“Our plan,” Hilde says.
“More than a hundred people were saved from the fires,” I continue. “The prison is in ruins. And I heard—” I pause, catching the emotion in my voice. Johann had risked much to tell me of Trier, to try to deviate Dieter away from us when we ran into the Forest. “There are riots in Trier.”
“Riots?” Hilde’s eyes gleam. Riots mean that our protest was seen for what it was. The regular people are no longer willing to live in fear; they are fighting back against the archbishop’s cruel trials. “Thank God.”
God is another topic I want to speak to my sister about. Having seen real goddesses in a pagan religion I had thought was nothing more than myth, I have questions, if not doubt. But that is a topic for later.
Hilde leads me up toward the trees. She doesn’t try to climb one of the ramps or rope ladders built along the trunks; instead, she shows me a small cottage under the shadows of the tree nearest the river. I recognize plants growing in the front garden, the little bowl of cream on the windowsill.
It looks like home.
“They told me some of what happened,” Hilde says gently. “That the witch—Fritzi—asked for help from the goddess of protection, and Holda sent me here, the safest place in the entire world.”
“And you have been safe?” I ask. “Truly?”
“Mm,” Hilde says, smiling and opening the door of the cottage for me. “The forest folk are good, Otto.”
Something about the way she says that makes me pause. I know my sister, even if we’ve been apart for the past several years. A blush creeps over her cheeks. Hilde has found not just safety and acceptance at the Well; she’s found a sweetheart of her own.
I don’t press the topic, but I do follow her inside. All the smells of home are here—the bubbling nutmeg-infused beer, the sprigs of rosemary, the scent of the soap my mother made, the recipe passed down to my sister.
For the first time in a long time, the fears that had wound inside my muscles loosen. I pull Hilde into another hug, feeling the warmth of her, the easy love that we share.
But through the window, I see more eyes watching us. Hilde may have been accepted by the forest folk, but I have not.
And I cannot help but wonder just what type of warrior the goddess needs me to be.
35
FRITZI
A few of the forest folk guide Liesel and me to a staircase that twists up a tree with a trunk wider than the cottage I shared with Mama. The bark glints and gleams in errant rays that break through the high, high canopy, other light sources flickering around us: elaborate silver lanterns hanging from elegant looping hooks, flashes of candlelight from within rooms nestled in the very trees themselves.
I crane my neck around, seeking through the branches, but I can’t spot which one might be the Origin Tree. Surely it is deeper within, guarded fiercely, not holding buildings and homes.
The Well is a refuge. We were told stories of it from infancy, how we could come here for protection, kept safe among the witches chosen by the goddesses to protect our source of magic.
In the stories, I always imagined a village like Birresborn. A coven like mine. A tight community of witches depending on one another, scraping by.
But this is a city as sprawling as Trier, lifted into the treetops, and that gives it ancient importance.
The Well has been this society of resources and witches and power, abundance and wealth, while we were out in the world, clinging to whatever spell components and weapons we could scrounge up, fearing hexenjägers and prejudices.
How easily could the witches of the Well muster a force to not only resist the hexenjägers, but overpower them? This is no mere village. This is practically a kingdom.
Familiar anger rises up the back of my throat. The anger I felt talking with Perchta.
They’ve stayed here, in opulence and finery, while we’ve suffered.
Everywhere around me are witches rushing with baskets full of herbs, or arms full of protection totems, or hands lifted as they chant spells into the ether. Some of their arms, necks, and faces are splayed with a vast array of black tattoos in swirling symbols I recognize from my coven’s books and scrolls. Sigils for protection, strength, endurance, foresight, and more—I’ve never seen a witch able to tattoo our symbols onto their skin before. The idea is too baffling—what if hexenjägers see? What if someone notes the symbology and cries witchcraft? But here, witches are free to show off every element of our practice in a way that hollows me to my core. I had not even known the full extent of the limitations I lived under, for survival.
Everyone we pass at least occasionally glances into the forest, past the edges of these trees set with buildings, their faces bent in such focus that I feel their urgency in my gut.
Dieter is weakening the barrier. I knew his effect was dangerous, with the way magic was bucking like an angry horse in the outside world; but to see the strain on the faces here—how far has my brother used wild magic to breach these walls? How many people has he killed to feed the evil that grows and grows in him like a disease?
Is it too late?
We climb, lifting up to a village that stuns me speechless.
