Because I wanted to destroy them from the inside out.
Over the years, I worked my way up, hiding the little rebellions—the cells that weren’t locked, the children who disappeared before they were arrested, the warnings to families to flee before they were accused. I had my father’s zealous legacy to give me credibility within the hexenjägers, but my stepmother’s loving heart to always ground me outside of them.
Nothing I did was ever enough, though.
Especially once I leveraged my father’s name and sat beside Herr Kommandant. It has always been evident that Kommandant Dieter Kirch is not simply following orders from the archbishop. He does not act with faith or any presumption of doing good.
He loves the murders. Herelishesthem. He actively works to make them more torturous, cramming the accused in inhumane prisons and branding them with the letterDfor dämon before executing innocent people.
He never wants to see the witch burnings stopped. No amount of blood spilled on the streets of Trier will be enough for him.
I had thought, before, that the mania of the witch hunts would die down, and I hoped only to save as many as I could before the hexenjägers inevitably failed. But once I got close to Kommandant Kirch, once I saw the full depths of his depravity, I knew…
Nothing short of insurrection will stop the witch hunts.
So I hatched a plan with my sister.
Everything was in place. Months of preparation—pilfering keys to hidden doors in the tunnels, laying out routes for escape, sabotaging messages—all of it hinged upon the idea that I would arrest Hilde, and I would put her into the witch trials myself. She would organize the prisoners; I would set them free.
This mass burning the archbishop planned seemed the perfect tipping point. Releaseeveryoneright under his nose, at the height of the Advent season and Christkindlmarkt where everyone would see.
While I was on patrol in the south, I cemented the last of my plans, even going so far as to arrange a boat that would take Hilde and me from Trier to Koblenz, using the branching river to fully leave behind the last vestiges of this life. I would never be able to stay in the diocese once I broke into the basilica and freed a hundred or so accused witches, but I had to hope that such a large rebellious act would be enough to spur the public into rejecting the cycle of terror and evil the archbishop holds in his iron fist.
The plan had been to fight from within for as long as possible, save as many as possible, and then escape to some other principality or diocese, somewhere I could hide safely and start a new life with my sister.
But with Hilde gone, wherever the hexe sent her—I have lost my connection to the prisoners.
And I’ve lost my sister.I push the thought down, even though it causes a physical pain in my heart. The witch seemed certain Hilde was safe. IknowHilde would want me to focus on saving the innocents. But all I feel is broken and lost when I think of how she is…elsewhere.
Focus, I remind myself. I have worked for years to appear to be nothing but a ruthless hexenjäger. Above suspicion.
I will not fail now.
I glare at Fritzi. There’s not enough room for her to stand, but nor does she cower.
She’s my last hope.
I press my face against the bars. “Listen,” I say urgently, my voice low so that only she can hear. “Do what I say—exactly.”
“You can’t make me—”
“If you want to survive, listen to me. I can save you, if you obey me.”
I can save you all, I tell myself.
And I hope that it’s still true.
9
FRITZI
I blink at the bars after the kapitän jumps back down.
I can save you, if you obey me.
A threat like that isn’t unexpected from a hexenjäger.
I’ve heard stories from witches who passed through Birresborn, most just looking for a safe place, others on the run to the Black Forest after most of their coven was lost. All would grow quiet when the visitors told their tales. Where they had come from. What they had escaped. Even the children, huddled at their parents’ legs, weren’t sent away from the gruesome realities; we all had to listen, because we all could feel the overhanging threat.
