I never had to fight alone.
How different would this all have been had I sought allies instead of plots? Working with more than just my sister and later Fritzi, perhaps we could have toppled Dieter before he ever had the chance to be what he became. Perhaps Fritzi’s coven would have been spared; perhaps more stakes would have been unburnt; perhaps…
A world of possibilities is heaped like broken rubble in the corner.
I made this life from my past actions. I can only move forward and attempt to change the future into one that does not bring me shame.
“I saw you,” Johann says. “Before. It took me a while to realize what you’d done, how you’d worked. That time you hit me in front of the others, told me I couldn’t talk the way I did…you meant that. Not because you wanted me to believe in what the hexenjägers said, but because I really couldn’t talk that way…not if I wanted to stay alive. Not if I wanted to find ways to fight back.”
I remember that hit. I hadn’t held back. Not only would talk of mercy for the prisoners have gotten Johann killed, but if I had been lenient, it might have blown my cover.
“I started seeing the other people who didn’t talk in the same way you didn’t talk.” Johann takes a step forward, grabs my shoulder, and gives it a comforting squeeze. “I started finding friends and allies. But only because I saw you first.”
“Thanks,” I mutter.
“I’m glad you’re here now,” Johann continues. “Because Dieter has been searching for something. At first, I thought he was just trying to reopen the tunnels, but the Kommandant has maps and books and notes. He sifts through the aqueducts. He’s seeking…something.”
“A stone,” Fritzi interjects. “He’s trying to find a stone.”
Johann shoots her a confused look and casts his eyes around the crypt and all the rocks scattered on the ground.
“A specific stone,” Fritzi adds, offering a weak smile.
“What does it look like?” Johann asks. “Is it a gem, or perhaps cut in a certain shape…?”
“We don’t know,” I say, knowing how unhelpful that is. But part of the security of the stones is how little is known about them.
“It may make him stronger,” Fritzi said. “The stone he’s looking for… it could give him…powers.”
Johann blanches, clearly horrified at the thought of an even stronger Kommandant. “All I know is that he started in the Porta Nigra, going through the tunnels and excavating them from there. And he’s ramped it up. Day and night. I can hear them sometimes.”
He indicates the pile of rocks used as a barrier to hide his secret tunnel. “Dieter will tear the city apart to get what he wants.”
No, I think.You’re wrong. He’ll tear apart the whole world.
14
Fritzi
Otto bends closer to Johann, the two of them talking quietly in the shadowed tunnel. Our candlelight turns everything a pale, flickering yellow, and as their voices drop to a low murmur, I let my mind drift.
Hesitation is tart and uncomfortable. I don’t want to ask. I don’t want to know.
But if Dieter is already looking. If he already knows…
Otto gets a look on his face. Something pensive, something severe, his brows set in a deepening frown. “Dieter is underground at this moment?”
Johann shrugs. “It’s likely. He’s been overseeing the excavations personally, but sometimes he goes up into the city to oversee the—” He stops. Swallows. “The burnings.”
“If he’s in the tunnels now,” Otto continues, and I can see the willpower it takes to move on from any mention of burnings, “that gives us an advantage.”
“How so?” I ask.
Otto smiles with half of his mouth, a cold, calculating smile. “We’ve collapsed these tunnels before.”
My eyes widen. “You want to bury him.”
Otto nods. “Then find the stone in the aftermath.”
