That is all I think. Have been thinking for months.No. Stop. He did this. He has me. He marked me.
Him, him—
But I am still here.
I am stillhere. Standing.
And these scars.
These scars aremine.
These marks are proof that Iescapedhim. That each time he overtook me, I came through.
These scars are badges of survival, and as I look down at them, I scream.
The noise wells from the pit of my stomach, bursting up and through me in a tidal wave of magic and burning, cacophonous rage.
Rage in its purest form, rage stripped to nothing more than single- minded drive and terror.
Rage and reclaiming and banishing, all of it coalescing until that scream shatters every flicker of my brother in my body.
This ismybody. This ismymagic.
I belong tome.
I drop backward, rocked off balance on a precarious root, and fall, knife toppling from my fingers, body sinking, weightless—
Arms catch me.
I look up, and Otto’s blood-streaked face stares down at me.
“Fritzi?” He cradles my cheek in one warm hand.
I nod, and manage a smile, and something in my eyes must silence his worry, because he smiles back.
Dieter’s bellow of anger echoes across the glen.
From Otto’s arms, I see Cornelia and Alois fighting off hexenjägers in front of the Tree, the battle beginning to trickle over into this peaceful sanctuary. Brigitta is here too, and at her side—Hilde? Brigitta must have been training her, because she wields dual knives with determination.
“Light the Tree!” Dieter shouts, and I spin in Otto’s arms, scrambling to my feet on the mossy forest floor as my brother shakes Liesel in a panic. “Light itnow!”
Liesel’s sobs turn to a stone-faced look of fury when she sees me standing, sees the clarity in my eyes.
She twists to glare up at Dieter.
“I won’t burn this Tree,” she tells him. “But I will burnyou.”
And she puts her hands on his chest and sends him up in flames.
His whole body immediately wreaths in fire, orange and red and deepest blue that snap and pop off his clothes, lick at his hair. Liesel dives away, clambering over the Tree roots until she hurls herself into Otto’s arms. He scoops her up, one hand still steadying me, and the three of us watch Dieter burn.
His skin begins to darken and crackle. The smell of burning flesh triggers me back into that room in Baden-Baden—
Then he laughs.
Dieter throws his head back and laughs to the Tree’s high branches. It is a tearing, jarring sound, half-mad with pain.
He’s still near the Tree. Standing on the roots, close enough to reach out and touch the trunk.
