“So why is the wagon headed down the mountain?”
“Get this wagon turned around and get going,” the guard growled to the soldiers now perched in the driver’s seat. The reins snapped and the horses took a few tentative steps forward, but the fishermen had moved into the road, blocking the wagon’s path.
“Show us what’s in the wagon,” said a large man in a red cap.
Another stepped forward, hands spread in an open, reasonable gesture. “We can hear babies crying. Why are you trying to take them to a munitions factory?”
“I made it clear that it’s none of your concern. We do not answer to you, and if you insist on interfering with the business of the Fjerdan military, we are authorized to use force.”
A new voice spoke from somewhere Nina couldn’t see. “Are you really going to open fire on these men?”
Nina moved to the other side of the wagon and saw more of the townspeople had gathered, drawn by the commotion at the checkpoint.
“Why wouldn’t they?” said a woman. “They already poisoned our river.”
“Be silent,” hissed a soldier.
“She’s right,” said the tavern owner Nina recognized from their first day in town. “Killed that girl up at the convent. Killed Gerit’s cattle.”
“You want to shoot us, go ahead,” said someone. “I don’t think you have enough bullets for us all.”
“Stay back!” cried the guard, but Nina heard no gunfire.
A moment later, the wagon doors were pried open once again.
“What is this?” said the man in the red cap. “Who are these women? What’s wrong with them?”
“They’re … they’re sick,” said the guard. “They’ve been quarantined for their own good.”
“There’s no disease,” said Nina from the shadows of the cart. “The soldiers have been experimenting on these girls.”
“But they’re all … Are they all pregnant?”
Nina let the silence hang, felt the mood of the crowd shift from suspicion to outright anger.
“You’re from the convent?” the man asked, and Nina nodded. Let this miserable pinafore and these awful blond braids lend her a bit of credibility.
“These prisoners are not women,” sputtered the guard. “They’re Grisha. They are potential threats to Fjerda, and you have no right to interfere.”
“Prisoners?” the man in the red cap repeated, his face troubled. “Grisha?”
The crowd moved forward to stare at the women and girls. Nina knew the power of the prejudice they carried with them. She’d seen it in Matthias, felt the weight of it. But she’d also seen that burden shift, that seemingly immovable rock eroded by understanding. If that could happen for a drüskelle soldier who had been raised to hate her kind, she had to believe it could happen for these people too. The girls in this wagon were not powerful witches raining down destruction. These were not faceless enemy soldiers. They were Fjerdan girls plucked from their lives and tortured. If ordinary people could not see the difference, there was no hope for anyone.
“Cille?” said a young fisherman pushing forward through the crowd. “Cille, is that you?”
A frail, sallow-skinned girl opened her eyes. “Liv?” she said weakly.
“Cille,” he said, tears filling his eyes as he climbed up into the wagon, his head banging the ceiling. “Cille, I thought you were dead.” He knelt, gathering her up in his arms.
“Get down from there immediately,” commanded the guard.
“What did you do to her?” the young fisherman cried, his cheeks wet, his face nearly purple with rage.
“She is Grisha and a prisoner of the—”
“She’s my sister,” he roared.
“Is that Idony Ahlgren?” the man in the red cap asked, craning his neck.
“I thought she went to Djerholm to serve as a governess,” said a woman.
Nina glanced up at the factory. How much time had elapsed? “Ellinor Berglund,” she said. “Petra Toft. Siv Engman. Jannike Fisker. Sylvi Winther. Lena Askel.”
“They took Cille!” cried the young fisherman. “They took all of them!”
A shot rang out. The checkpoint guard stood holding his rifle in the air.
“That is enough! You will clear the road or we will—”
Boom. The first explosion rocked the mountain.
All eyes turned to the factory.
“That sounded a lot bigger than it was supposed to,” said Leoni.
Boom. Another blast, then another. Right on time.
“Sweet Djel,” the red-capped man said, pointing up toward the old fort. “The dam.”
“Oh Saints,” said Leoni. “Something’s wrong. My proportions must have been off, I—”
Another boom sounded, followed by a terrifying roar. All of a sudden people were screaming and running down the hill. The young fisherman took his sister in his arms and leapt from the back of the wagon.
“We have to get out of here!” he yelled.
“There’s no time,” said the man with the red cap.
Nina and Leoni clambered out of the back of the wagon. High above, dark columns of smoke rose from the flames at the factory. But far more frightening was the wall of water rushing toward them. The dam had shattered, and a snarling wave frothed and foamed down the mountain, uprooting trees and crushing everything in its path.
“Maybe it will lose momentum,” said the fisherman, hugging his sister close.
“Move!” shouted Leoni. “That water is loaded with poison! Anyone it touches is done for.” The guilt and fear on her face hurt Nina’s heart, but this was the way it had to be. Fjerda didn’t need mercy. It needed miracles.
“We did this,” said Hanne. “We have to stop it.”
Some of the townspeople were scrambling up the hillsides, but the wave was coming too fast.
“Get behind me!” Adrik yelled at the crowd.
“Now!” Nina commanded in Fjerdan when the people hesitated.
“Leoni,” Adrik said as the people crowded in, forming a wedge behind him. “Can you do it?”
She nodded, determined, touched her fingers to the jewels in her hair, lips moving in a whispered prayer. Nina could hear Leoni’s warning in her head: Poisons are tricky work.
The wave thundered toward them, churning with foam and bits of debris, so tall and wide it seemed to block out the sun.
“Get ready!” Adrik cried.
Leoni spread her arms.
Adrik thrust his hand forward, and the wave split, cleaved by the force of the gust he summoned, passing around the townspeople in an angry flood.
As the water passed, Leoni raised her hands and Nina saw a yellowy cloud appear in the air around her. She was drawing the poison from the water.
Grisha. Nina heard the word rise from the crowd. Drüsjen. Witches.
The cloud of poison grew above them as the water tumbled on and on. At last the tide had exhausted itself, but Leoni continued to draw the poison out until the flood had slowed to a trickle.
She stood with arms raised in the sudden silence as the crowd stared upward at the lethal mass of muddy yellow powder hovering over their heads.
“Pestijla!” they cried out. “Morden!” Poison. Death.