Hilde chortles and playfully punches me in the shoulder. “As I was saying, I’m off to find Brigitta.” And she’s gone with little more than a backward wave.
Cornelia chuckles at Hilde’s departure, but she edges closer to me and sobers. “Do not worry about the dress,” she tells me. “We aren’t hiding from them anymore, remember?”
Her smile doesn’t counter the intensity in her eyes.
No. We aren’t hiding. We declared the existence of magic and witches quite spectacularly when my brother overtook Baden-Baden, and while the distant reaches of the Holy Roman Empire may be able to deny us still, the people of this little hamlet no longer can. Most have embraced us, no doubt for saving them from Dieter, but how long will those good graces hold? We’re having this bonfire ceremony in their town square as another good-faith outreach. What if seeing our practices is too much, too soon? What if—
I cut myself off, balling my hands, eyes rolling shut on a groan.
The Three save me.Is this how I sound to Liesel, to Otto? How are they still tolerating me?
Yes, there are terrifying things to be done. But wesurvived. We survived my brother. We survived his crusade. We’re here, and people without magicknow about witchesand are willing to at least attempt to embrace us.
This is good.
Whatever happens after the bonding ceremony.
This isgood.
I repeat that to myself as we wind through the forest, emerging into the town of Baden-Baden.
There is no city wall, not like the fortress that is Trier, and I’m glad there’s no comparison between those two cities. Trier was dark and smoke grimed, a war of Roman architecture and Catholic oppression. Baden-Baden is sprawling and open in a way that matches the untamed mystery of the Black Forest, as though it remembers its roots, even under the Empire’s hand.
We weave through the streets, most buildings shut up against the late hour, past nightfall now. The sky is clear and star speckled, the air cool but not frigid, and I’m grateful for that, dressed as I am.
A hand tugs at my wrist. I accept Liesel’s fingers between mine, and she squeezes.
“Don’t be nervous,” she whispers up at me.
I cock a smile down at her. “Me, nervous? Never.”
“You don’t have to—whaaaaat?”
Her words end on a long, drawn-out gasp, eyes plastered ahead of us, to where the road spills open into the town square.
I turn, and my smile grows.
The bonfire in the middle of Baden-Baden is truly impressive, a pile of logs that sends fingers of orange and yellow dancing up into the black sky. Music plays from somewhere, tinny instruments and tapping drums that shoot urgency into everyone as they hurl their bodies around the fire. Most are from the Well, witches all too glad to no longer be forced into hiding. Some, more than I’d expected, are from Baden-Baden, and their tentative smiles grow as they watchmembers of Brigitta’s Grenzwache toss themselves in daring leaps over the flames.
There are pockets of discontent too. Some people have come merely to fold their arms and glare at the celebration, muttering to each other and shaking their heads disapprovingly. But they are far, far fewer than I expected—errant groups, hardly the majority. And most of their discomfort seems to lose its force against one man in particular: the town priest, who is clapping alongside witches, smiling at the music, dark robes lit by the flames.
He is accepting of us. Of this.
And so the dissenters hardly have support to turn their muttering into action.
Liesel bounces next to me and points at the people leaping over the flames. “Oh, I want to try that! Fritzi,Fritzi, oh my—”
Before I can say anything at all, she takes off, darting through the crowd in a blur of blond curls and blue dress.
Cornelia laughs. “She gets it.” Her elbow pierces my side. “Why are you so sour, then? This isyourparty, after all.”
“I’m not sour.” I frown at her. “And I’m not nervous either. I don’t know why you and Liesel are so set on me being upset when I am clearlyfine.”
Cornelia gives me a flat look. “Yes. You’re terribly convincing. All I’ll say is—ah.” Her eyes dart over my shoulder and a coy smile takes her. “All I’ll say is that you had better do something tonight to purge yourself of all this beingfinebefore you undergo the bonding ceremony tomorrow. That is thepointof all this purification, after all, and, oh look, there issomethingcoming up to you right now.”
I whirl, feeling his eyes on me even before I see him.
5
