hand to him. "Come on," she says, "I can help get you cleaned up."

Alois seems both terrified and excited as he follows her.

I tell Fritzi to wait for me and grab my pack. "There has to be a stream somewhere nearby," I say. No civilization would build an important city like this plateau once was without a source of water. After telling Brigitta we won't go far, I lead Fritzi back into the trees while Cornelia hands Alois a cloth to clean his face.

We wander but are careful to keep the camp in mind, and we don't go too far when we reach a well, stones encircling a hole in the ground with a rotted wooden roof. Whatever bucket had been attached to the crossbeam is long gone, but I lower a wooden tankard from my pack into the abyss with my own rope, and the water we pull up is fresh and clear.

I'm not sure if it's pure enough to drink, but we could at least wash—we both desperately need to clean up. Fritzi quickly takes out the braids that held back her hair, kicks off her boots, and starts to unlace her kirtle, loosening the ties without removing it. It's too chilly for a full bath, but she intends to wash her hair and clean off the streaks of mud at least. The pendant Cornelia gave her swings out, dangling off the silver chain.

She catches me staring at it.

"Is it working?" I ask.

Fritzi shrugs. "I've not… I don't think he's been…" She taps her head. "But maybe he just learned to be quieter about it."

The worry that lines her face fills me with rage. The fact that even when he's not here he can still torture her…

But I know she doesn't want to dwell on that. Not now.

"This bath from a well is not exactly the same as baths in the Well," I say, tugging the rope back up. I would give a lot for the warm spring water pools among the trees, scented oils and soaps foaming over her body…

"I don't care," Fritzi says. She grabs the tankard, flips her hair over, and dumps it down the back of her head, cold water streaming over her scalp.

"I wish we had soap," she mutters, tossing the tankard back into the well. The cold is already catching up with her, and she squeezes the water out of her hair.

I hand her the rope. Much as I would like to just bring up more water and aid her in an impromptu forest bath, I am feeling the ache and grime of the day as much as her, and soap would, actually, be nice.

I root around in my pack, pulling out a spare tunic for myself and another for Fritzi so she can wrap it around her hair as a makeshift towel.

Something hard pokes my finger. I grab the thing and pull it out.

"What's that?" Fritzi calls as she pulls up more water from the well. "Soap?"

"No." I hold the wooden carving in my hand. "This is…" My voice trails off in wonder.

This is the horse carving I made for Liesel when Fritzi and I first saved her from Dieter, escaping Trier and hiding in the woods. I'd carved the little toy to comfort her, to distract her from the torture she had endured.

It's been worn away—the evergreen needles I'd used for a tail are long gone, and the wood is smoother now than my knife had made it. I hadn't known Liesel kept the carving all this time, but from the looks of it, she not only kept it, she treasured it. It's a little dirty, but that's from her fingers rubbing the wood.

Fritzi comes over, shivering. "Oh," she says, looking down at the carving in my hand. "The dog you made for Liesel."

"Dog?" I gape at her. "It's not a dog!"

"Pig?" she guesses.

"It's a horse !" I say. "A noble steed!"

Fritzi snorts. "Trot it back into your bag to find some soap and let's get some of that mud off you."

I tuck the little carving back into my pack and then finally find the soap. I'm far dirtier than her, even with the mud bath she and Alois apparently had. I pull off my tunic as I kneel before Fritzi, and she washes my dirt-encrusted hair for me, chills going down my spine with every pull of fresh water from the dark well. With soap streaming over me, I almost don't hear her when she speaks.

"It's because she loves you."

I look up, risking the soap bubbles in my eyes.

"Liesel," Fritzi says. She blinks rapidly. "It's because she loves you. She hates admitting it, because everyone she loves has been killed. But she loves you. And she wants— needs —you to come back."

Fritzi dumps more water on my head, clearing up the suds and not giving me a chance to answer her. I stand, grabbing her hands before she can busy herself with the task of helping me clean again.

"Liesel knows that what we're doing now…must be done," I say, looking in her eyes even as she tries to avoid my gaze.

"I know."

"And Liesel knows that you'll do anything to protect me, and I'll do anything to protect you."

"I know." Her voice is so small.

"And Liesel knows if anything happened—"

"I won't let anything happen to you!" she says, now almost shouting.

"— if anything happened, it wouldn't be your fault."

A tear falls down her cheek, so silent and small that I almost don't notice it.

"I…" She starts. Stops. Swallows. Tries again. "I saw the earth take you. And I tried, I tried, Otto, I tried to call up my magic and—"

"And I'd already bled you dry."

She shakes her head furiously. "You did what you had to!"

"We need practice. We need balance, so that we can both fight, together, not with one taking everything from the other."

"If only I could give you a little pocket of magic, all your own." She snorts bitterly, regretting a desire for the impossible. Her face falls, lips pressed tight. Then she adds, "I panicked. I didn't think, I didn't try, Otto, I just…I felt. "

I wait, unsure of what she means.

Fritzi looks up at me. "I felt sheer terror at losing you, and all I wanted was to rip the world apart and claim you again. And I happened to have the air stone in my hand when I felt that way. That's what tore the earth apart, that's what worked. What saved you. The stone. Not me."

I shake my head. "The stone is just a stone. It lay in that barrow for how many centuries, nothing more than a rock. You saved me."

"But—"

I press my lips against hers, silencing the doubt on her tongue, wishing I could silence the doubt in her heart.

When we pull away, I can see that old guilt weighing on Fritzi, tugging her shoulders, her soul, down. She let Dieter back into her village, and even though it was him, not her, who slaughtered nearly everyone in her coven, she blames herself. Even though I came to this mission willingly, if anything happens to me, she will blame herself.

Every choice she's made has been to survive.

But that won't stop her from drowning in guilt if I don't.

I tap her chin, gently asking her to look up at me. When she does, I see her eyes are red-rimmed.

"I'm the Catholic, not you."

"You don't have a monopoly on guilt."

"It's not your fault," I whisper. None of it.

"I know." Her voice cracks. "But…"

What I want to do next will be.

It's her voice, but it's in my mind. Fighting with her made me more in tune with her thoughts, and this one is especially present.

"What are you planning?" I ask. Shivering, I grab my shirt and pull it over my head. At least I'm a little cleaner now.

"Nothing!" Her eyes go wide, fearful—not of me, I think, but of herself.

"Nothing…yet?" I guess.

Her gaze slides away. "I don't know. Things…are not right. I don't know what the right thing to do is anymore."

"What are the options?" I ask. This is magic, and I don't understand the varied paths it may take. I only know that no matter what, I will be by her side.

"The Origin Tree acts like a dam, ensuring that only so much magic is released into the world, accessed exclusively by the witches who prove their intent with the spells and rituals…" Her voice trails off, and I can tell these thoughts have been swirling inside her for a while. "And what Dieter wants to do is wrong , I know that, I believe that."

Destroying all the safeguards in place and flooding the world with power in a vain attempt to seize it all for himself.

"But…we can't keep living under the traditional way of doing magic. It isn't enough anymore," Fritzi says, her voice so small I barely catch her words.

"The others speak of wild magic as if it's evil," I tell her. "But you use wild magic, and it's not evil."

"I know."

"Magic is power," I continue. I felt that power, filling my muscles, giving me the strength to fight the statues. To protect the person I love. "How you use that power is what makes a thing good or evil. Not the power itself."

"Are you sure of that?" Fritzi asks. Her eyes are beseeching, and I can see the war happening in her mind, the questions she barely has the courage to ask while we're alone.

"No," I tell her truthfully. I am not a witch. I do not understand her world, even when I live in it. "But," I add, and hope fills her face, "I believe in you."

She leans her body against mine, her head over my tattoo, listening, I think, for my heartbeat. I want to wrap my arms around her, I want to show her my love, but I also know that the reason why she's letting me support her weight right now is because she is still exhausted from being so drained of magic, and it is my fault. So, instead of pulling her into an embrace, instead of tilting her chin up so I can claim her kisses and calm her mind, I hold her shoulders and push her gently back.

"Can you teach me?" I ask her.

"Teach you what?"

"How to use your magic without draining you. I am your warrior, but I'd rather fight beside you instead of in front of you."

What we don't say is that facing goddess-sent monsters will be nothing against facing Fritzi's brother, and we are not ready for that battle.

"I don't really know how to teach you about magic," Fritzi says in a low, worried voice. "But I can at least show you how I do it."

Fritzi pulls me to a tree near the well, and we sit under its branches, tightly closed buds and new leaves unfurling above us, speckling the light with shadow. The oval leaves are slightly pointed, still small, but I'm pretty sure this is a fruit tree. Perhaps some wanderer tossed an apple core after finishing a snack, and, since this area isn't populated, a tree grew from the seeds, far too close to the well.

We sit so that we face each other, legs crossed, hands open in our laps. I have seen monks pray like this—not the kneeled prayers before the altar, but the quiet personal prayers during a pause in gardening or at the beginning of the day before duty calls, or when alone.

"Magic is like the trees," Fritzi tells me, and I smile, because of course she would use a plant to explain a part of herself. "It takes time to grow new leaves."

"You don't have to show me now," I say quickly. We haven't even slept since escaping the barrow; I shouldn't have brought it up. I asked too much of her then, and I'm asking too much now, and—

She slips her cool fingers through mine and waits for me to meet her eyes before she smiles. "I have enough for this. They call the coven in the Black Forest the Well, but there is a well inside of me, one that is tapped into magic. It refills slower than I'd like, but it does refill."

A well. I feel as if I have one, too, one that I never realized was empty until it was filled with her magic.

Before, during the battle with the soldiers, I reached out for Fritzi's magic subconsciously, and she offered it to me. Now, I close my eyes, and I can feel, somehow, the gentle tapping of something inside of me.

It has the same rhythm as my heartbeat.

Rather than grabbing for it, I just…open the door.

Warmth blooms in my chest. I focus on the feeling of it. On cold mornings in Trier, when I worked undercover, I would sometimes gulp strong whiskey for warmth, the burn forcing my body awake. This is like that, but without the sour acid in my throat, without the fire in my lungs. It's all power, all warmth, and no burn.

"You feel it?" she asks softly.

I nod, my eyes still closed.

I breathe in, and when I breathe out, the magic seeps into all of my body, just for a moment, every nerve tingling.

When I open my eyes, the tree above me is heavy with shining red apples.