Rewrite That Witch
CH1265 · Rewrite
☕ Support

Chapter 1265: The Witches’ Life

After Thunder’s footsteps faded from the corridor, Nightingale spoke first.

“Do you think he’ll stay?”

“I don’t know,” Roland said. He turned back to the window. “But he meant what he said at the end.”

The logic for wanting Thunder here was cold and strategic: the explorer commanded Fjords loyalty the way geography commanded rivers, and Agatha’s reports placed the Red Mist already deep inside Everwinter, edging toward Wolfheart’s border. The evacuation operations ran mostly by land and what merchant ships Roland could requisition. What he needed — and couldn’t simply build — were sailors who would hold formation in conditions that had already broken better men, under a commander who understood the sea in his bones.

If Thunder stayed, those problems collapsed into one solution.

But he couldn’t force the man. He never could.

Roland returned to his desk. The telephone rang before he reached it.

The Witch Building’s line.

“Hello?”

“Your Majesty, it’s Wendy.” Her voice was measured but the words came quickly. “We’ve found witches at the Shallow Port checkpoint.”

“Sir — where are you taking us?”

Thylane kept her voice level. She had Momo’s hand in hers and had kept it since the guards in black separated them from the immigration line and led them through a heavily bolted door.

She’d heard stories. The special interrogation rooms in certain cities, the examining officers who needed persuasion to ask the right questions and ask them quietly. She’d prepared for that.

But the officer had only asked them a handful of odd questions and then left. Another guard in black arrived. He was leading them somewhere else now.

“You don’t need to be so nervous,” he said. He had a round face and the unhurried manner of someone who had done this particular walk many times. “My name is Joseph. You’re witches, aren’t you?”

Thylane’s throat tightened. “Why would you say that?”

“Honestly? I can’t detect magic. The witches told me.” He scratched the back of his head. “They use a special stone. I just do the escorting.” He glanced back at them. “I’m taking you to the witches’ residential area. Ms. Wendy will take good care of you — she always does.”

Thylane and Momo exchanged a look. Neither of them had imagined Neverwinter possessed technology that could identify witches so casually, through a crowd, at a checkpoint. Had the church possessed such a stone, neither of them would have survived their twenties.

And the man spoke of witches the way he spoke of other residents. Without lowering his voice.

Their master’s version of Roland Wimbledon was a tyrant who used witches as tools for his own amusement. The version they’d collected from other refugees on the ship was a king who treated witches as people. They had planned to hide their abilities and observe until they knew which story was closer to the truth.

That plan had lasted approximately forty minutes.

They were through the outer fence of the Castle District when a red-haired woman came to meet them with two small girls at her heels.

“I’ve got them from here.”

Joseph saluted and retreated.

The woman turned to them with a smile that did not require effort. “I’m Wendy, superintendent of the Witch Union of Neverwinter. These two are my assistants — Ring and Grayrabbit.” She looked at them with a warmth that seemed incapable of being manufactured. “From the list, I have Thylane and Momo. But I’d rather hear you say your names.”

Something in Thylane’s chest unfolded a fraction — involuntary, almost alarming. This woman looked less like anyone she’d encountered in years of captivity and more like the portraits of noble ladies she’d been forced to clean as a child. Calm and settled inside herself, the way Thylane had once thought rich people were before she met any.

“I’m Thylane.”

“Momo,” her companion said.

“Good names. Welcome to Neverwinter.” Wendy took their hands. “Come — I’ll show you where you’ll be living.”

Through the fence, through a garden carpeted in real grass, past the lord’s castle. Thylane noticed that the castle was not even the tallest building here. Behind it stood something larger, and between the two a courtyard sprawled with women sitting in afternoon light.

Momo said, before Thylane could stop her: “Are they… also witches?”

“Yes,” Wendy said. “You’ll see more when they’re off work.”

“Off work?”

“Finished working,” the small girl Ring explained. “In Neverwinter, witches work like everyone else.”

“And off work, some are very diligent and some are…” Ring appeared to choose her next word carefully.

“Lazy,” said a pointy-eared girl, turning from across the yard. She hadn’t been obviously listening. She padded over with the fluid ease of someone accustomed to a body built for more speed than a garden walk required. “Hello, new members.”

“Lorgar, I wasn’t talking about — ” Ring began.

“Obviously not me.” Another woman drifted over — sharp eyes, hands on her hips, the practiced manner of someone who had rehearsed her entrances. “Hello! I’m Mystery Moon, captain of the Neverwinter Detective Group. Whatever your ability, we want you. The Detective Group works with intelligence, with deduction — not with brute force.” She delivered a pointed look at Lorgar.

“Are you calling me stupid?”

“I’m calling you an excellent example of a certain category of recruitment we don’t do.”

Lorgar bared her teeth.

“See?” Mystery Moon told the new arrivals, sidestepping the incoming arm. “This is exactly what I’m talking about —”

A chorus of “so embarrassing” and “can I go back to my book” from across the yard.

Thylane stared.

The life she had pictured during the long voyage south — quiet, careful, provisional — looked nothing like this. She was not sure yet whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. She only knew it was real, in a way that very little had been for a long time.

Discussion

Suggest a change