The bundle of cloth shifts, and Mia stands up. Ignoring me completely, she steps deeper into the alley, behind another building. I wait a beat, then follow, Fritzi breathless with anticipation beside me.
Mia leads us into a tiny shack leaning against one of the buildings, chickens rooting among the muck behind sticks woven into a crude pen.
“You came back,” Mia says when Fritzi and I round the corner. I cannot tell if there is relief or accusation in her sharp tone.
“I thought—I thought it would be over,” I say. Emotion chokes my voice. Can she tell how sorry I am? I should have come back so much sooner. I should have made sure Trier was safe. I should have made sureshewas safe, and her brother, and the other orphans and destitute people.There was so much more work to do, and I let myself celebrate a false victory instead, I let myself revel in joy when there was still so much grief left in the wake of the city I abandoned—
Fritzi presses her weight against my shoulder, grounding me. I can almost sense her admonishment to not feel guilty through the touch.
“It’s not safe for you here,” Mia tells me.
“Where is your brother?” I ask.
Mia shakes her head. “Not here. He found work on a farm past the city walls and—”
My shoulders sag in relief. Mia and her brother were among the first I saved; their father had wanted to make way for a new wife, and Mia’s brother had been born with one arm much shorter than the other, something his ass of a father considered a flaw. The witch trials had given their father an easy way to start a new life, and while I’d been able to save them from the stake, I had not been able to find them the home they deserved.
“Why didn’t you go with him to the farm?”
She rolls her eyes as if to say,Because obviously there’s still work here to do.“What do you need help with?”
“Is the housefort safe? I need to get to the aqueducts, and—”
“He told me to give you a message, if you ever came back.”
Her words stop me, redirect my thoughts. “Who?” I ask. I exchange a look with Fritzi. Mia can’t mean Dieter, can she?
“Johann,” she says.
Johann.The young hexenjäger who dared to warn me about Dieter’s approach. The one who escorted Dieter back to Trier with the promise to oversee his execution. Johann—perhaps the only ally I have in the hexenjäger units now.
“He’s alive?” Fritzi asks, hope sparking in her voice.
“He’s been helping us since you left,” Mia tells me, and guilt twistsaround my gut again. I know Mia means more than just her brother and herself; theusin her statement refers to all the victims.
Johann stepped up to help when I left the city behind.
“We do what we can. There’s a…” Mia flaps her hands, looking for the word. “A group of us? We don’t all know each other, just the signs. We try to warn the people the hexenjägers target, free prisoners, undermine the Kommandant…”
Johann isn’t just helping.
He’s started an underground network of rebels.
“He told us that you may come back,” Mia said. “If you found out that things were bad, still.”
I kneel, ignoring the disgruntled hen that flaps against my leg as whatever muck it sought seeps into my trouser leg. “I am so sorry I left you, Mia.”
She glares at me. “We don’t have time for your apologies.”
“I like her,” Fritzi says.
“He told us to tell you to go to the church.”
I shake my head, confused. “Which church?” There are dozens, from the grand cathedral to the church of Porta Nigra, from the chapels attached to the monastery in honor of Saint Simeon to the little parishes scattered around.
“He just said that you need to find the star before you can see everything.”
I suck in a breath.
