No.
He has no power over me now. Not ever again.
NO.
The water around me stops, holds me upright, and I break the surface with a desperate gasp. The lack of light makes it impossible to see where the water’s taken me, how full the room is now, and I scream, “Otto!”
The roar is too loud. My brother is too frenzied. The darkness is too potent.
I throw my hand up and light the first thing my magic can latch onto—a stone in the ceiling. Witchlight is an easy spell, one most children learn, and the soft white glow illuminates the chamber.
Water is filling the room, raising us closer and closer to the ceiling. The only free space left is around Dieter, who stands in the middle of a whirlpool, juggling the water stone from hand to hand.
Fury overwhelms my terror.
He’s only able to use that stone because ofme. Because ofmymagic.
So I should be able to use it too.
I scream and throw every ounce of my power at my brother. Invisibletendrils like thorny vines latch onto what he’s using, his own connection to the water stone.
He falters, dropping to one knee, and his laughter breaks in a startled cry.
“Fritzichen, stop!” he screams, butno, I am not his,I am not his.
The water stone reacts to me. I can feel the moment it separates from Dieter’s control and connects with my magic, the element Holda secreted away in this relic.
I sever Dieter’s commands. His intentions, vile and dark and twisted, though he still holds onto the stone, grips it in his now magicless hands.
The whirlpool in the room stops. There’s a pause, then the water surges into the space Dieter occupies, the only free part he kept dry.
He’s hit by a wave and goes down in a gurgling shout.
“Fritzi!” Otto’s voice rings out, and I whirl to him, treading water as the chamber levels, but it’s still too full, and now the current reverses. Where Dieter had dragged water in, its natural flow is to goout, and so it surges back for the tunnel, carrying us with it.
I struggle to stop the current, to swim to Otto. He’s dragged past one of the stone pillars and grabs on, sinking below the surface once before breaking free again. I haul myself toward him, and he reaches out, trying to catch me as the increasing current of water hauls me toward the tunnel.
“Fritzi!” Otto stretches,reaches, arm extended, the other snaked around the pillar.
My mind centers enough that I make the water shove me in his direction, a rocking surge that sends me hurtling into his arms. He snatches me to him and the two of us slam into the pillar, gasping, drenched in the beating waves.
“Where’s Johann?” Otto asks.
We turn, eyes scanning the chamber—
Across the room, the current trapping him against the wall by the tunnel opening, is Dieter. He’s caught between fighting to keep his head above the surface and trying to regain control of the stone, but I redouble my hold on it, on him, straining with everything I have.
I start to slip out of Otto’s arm. He clings to me, but my focus teeters enough that Dieter tries to force his way back into control of the stone.
“I can’t hold him!” I shout. “Otto—”
The water level is lowering, fast and determined, but not fast enough. I can barely think in the churning water, the pulsing glow of the witchlight I made over us, the threads connecting me to Dieter, to the water stone—
“Johann!” Otto shouts. He tries to point but can’t with both his arms keeping us from being swept away.
I spot a head pop above the surface across from us. The current drags him forward, and he surfaces again, this time with something in his hand: a knife.
The current is hauling him directly at Dieter.
