His teeth show, and he tucks the water stone back into his pouch.
“We’re going to be late,” he says to me. “And we can’t be late, can we?”
I shake my head. No, and he can’t be upset, he can’t be. I won’t let him be.
He nods. Smiles. It hits his eyes now, and I relax.
“Good.” He looks down at the battle on the forest floor. “Now go get little Liesel. You can bring her to me, can’t you?”
I nod again.
His head bobs as he starts to hum. “Three stones and one spark,” he sings. “Water, air, earth, and fire in the heart. Go get my fire, Fritzichen.”
Yes. Liesel and Dieter and me. She’ll come with me. She’ll understand—we have to help him. We have to help him.
I have to help him.
I have to…
I have to.
I have—
25
Otto
Living near a river, I learned to swim early. My stepmother would laugh at me all summer, shouting that the least I could do was bring some soap with me and bathe once in a while. There were boys from the town I’d swim with sometimes, fishing in the morning, diving into the water when it got hot at midday during those hungry months when the seeds were sown but the harvest wasn’t yet in.
One of them almost drowned, the year before my stepmother died, the year before everything changed. It happened quietly, the younger brother of one of the boys pulled under the tow of the current, tiring quickly, slipping beneath the surface. No one noticed at first, and then realization hit, and with it, horror. We frantically screamed his name, searching over the glittering waters of the Moselle, until we heard a shout. Everyone dove for him but I reached him first. He scrambled over me, desperate panic pushing me under the water as he grabbed me, choking and gasping, and I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, but the other boyswere there, pulling the younger one off me. I clawed my way to the surface, gulping at air and spewing dirty river water.
I was drowning, just now.
And I flailed with sheer panic, grabbing and jerking at the—
The tether.
The tether between Fritzi and me. The magic. I was terrified, I was panicking, I wasdying, and I…I drained her of magic.
Withhimin the room.
Oh scheisse, oh no, ohscheisse.
I sit up, my hands slipping through something thicker than water, something—
Blood. Pools of it.
Bile rises, but I push it down, swallowing hard. I force my body up, standing, one hand around my sword hilt in a white-knuckled grip.
I scan the room, still struggling to sort my thoughts. Cornelia’s up already, bruised and disheveled, checking Alois for injuries. “I’m fine,” he says, but he takes her hand to help steady himself.
They turn to look at me, the obvious fear and question in their eyes.
Fritzi’s gone. So is Dieter.
He has her.
That’s the only thought in my head. It’s the only thought I can allow into my mind, because if I don’t focus on that, I’ll focus on the decapitated corpses of the priest and priestess. I’ll fixate on the blood that slicks my boots and I will never process another thought again, not if I don’t keep my razor-sharp focus on one fact:He. Has. Her.
