The Near Witch by V. E. Schwab

Author:V. E. Schwab
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Titan

18

I look out at the unending hills, and all I feel is hopeless.

Cole takes a step forward, but I pull him back. “Not yet,” I say, shaking my head. “We can’t just walk out onto the moor. We need a plan. And they’re going to come for you, Cole. Otto and his men will follow us.”

He just looks at me.

“There are people I need to visit. I can be as persuasive as my uncle when I need to be.” I won’t need long.

Cole still says nothing, and I realize how quiet he’s been since the sisters told their story. I turn in his arms, and his gray eyes are still strangely dead, looking in instead of out. When he finally speaks, his voice is hollow, almost angry.

“That’s a waste of time, Lexi.”

“What do you mean?”

“It doesn’t matter. What they think of me doesn’t matter.” The wind around us thickens, like a weight on my chest.

“It matters to me. And if Otto and his men catch you, and you’re put on trial, what people think will matter a great deal.”

He closes his eyes. I bring my hands up to his face, his skin cool against my fingers.

“What’s wrong?”

The crease between his brows lessens a fraction at my touch, but he keeps his eyes closed. I can hear his breath filling his chest in short, uneven gasps, as if being torn from his lungs the moment he draws it in. I keep my hands there, on his face, until his skin grows used to my touch, until his breathing grows easy, and the wind around us settles back into a gentle breeze. I could stay right here forever.

“I sometimes wonder what I would do,” he says at last, without opening his eyes, “if anyone had survived the fire. Would I have confessed and let them punish me? Would that have eased anyone’s pain?”

“Why would you talk like that?” I am surprised at the anger in me. “How would that have made anything better?”

His eyes float open, the lashes black against his pale skin.

“You heard the sisters. Sometimes people need something—someone—to blame. It gives them peace until they can find the real answers.”

“But they don’t need to blame you. They can blame the Near Witch, and we can prove it, as soon as we find the children.” I try to fill my voice with enough determination for the both of us. So this is what he was thinking in the sisters’ cottage, when he offered me his sad smile. Was he wishing there had been hunters alive to catch him, to punish him, so he couldn’t punish himself?

He softens, but it doesn’t go beneath his skin. He shakes his head a fraction, and then he’s there again, seeing me.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” His voice is bare, honest.

“Cole, you’re not a rock,” I say. “You’re not a tree, or a bunch of grass, or a cloud. And you’re not just something to cast aside, or burn down, or walk over.

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