The air bursts with a smell like lightning, static and ether, and the pain retreats. Not gone, but not overwhelming, and I gasp in air and vault upright.
“Where—” My eyes fly around, expecting Dieter hunched in a corner, wounded and ready to attack again.
But I’m in…the library? The council’s library.
And the room isdestroyed.
Most of the books are off the shelves, scattered across the floor. The table is half burned, charred and blackened, and blood streaks some of the walls.
My focus flares to Otto, panicked, and I sweep him head to toe for injuries. He has a thin cut on his neck, but that’s the only wound—so the amount of blood on the walls can’t be from him.
It’s from me.
I feel it now, wounds here, there, some healing from whatever Cornelia did, but it isn’t enough to stop the agony from grabbing me with relentless fists.
“What happened.” It comes out as a statement, a demand.
Talking hurts. My throat is rough, and I reach up, touch the skin, feel swelling.
Otto sits next to me, one hand going to my forearm. I wince, and he pulls back, and I see a burn there, barely healed; it leads up my arm and vanishes beyond what I can see. Shock takes over where Cornelia’s magic left off, and I go numb.
“Dieter.” I answer my own question.
Otto nods.
Cornelia drops back to sit on her heels. She’s in a chemise, a robe hastily thrown on, her red hair in a messy braid, and her face wide in shock.
“Dieter possessed you,” she clarifies.
“This is the second time he’s done it,” says Otto, and I whip towards him. “At least.”
“What?”
He doesn’t look at me as he explains how this isn’t the first instance he’s followed me to the library. How tonight, when Dieter attacked andtortured me in my own body, Otto used the bonding connection to drag Dieter’s consciousness out of me long enough for me to fight him with magic.
Cornelia goes quiet when Otto’s voice trails off.
He still won’t look at me.
“The Well’s barrier wasn’t enough to keep him out,” Cornelia says. “That’s…troubling.”
“That’swhat’s troubling?” I gag. “My brother isalive.And he can still access magic.Mymagic. That’s why the bonding potion with Otto didn’t fully work. Because Dieterbonded me to himselffirst. Hestoleme—”
I rock forward, body shaking, hurting; I’m a tangle of grief and pain.
Otto leans toward me. “Fritzi, I—”
I throw myself into his arms, pain be damned. “You feel guilty. Stop. There’s nothing you could have done to prevent what happened.”
Tentatively, Otto returns my hug, wary of the injuries on my back.
He says nothing. But I canfeelhis guilt. It nudges at me, and I’m aware of the thread, warm and sturdy connecting us. It’sthere, whatever bond the potion was able to make against Dieter’s influence, the reason Otto was able to pull Dieter out of my body.
I try to tell Otto again.It wasn’t your fault.
But I don’t want to talk more. I don’t want to think orfeelor connect to realize what this means. I’m so tired, inside and out, and I just want—
I want—
