Brigitta turns to a man with copper hair who stands at attention beside her. “Summon the council,” she orders. She sends more guards elsewhere, to check the perimeter, to inspect the trees, but that is useless.
Dieter hadn’t beenhere. He had taken Fritzi by some foul magic.
“Come with me,” Brigitta says, motioning for me to follow her. My heartbeat thunders in my ears, numbing my other senses, forcing me to replay the image of Fritzi fading from my grasp over and over in my mind.
As we walk higher into the trees, I pause, shaking my head. “Where are you taking me?”
“The council needs to be informed of this,” Brigitta says.
I shake my head more forcefully. “Lieselneeds to be informed.”
“The council are the highest officials in the Well.”
“And Liesel is not only a powerful witch with a direct connection to a goddess, she’s also Fritzi’s cousin.”And Dieter’s cousin, I think but don’t say. “I need to go to her. First.”
Brigitta hesitates.
“We don’t have time for this,” I say in a low voice.
She nods tightly and leads me in a different direction, but then grabs one of her guards and orders him to bring the council to the champion’s room. Good. From the way Fritzi spoke of them, it will do this council well to be reminded that while they serve the gods, they are not themselves gods.
In moments, Brigitta knocks at a door. When Liesel doesn’t answer, I push past Brigitta and open the door. “Liesel,” I call.
It’s a mark of how tired she is that she doesn’t immediately get up.The room can only be described as cozy, with fresh flowers spilling out of every jar and window, filling the room with a sweet, warm scent. Flickering candles burn low, and dozens of colored glass balls in various sizes hang from the ceiling. At a word from Brigitta, the glass balls light up, filling the room with a magical glow.
“What’s going on?” Liesel asks sleepily from the bed.
I drop to my knees in front of her. “Dieter has Fritzi.”
The girl’s instantly awake, shooting up in the bed. She swings her legs over the side and rushes to the closest table, wrapping her hand around the candle flame as if it were merely a flower to pluck from a garden. She turns her palm over, the flame burning in her open hand, and stares deeply into the fire.
Behind me, I hear the arrival of more people—judging from the gold embroidery and haughty expressions, these must be the priest and priestesses Fritzi spoke of. They draw up short, watching Liesel perform her magic, but one of them—the youngest, a woman—pushes the others inside and closes the door so that we’re alone.
“She’s in Baden-Baden,” Liesel says with authority. “But there’s a…cloud around her. My powers are blocked.” She grips her hand into a fist, and through the smoke rising between her fingers, she meets my eyes. “It’s Dieter.”
The priest behind me sucks in a breath. “He should not have been able to breach the protection barriers around the Well.”
“I’m not sure he did,” I say. “I didn’t see him—only Fritzi did. I don’t think he was actually here; I think he just found a way to pull Fritzi out.”
“Still,” the priest says. “It’s a bad sign. His magic, at least, crossed the barriers.”
He continues talking, and the priestesses chime in, conferring with each other about what this means for the Well. But my eyes have notleft Liesel. I see the fear blooming inside her, the paralyzing, horrifying terror.
“We will get her back,” I vow to her.
“I don’t think she understood before,” Liesel says, her voice a whisper, only for me. “Dieter is my cousin and her brother, but…there’s something wrong with him. It’s not the wild magic. I think he’s just…wrong.” Her eyes blur with tears. “He’s going to hurt her,” she tells me, carefully enunciating each word, as if trying to make me realize the depths of his depravity.
“I won’t let him,” I say, my voice cracking. This is the second time someone I love has been whisked away before my eyes, but I didn’t understand fully what magic was when Hilde went away, and by the time I did comprehend, I knew Fritzi well enough to trust Hilde was safe. Now, though?
Now IknowFritzi isnotsafe.
I know that Dieter will not kill her outright. I know he will torture her. I am not there to protect her. I am not there to save her. What use is a goddess calling me a warrior if I cannot even fight? My breath comes out in a shuddering release, and for a second, I let the fears spooling inside me tighten around my mind, and I can hear nothing but Fritzi screaming, feel nothing but the hollow knowledge of my own uselessness.
And then I look at Liesel. I see her swallow down her fear, her tears. “What do we do next?”
Liesel meant the question for just me, but the others hear it. “Liesel, it’s up to you now,” the priest says.
“Rochus!” the youngest priestess says, abashed.
