“Your other cousin, you mean,” Philomena corrects. “We know Friederike lowered your coven’s barrier, allowing Dieter and his hexenjägers to attack. Do not try to soften her role in—”
Liesel makes a crooning mewl, the back of her hand on her forehead. “The vile Kommandant abducted me! I was taken far, far away, across the untamed lands, through desolate forests and churning rivers—”
“Liesel,” Rochus tries, “we only need—”
“—to Trier! The capital of the vile hexenjägers. There, I was imprisoned, unjustly I may add, at the hands of my vile cousin—” She stops. Squints. Realizes, perhaps, that she said the wordvilequite a lot already, and frowns at herself before looking down at her paper again. “Only to be rescued from certain death by my cousin! My…other cousin. Not the vile one. His sister. And her brooding warrior!”
My chest squeezes again, but with a snort I can’t stop. I wish Otto had been allowed into this council meeting rather than being whisked away to some apparently very important Grenzwache trial; I can only imagine the look on his face at being described asbrooding.
Liesel bats her hand in a dismissive wave. “He’s not important to thestory. I didn’t like him at first.” She thinks for a moment, shakes her head tightly. “No, the story is better without him—”
“He is a part of your journey,” Rochus cuts in. “We need to hear of his contributions as well.”
Liesel pouts. “But he didn’t do anything. Except carve me a dog.” She thinks again. “Well. That partwasnice, I guess.”
Was it a dog? I remember him saying it was meant to be a horse.
“You cannot discount him as it suits you,” Rochus says. “We must hear everything that occurred.Truthfully.”
I turn a distrustful scowl at Rochus. Why is he so interested in Otto’s part of this story? Is it merely to know every detail, as he says—or do they hope something happened that they can use to discredit Otto, even with him being chosen as my warrior?
“Truthfully—” Liesel drags out the word “—back across the untamed lands we went!” She flares away from the table, pacing before the high windows that show the treetops of the Well sanctuary rippling off into the distance. “Back through desolate forests and churning rivers—we were on atinyboat; it was so small. The water, frigid! Now it was winter, fully and wickedly—Fritzi washed my hair and itfroze—”
“I did not—” I stop. Think back.
Well. Perhaps I did do that. We were filthy though, having narrowly escaped the explosion of the basilica imprisoning a hundred innocent people that my brother had intended to burn in Trier. Cleaning the ash and grime out of our hair, even with winter-cold river water, had been a necessity.
I cannot believe thatthatis the detail she fixates on. Not the run for our lives. Not the nights huddled around smoldering campfires, worried that every snap of a branch in the dark was Dieter, come to get us.
No. The worst thing we experienced was frozen hair.
“Child.” Philomena pinches the skin over her nose. “We agreed to let you be the one to give the official account, but we truly need only the details of where you were, what you encountered, and how you passed. Thisperformanceis highly—”
“A CRONE!” Liesel shrieks. “NottheCrone, of course, not Abnoba. But an old woman. In a little cottage outside Baden-Baden. Into her home we went, and she captured us three in a pit of thorns and bones.”
I frown. “Liesel, the old woman didn’t capture us.”
“And FRITZI!” She whirls towards me. “Fritzi harnessed the powers of her connection to the Well and freed us from the thorns! Plants bow to her command; greenery is hers to control!”
“I didn’t—”
“And that was not even the worst we faced!” She leaps onto her chair, blond braids snapping around her shoulders, blue eyes wild, and face reddening. “Into Baden-Baden we went, me, Fritzi, and her sulking warrior—”
“Sulking,” Cornelia echoes, and buries her face in her hands with a giggle.
“To face terrors previously unknown by witches: the most heinous of Christian holidays, a perverted festival of merriment—”
I scoff. “Liesel, do you meanChristmas? The Baden-Baden Christkindlmarkt?”
“None other!” She teeters in the chair, corrects herself, and gets a far-off look of horror. “They stole our Yule traditions and made them so—so—Catholic.”
“Thehexenjägers, Liesel,” Philomena drones. “How did you evade thehexenjägers?”
“A CASTLE!” Liesel points at nothing. “A castle, high on a cliff, dark and brooding—or, no, that was Otto—” She scowls, looks downat her notes. “No. He’s not important. FRITZI. Dieter came up the hill on horseback, and Fritzisavedus—”
Cornelia has both hands over her face, making a high-pitched, desperate whine that I think is a poorly restrained laugh.
I stand from my chair. “Liesel, I think that’s—”
