Rewrite That Witch
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Chapter 1219: The Investigation of the Abnormal Phenomenon

The Police Department moved at a controlled sprint — orders passed in clipped voices, reports stacked on every surface, personnel circulating through the corridors with the focused urgency of people who had been awake too long. The Bloody Moon had given them more work than the building could absorb.

The Department’s mandate was straightforward: watch Neverwinter, Roland’s new king’s city, and record everything that happened within it. Minor irregularities, major crimes, the whole ledger of daily disorder. A fire was news. An explosion was bigger news. The appearance of a crimson moon the size of a god’s eye, and everything that followed it, was something else entirely.

Carter Lannis had not slept in two days. He had calmed his frightened wife, turned her over to the household staff, and walked out the door. As Chief Knight, he was obligated to protect the king and run down anyone stirring trouble in the streets. Multiple incidents in close succession usually meant a criminal organization had grown bold. He called in the Neverwinter Detective Group and set them working.

Then the king had bypassed the obvious response entirely. Instead of pursuing the fires and explosions as crimes, Roland had assembled a Joint Investigation Team — the Witch Union, the Security Bureau, the Administrative Office — and pointed it at the magic movie theater.

Carter drained his teacup.

“The witnesses are ready, sir,” a knight said at his elbow. “Should we begin?”

“Send them in.”

The interrogation room was a plain office rather than a cell — the witnesses were civilians who had seen something strange, not suspects, and Carter had learned that frightened people told more when they were sitting in a chair rather than standing against a wall. Joining him were Agatha of the Witch Union and Vader, the Security Bureau’s assistant director.

The first witness was a twenty-one-year-old maid employed at a hotel — no criminal record, not a registered Neverwinter resident. She rubbed her hands against the armrests of her chair and stared at the floor.

Carter consulted his notes. “You’re Miss Tinkle?” A firm nod. “The premiere of The Dust of History ran fifty gold royals a ticket. How did you afford it?”

The maid’s chin came up. “I didn’t steal anything. My customer, Mr. Victor, paid for me. There were many people in the hall who could confirm that.”

Carter had already checked. The question was a lever for pressure, not information — Nightingale wasn’t present to read the room for lies, and he needed other ways to keep witnesses honest. He moved on. “Victor. I’ll speak with him separately. Tell me what you saw after the movie.”

Tinkle told it slowly, pausing to search for words. The story took fifteen minutes. At the end she said, “The police got there before anything worse happened. Otherwise, I don’t know what would have become of those two people.”

Carter had watched a different magic movie — The Wolf Princess — and found it technically impressive but not unsettling. Whatever had happened at the premiere was of a different order. “You said the soldiers’ weapons drew blood from the audience. Are you certain?”

“I’m not certain about the soldiers,” she said. “But Mr. Victor did bleed, and I heard other people scream. I don’t believe they were performing.”

“When did it start?”

“About ten minutes before the ending? Maybe earlier. I was too frightened to watch by then. Mr. Victor was holding me.”

Agatha waited until Carter finished his questions, then held up a photograph. “The character who spoke to you directly — is this the actor?”

It was a portrait from the Star Flower Troupe, the man who had played the guardian in the film.

Tinkle leaned forward. “Yes, exactly. He thanked us. I remember it clearly.”

A chill traced the back of Carter’s neck. Once a magic movie was recorded, its contents were fixed. The characters could not ad-lib. They could not reach through the screen and address the audience by circumstance.

He looked at Agatha. Agatha looked at Vader. Neither had further questions.

“Next witness,” Carter said.

The witnesses that followed told versions of the same story. The film had stopped being a film. Something in the theater that night had collapsed the distance between image and flesh. The soldiers had carried real weapons and drawn real blood. The audience had participated in an ending that had not been scripted. Each account arrived separately and aligned.

Multiple independent witnesses describing the same impossible event ruled out shared hysteria. Carter, who had been focused on arson and property destruction, began to understand why Roland had reorganized the inquiry.

The next witness was the policeman who had been stationed in the yard outside during the screening. He was calmer than the others — a professional, trained to file events in order.

“I heard a shout for help from outside. I was moving toward the theater when I saw the red moon. I hesitated — I wasn’t sure whether to hold my post or go inside.” He paused. “A witch came out of the theater and asked me to bring my men in to protect the audience.”

“And then you fired at the characters in the film,” Carter said.

“It sounds extraordinary. But yes. They looked like actors, but they were threatening living people. I didn’t believe I was imagining it. So I fired.”

The second-to-last witness was Nightfall, the witch who had operated the Sigil of Recording during the premiere.

“What was I supposed to do?” she said, and her irritation was not performed. “Whoever has excess magic power activates the Sigil — that’s standard. I didn’t design the thing to do whatever it did.” She shifted in her chair. “Everything was proceeding normally. Then the Sigil pushed me out. I should have cut the power immediately, but it kept running without me. I tried to interrupt the trance the audience was in. I couldn’t break through. Eventually I had no choice but to go for the police.”

Agatha’s expression sharpened. “The Sigil pushed you out?”

“More or less. A repulsive force — the harder I pushed magic power into it, the stronger it pushed back. Then it stopped, all at once, and everything returned to normal.”

“Understood. Next.”

Carter’s expression did not change when the last witness walked in and sat down. He knew the face. Kajen Fels — the famous screenwriter, the man who had argued with Carter’s wife over creative matters he couldn’t be bothered to recall. His hand balled into a fist in his lap the moment he sat.

“In the name of God,” Kajen said, “that is the most extraordinary piece of theater I have ever witnessed in my life.”

“You were in the building,” Carter said. “Your name wasn’t on the ticket list.”

“Staff seats at the backstage. Members of the Star Flower Troupe aren’t required to purchase tickets.” Agatha supplied this before Carter finished asking. “Kajen reported the incident to the Witch Union, which is why His Majesty ordered the investigation in the first place.”

“I apologize for the omission — old habit.” Kajen placed one hand on his chest, a gesture that seemed partly theatrical and partly sincere. “I observe my own productions from the audience without announcing myself. Ms. May knows this and didn’t think to mention it.” His voice quickened with the particular energy of a man who has been awake all night thinking about something he can’t stop thinking about. “I have to say this directly. What happened that night was a miracle in the history of the magic movie, because the audience changed the ending.”

Carter leaned forward. “Say that again.”

“You heard me correctly, Mr. Knight.” Kajen’s hands were moving now, sketching shapes in the air. “That was not my story. I did not write those final scenes. In the original script, the guardian acts as a decoy so that the witch can escape — he falls from the cliff. He dies. The ending is a tragedy.” He stopped. Drew a breath. “But the audience saved them both. The characters themselves acknowledged it. The audience altered their fate.” His voice climbed. “That is the ultimate thing I have spent my entire career trying to make. A story that lives because the people watching it decide to make it live. If you discover the reason this was possible — please. I am asking you. Tell me.”

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