22 Fritzi

22

Fritzi

Otto and I both stare up at the fruit he grew. And there is no explaining it away as any other cause, not in early spring like this, not when the tree was bare only moments ago.

"I, um—" I blink, swallow, and manage to drag my eyes to Otto's.

His face is split in a wide smile. "Do I have easier access to plants because of you? Your affinity transfers over into me?"

My lips part. He waits, patient, expecting answers.

"Otto," I say, voice cracking. "I have no idea how any of this works. I don't know how you did—" I jut my chin at the tree. "I barely know how I use wild magic, let alone the rules of what is easier for me or you, and how affinity affects it, and—"

"All right." Otto squeezes my hand, his wonder leveling to that steady, resilient surety. Even when I'm floundering and panicked, he believes I'll find the way. How does he trust me so inherently? How can he follow me so unflinchingly when I'm sitting here, admitting to having no answers, to just making this up as I go?

The same way I trust him. An unexplainable thing. A tether that goes beyond the bonding magic, to something innate and foolish and founded in love.

"We don't have to know," Otto continues, his lips lifting on one side, a smile. "Just walk me through what you've been doing when you use wild magic. Maybe it'll work the same for me."

"Well, what did you do to make those?" I look up at the apples again.

Otto follows my gaze. "I was thinking about blooming. Warmth. The Well, and a well inside me, filling. I wasn't necessarily thinking about apples."

I shrug. "When I've used wild magic, I don't always have a direct intention. It's more unconscious, or a demand in the moment. Like the wall of water I used to protect us against Dieter's soldiers in the aqueducts—I'd just wanted protection for us. So maybe controlling wild magic has to do with controlling our intentions beyond thought. We have to control our instincts, those initial kicks of will before they become full seeds."

Otto's jaw sets. "In the heat of battle, that could be difficult."

Holda ? I try on instinct. I don't know if our connection is reestablished, being outside of Perchta's tomb, or if the Mother goddess's lingering magic will interfere still—

I am here , she says after a pause. She sounds exhausted. Stretched thin.

I am her champion, yes, but just in the dip of her words, I feel how many other responsibilities she has, and how perilous so many of those things must be. Other witches praying to her. Other souls depending on her.

Never mind , I tell her.

There's another pause. I will always be here for you, Friederike. You have questions about how best to use the bond between you and Otto. I can—

No. We can figure it out. What has you so overwhelmed? Other than…everything.

She laughs. I don't think I've ever heard her laugh before. It's dry, though, humorless.

Too many things happen that I cannot see , she says. So my sisters and I attempt to prepare for as many likelihoods as possible.

They are on your side now? Perchta seemed amenable.

They were never not on my side , Holda says. They merely forgot where true dangers come from.

I peel away from my connection with her. Otto and I can explore this bond on our own.

I bite my lip, brow furrowed, and when Otto looks at me again, he frowns.

"What's that look?"

I stand, brushing stray bits of grass from my skirt. We're a ways from the main camp, but the flicker of the orange bonfire can be seen through a few trees, far enough that if we needed to call for help, they would hear.

"I want to try something."

He climbs to his feet and nods me along.

My internal well of magic is still nearly empty. A cavernous, echoing space with a small trickle of magic burbling in. It will continue to fill, but slowly, and what happens if I scrape it dry?

I shake out my hands. "I only have enough magic to do this once for now. Maybe twice."

Otto's frown of interest deepens. "I'm not going to drain you even more. We can practice later—"

"Later when?" I don't mean the bite in my voice. But anxiety tightens my stomach, forces fear past my exhaustion and bruises.

After a beat, Otto concedes, sucking his teeth.

We don't have later .

"Eyes closed," I tell him. "Arms up. Fighting stance."

He obeys.

"I'm going to come at you a few times," I say. "One of those times, I'm not going to hold back. I won't tell you which one, but I want you to only draw on magic to truly defend against me once. Your choice which attack it is. Keep your eyes shut."

He settles deeper into a fighting stance. This way, he'll have to be more intentional about how he uses my magic, not merely drawing on it in a continuous stream. It's the best training exercise I can come up with at the moment.

"Ready," he tells me. "Go."

I scoff.

Otto cracks open an eye at me.

"When have you ever been in charge, j?ger?"

He smiles. Scheisse, it's nice to see. Will never not be nice to see, the way his lips lift and his eyes glisten.

"My apologies," he says. He closes his eyes again and holds, silent now, but his cheeks are pink, and his lips are still crooked.

I come at him, a punch that barrels through the air. He senses it and ducks, but I'm hardly going for true power with that one. I swing to the other side, throw another punch; he rolls away smoothly.

We continue like that, easy punches coming and going, until I can see his humor fade, his focus sharpen.

The grip he has on my magic tugs. Not him drawing on it yet, just him becoming aware of it in the fight, that he could draw on it.

I aim a kick at his thigh and barely brush the fabric of his trousers before rearing back and slamming my fist into the center of his chest, the only true blow I've thrown. It connects, and Otto stumbles back a beat before he reacts, too late to stop me, and I hear the wind go out of him as he grabs at my magic and pulls .

Three things happen at once.

Otto realizes he drew too hard, and his eyes fly open with a cry of "Fritzi, I'm sorry—"

I stagger toward him, knocked off course by the absence of magic in my body. Not drained completely, but down to barest dregs, specks only, the incoming trickle mocking, almost, in the way it slows down.

And then a voice.

A caress at the edge of my mind, coiling fingers that brush the brink of my thoughts and lean in close and purr, Hallo again, Fritzichen. Let down your defenses, did you?

I rear back, back, trying to get away from the voice, white-hot panic lancing sweat across my body as I stumble to the ground and grab my head. I think Otto says something, the rumble of his voice like thunder in the distance, but I'm all internal now, scrambling through my reserves, so low, so low ; why did I let myself get so low? I knew I had less magic after the tomb, I knew I was weaker, but I had Cornelia's pendant, and Dieter hadn't been able to get in my head in so long—

Holda! Holda—

But even that connection is brittle. Not enough magic. Not enough strength.

Dieter doesn't speak again. But I can feel him here, poking and stretching in my mind, in my body, like a drop of ink spooling out in clear water, tainting everything gray and sickly. I scratch at what little magic I have left and throw it into shielding myself from him, but he's everywhere, there and gone again, I can't chase him, can't catch him.

Leave . I pour all of my will into that one word. Leave, leave, please leave —

Shh, Fritzichen , he murmurs. Just relax.

I want to fight back. I don't want to sleep, not with him here , but I'm so tired…so very tired…

My teeth clack against each other, hard.

Coppery blood swims in my mouth, and I spit it out, gagging, and it's only then that I realize Otto is shaking me.

I open my eyes blearily, and he stops, just holding my shoulders, his body wound to spring into action, but what action? Why? What—

Behind him, faces bent in the same look of withheld action and concern, are Brigitta, Alois, and Cornelia.

"What…happened?" I ask, wincing. My tongue is sore; I've bitten it, hard, and while I think the bleeding has stopped, it's swollen.

I ease back from Otto to sit on my own. My chest and shoulder are on fire. I'd loosened my kirtle before to wash, but it's all the way unlaced now.

"Is he gone?" Otto asks urgently.

"I…think so," I say. I hate the whimper that comes, but I hear and feel it and that jolt of sensation stretches out, sending tendrils that shake and twitch across my limbs. I take a breath, but the shaking continues, vibrations that don't stop. I'm cold, that's it; I must be cold.

I reach for the pendant Cornelia gave me. It hangs from the leather string around my neck, but it's thrown to the side, resting on my shoulder.

I'd let my magic get too low. Her protection wasn't enough.

The thought comes to me as innocuously as if I'd thought, There is rain coming, and I do not have a cloak. Absent. Unbothered.

Holda? I try.

I do not get a response in words, not this time. I see an image of towering trees and protective plants in a barrier around my mind, the way she tried to fend Dieter off when he overtook me in the council's library. She is fighting to protect me from him. Fighting though I can feel her exhaustion still, ripples of trying to defend against too many things at once.

My teeth chatter.

The cloth of my chemise sticks to my skin.

"Why am I w-wet?" I ask, shaking, shaking. "F-from washing?"

"Liebste." It's out of Otto in a punch of horror, and I note the white pallor to his face.

Cornelia crouches next to me, reaches one hand out, and I brace for her touch, only realizing when she withdraws that I didn't brace, I flinched .

"I'm sorry," Otto says, talking fast, panicking. "I'm so sorry, I didn't know how to stop him."

I can't seem to focus. "I know." I blink slowly. "You can't. You don't have m-magic."

No, that's not right. He has my magic. I didn't have enough magic.

What is wrong with me? Is Dieter still in my mind? No, that's not it. I almost laugh. I stifle it, but it comes anyway, a high, crooning giggle that makes Otto's already sunken face break even more. Brigitta shares a look with Alois. Cornelia puts a hand to her mouth; her eyes are tearing.

The shaking continues. Muscles cramping, releasing. My head is pounding, and everything's so foggy. Not just my eyes, but all my senses. As if I had been away for a long while, and my body is a neglected house. The fires are cold; there is dust in the corners, cobwebs in the ceiling.

"I had some of your magic, still," Otto whispers. "In my—well? In my body, at least. I sent it back to you. It made you stop enough for Alois and Brigitta to pull you off of me. Then you collapsed."

Pull me off of him?

There are bruises blossoming on his skin, green and purple. Claw marks cover his face and arms, the scratches deep.

A hand lifts in front of my face. My own. I'm holding it up, and I study the nail beds, ragged and caked with dried blood under the torn edges.

"Did I do that to you?" My stomach churns, bile rising, tart against the iron tang of blood still in my mouth.

Cornelia shakes her head. "Only when Otto tried to stop you."

So, yes, then.

His eyes drift down.

My chemise is wet. Right. I'd almost forgotten.

That fog of absence lets me look down at myself.

The wetness isn't from the well water. It's blood. Mine.

I try to peel away my clothes, hissing as the cloth sticks to open wounds. Scraggly lines are crusty with drying blood.

Otto already has a tankard of water out. He twists in front of me with a spare cloth and gently dabs at the cuts.

It's not random.

This wound is a mirror of Otto's tattoo, same shape, same spot. Only there was something on my chest in that spot already, one of the scars my brother gave me, the ones that allowed him access to my magic, to me.

He used my fingernails to claw the shape of a tree into it, gouging the scar tissue to make branches that spread up my clavicle, roots cut down into the top of my breast, the skin puffy.

My eyes sting. It takes me a moment to realize it's from tears.

I hold a hand up to one of the branches cut into my body. I can see where my own curved fingernail fits into the red line on my skin.

I did this.

He did this.

It was his actions, but my body.

I am so sorry, Friederike , Holda says, her voice thin. I should have guarded you more thoroughly. I should not have trusted others to hold against his determination.

But she can't surround me in her magic all the time. Not with Dieter doing who knows what, and all the magical preparations she should be making to counter that—she can't, shouldn't , have to protect me all the time. I should be able to defend myself.

I did this. I dropped my power too low. It was foolish.

Cornelia reaches forward again, tears tracking down her cheeks, but she sniffs, hard, and squares her shoulders as she touches the pendant hanging across my shoulder. "I'll redo the spell," she tells me. "I should have redone it earlier, maybe. I…I'll recast a protection spell every morning from now on—"

There's that noise again, that high-pitched crooning of my manic giggle, and I can't stop it. It comes and comes and I'm shaking so hard the world around me starts to sway.

"Liebste," Otto says. "Can I hold you?"

I nod. Yes , and I send it across the bond, I think I do, I'm dissolving beneath these vibrations, this laughter, why can't I stop? It's not funny. None of this is funny. Why can't I stop laughing?

Arms come around me. Pull me gently into the cage of his arms, and I wince when the wound on my chest gets jostled.

"I w-was careless," I try. Maybe speaking will help. Maybe I just need to talk. "I sh-shouldn't have let my ma-magic get so low."

Otto smooths his hand up and down my back. "I knew you were low on magic. I shouldn't have—" His hand clamps on my elbow.

"When we get back to the W-well," I manage, "I'll ha-have Rochus and Philomena train us. Or s-someone. Anyone. We can't keep—"

"We can help," Brigitta offers. I've never heard her voice so still. So…empty. "We should have been helping all along. We can put you through training exercises. I can devise ways to test your limits. We'll figure this out."

I nod. Nod again. I can't stop, and that weird, grating laughter carries on in my throat.

"Shh." Otto holds me tighter and I let him, burrowing into his arms and his wide chest. His presence pushes down on my shaking and fear and responsibilities until I let loose one more giggle, and it shatters into a sob.

"I'm here, Liebste, I'm here," he says, because I'm falling apart against him, body shaking now with heaving sobs that come from the very pit of my stomach, making me gag.

I think I talk again. I think I beg him for something, but I don't even know what. I just know I'm exhausted. Physically. Mentally. Brigitta offered to help; Cornelia will cast protection spells; I'm not alone, but I'm so tired, tired of being afraid, tired of fighting, tired of bearing all these burdens and knowing Otto bears them too. And I'm tired of my body, so very, disgustingly tired of feeling my body, of wounds hurting and reminding me of Dieter, of the way I can't escape the pain he's left behind. I'm in a cage in this body, and he made it that way. I have no idea how to cleanse him out of me. I have no idea how to make this my home again, and he keeps invading it.

"You're still you, Fritzi," Otto says into my hair. How much of that did I say out loud? My sobs slow, body empty of magic and emotion. "You're still you. And I'm yours, too, and I'll do everything I can to bring you back to yourself. You're here now. You're here, Fritzi, and I love you."

He keeps saying that. You're here, and I love you.

I suck in a breath. My first full one in who knows how long.

"I love you, too," I say back to him, and it's weak and trembling, and my throat is cracked from sobbing, but he sighs like it's the most beautiful thing he's ever heard.

We're only about a day and a half from Baden-Baden and the Well, but night is falling fast, and we—or at least, Otto, Cornelia, Alois, and I—are exhausted. Brigitta seems torn between wanting to let me rest and wanting to get both the air stone and me back to the Well and under protection as soon as possible. As Brigitta argues with Otto over whether we should risk travel right now, I sit next to the fire.

Cornelia helped me wrap the wound as best we could, but my chemise is stained with blood, and I look like a horror creature, red-drenched and disheveled.

We should leave, exhaustion be damned. Dieter could attack any moment. He could be close; maybe that was why he was able to slip in so easily. He's nearby, stalking, waiting.

He should be here already; if he left Trier before we did, even traveling with a large group of hexenj?gers, he should have gotten here. Did he not figure out where this stone was? Did he go someplace else? Was Perchta able to keep him away?

Or is he waiting to intercept us near the Well, knowing we'd find the stone, hoping we'll bring it to him, just as he'd hoped to control me into bringing him the earth stone from the Well? Was that his attempt at manipulating me into doing his bidding again?

Cornelia sits next to me, close enough to share body heat.

We shouldn't go back to the Well , I want to say. It's what Dieter wants, for the stones to be with the Tree so he can destroy it. We should run, as far as possible. Brigitta should take the air stone and disappear.

Wait—that's what she's saying to Otto. "…leave and hide so no one knows where it is."

"What if Dieter can track you?" Otto asks. "What then? We wanted to bring the stones to the Well to protect them from him. The Well is still the best place to defend against him, isn't it?"

"We risk him laying an ambush in Baden-Baden or somewhere else nearby upon our return," Brigitta says. "I don't like it. I don't—"

"The earth stone is in the Well. Between that and the air stone, and the defenses already in place, the Well is the safest spot for Fritz—for the stones," Otto corrects.

I wince.

Of course he's thinking about me. How to protect me.

Cornelia is listening too. Everyone is, except maybe Alois, who is lying back with his head pillowed on his arms, eyes shut. He can't be asleep, despite the lines of exhaustion on his face.

As Brigitta and Otto continue to argue, Cornelia leans closer to me. I feel the weight of unspoken words before she says anything, and when she does, it takes my brain a moment to catch up to what she's chosen to say.

"Why did you not tell me you've been using wild magic?"

She saw me use wild magic in the barrow.

I'm grateful, in a way, that she asked me about this now, when I am too wrung out to feel anything like guilt or shame or fear.

"It should not be hard to guess," I say. "Priestess."

Cornelia flinches, mildly hurt, but she nods.

After a beat of silence, she sighs. "You haven't made a single comment about what else happened in the tomb."

The oddity makes me look at her.

"About Alois and I being… chosen . Fated." She pulls a face, but blushes. "You said it was the reason we were chosen, but am I truly to believe you have no opinion on that matter?"

I stare at her for another long moment, then feel myself slowly, gradually smile. It's small and trembling, but it's a gulp of fresh air between surges of briny waves.

Cornelia's answering grin of relief tells me she'd hoped I'd respond like this. Distracted. Uplifted.

Even for a moment.

"Oh," I say, and rub at my eyes. "I assumed you were too busy planning your elaborate bonding ceremony. I was going to tease you later."

"Arschloch," she says, but her voice is all fondness.

We listen to Brigitta and Otto talk, their voices softer now, and I don't know what they've decided.

Cornelia looks away. I want her to keep talking. For us to pick at each other, for something to be simple.

"Do you want it? To be bonded with him."

She gives me a flat look. "Oh yes, do allow me to unload my troubles on you." Her eyes go intently to my blood-soaked clothes.

I catch her wrist in my hand as her face falls. "Yes. Please." I'm begging. I don't care.

She bites her lip. Studies me for a beat.

Then she rolls her eyes. "Your bonded spoke with me about his god a bit ago. About choices." She sighs. "I didn't choose to be a priestess, you know."

My brows pull inward and I flick a look at Otto before refocusing on Cornelia. In the orange firelight, I see her eyes go glassy.

"My mother was the priestess before me. She died, and I had been trained to take up her mantle, and so I became it. And I'm good at it, aren't I?"

"I think so. Though I am biased, given that you are the only priestess I can truly stand."

Her lips crack in a smile, but her eyes are still sheened with emotion. "I don't truly know what I would have chosen if I wouldn't have done this, and it isn't as though I don't enjoy what I do. But what could I have been if I hadn't been pushed into this destiny?"

Her words are such an echo of the thoughts I'd had with Perchta that a shiver rushes over me, keeps me silent.

Do we all fear the same things? Do we all hope for the same release? To make our own choices. To be free .

Cornelia shrugs again and wipes the back of her hand on her cheek. "So then, to learn I could be destined to bond with Alois—"

"It isn't destiny," I say. "It's a choice."

"You know as well as I that Philomena and Rochus would not see it that way. The whole of the Well will hear of what happened and think that this means Perchta has destined Alois and me to be together. Which…sours it, if I'm being honest. Don't we have a choice in the matter? What if we don't want this?"

"You do want him." I stop. Frown. "Don't you?"

She bites her lip. "But is that only because we were fated to this? Is that only because we were set on this course by the goddesses?"

"You are a priestess—shouldn't this be comforting to you?"

Cornelia huffs a little, rolls her eyes at herself. "It should be. Shouldn't it? And yet, I can't help but wish that we were all on more equal footing. That the goddesses had less control over our paths than we have given them."

"Careful, Nelly," I say, half light, half quaking. "You're awfully close to blasphemy."

"If I were a Catholic, maybe." She nods at Otto, who has convinced Brigitta to stay, and is now kneeling across the fire from us, talking into it, trying to contact Liesel. "Despite what Rochus and Philomena think, I believe in asking questions. And I'm wondering now what our world would look like if—ugh, I'm not sure what I'm asking. I just hate the idea that anything that might come from Alois and me could be because of an outside force, not because we both want it."

"Witch and warrior," I whisper absently. "It's one of the best ways to protect our people. One of our greatest defenses."

Cornelia grunts softly in her throat. "I should be honored then, to be so used." She flinches, looks at me. "I didn't mean—"

I wave it off. "I know what you mean. But it is yet another rule the goddesses imposed on us. You're right to question it. What if we didn't need bonded pairs? What if we could do so, but only if we chose to, not because we needed it? What if magic was that for everyone—not something accessed through rituals or only because of our bloodline, but because you simply chose to use it?"

"Wild magic," Cornelia whispers.

My instinct is still to deny it. But I force myself to nod.

There are limitations, of course. Wild magic is far from perfect. Only so much can be stored in one body, and when it's low, refilling it is a long process.

I trace the edge of the bandage around my chest. But I'm breathless, suddenly. All the thoughts that have been clogging up my head are too close to fitting together, to spilling out, and Cornelia looks at me strangely.

"I had not thought that big," she says softly. "But…we have gotten this stone to keep it safe from Dieter. Haven't we? Not for any other purpose?"

I pull my knees tighter to my chest, my wound burning. My body remembers the feel of shaking uncontrollably and I shudder in the echo of those vibrations. "Of course."

"Of course." She hums again. Jostles me again. "It is a miracle of miracles that the Mother let you out of the tomb alive, Friederike Kirch."

She has no idea how right she is.

But Perchta did let me out. Even knowing all these thoughts thundering around in my brain.

So maybe it is time for a change.

Maybe, against all odds, even the ones I put against myself, I'm meant to bring it about.

Brigitta claps. "There you are!"

The fire heaves just as Brigitta rocks back onto her heels, and it isn't Liesel's face that appears, but Hilde, facing away from us, toward Brigitta.

"Brigitta!" Hilde says. "We've had no news since—"

A tussle, then Liesel's face takes over, and Hilde lets out a sharp chirp.

"You could ask , little one!" Hilde says, her voice farther away.

"It's my spell—you said hello to her, swoon swoon, now updates, please. Everything's fine here. Where's Fritzi? Otto?"

The fire shifts, then Liesel's face turns to me.

She beams.

Until her eyes drop to my chest, and I can't cover the bandage quickly enough.

But I realize—I shouldn't cover it. Even if I could. Liesel is young, yes; we want to keep her safe, of course; but we are long past the time when being kept safe meant lying or withholding information. From her or each other.

"What happened?" Liesel demands.

I look at Brigitta. Otto, standing off to the side. Alois, awake now, and Cornelia, leaning close to me.

My arms start shaking, and I feel that manic force want to bubble up again, but is it a sob, is it a laugh? Whatever it is, it is an unraveling, and it chokes me.

I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to remember what I did to myself, to Otto, that Dieter was inside of my head again.

But I think of the way Liesel told the council what had happened to us, how she reframed our trauma into an epic tale of bravery and poetic words.

If she can speak, so can I.

"Let Hilde listen in, Liesel," I tell her, eyes tearing. "Something's happened. A few things, actually."