Rewrite That Witch
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Chapter 1370: Returning Home

When the meeting finally concluded, two government officials held Roland back. They told him the government intended to push for further supporting projects — with preliminary nuclear weapon test data included in the considerations.

This was not a one-sided arrangement. The Martialist Association had made promises and kept them, but it was the Magic Cube that had made the government enthusiastic. Tangible miracles, it turned out, accomplished what arguments could not. As the Defender had said from the start: this meeting was only the beginning.

In those few days, the Design Bureau of Graycastle had done something that Roland’s years of effort had not: it had corrected every major technical shortfall in Neverwinter’s development in a single pass. Where he had once worked through problems alone — or with a small group — the Battle of Divine Will now touched two worlds, and each of those worlds could bring hundreds of minds to bear. Departments numbered in the hundreds where Roland had employed dozens. For the first time, he understood clearly that the survivors were not alone. There were forces behind them that he had never fully seen, and even if the two worlds had never truly touched, their fates had always been bound together.

He rode the momentum of the technological reforms and drafted proposals for the Administrative Office without hesitation — more than ten new factory proposals in one session, from high-performance explosive compounds to various semi-automatic prototype machines. With manpower and economic constraints no longer the limiting factor, Neverwinter in its current phase of accelerated development could build in whatever direction he pointed. No conflicting interests to navigate. No slowing down.

Then, in the middle of all of it, came unexpected news.

Joan had returned.

Roland and Nightingale went immediately to Neverwinter’s first hospital — the facility that had been established before the others, the one where Nana had set up permanent residence and which had inherited its name accordingly. Two more treatment facilities served the south bank of the Redwater River and the road to Longsong Stronghold; the first hospital remained the center.

In the entrance hall, Camilla Dary gave him a slight bow.

Wendy and Tilly had returned to the front lines. Scroll was occupied with material restoration. The Chief Butler of Sleeping Island had taken on the work of watching over everyone, and she had her own reason for feeling the weight of this particular homecoming — she had been there when Joan disappeared. The bow was not merely courtesy.

She had never entirely forgiven Roland. He had taken Tilly away from Sleeping Island, and Ashes was gone because of the decisions made in Neverwinter’s war. If not for reports that the Sky-sea Realm might directly threaten the Fjords, she would never have relocated here at all. Roland had known this for some time, and he did not hold it against her.

“How is she?” he asked quietly.

“I can only say… she seems to be fine.”

“Seems to be?”

Camilla picked up a comb from the bedside table and drew it gently through Joan’s hair. “She’s back to her old self.”

He didn’t understand at first. Then she explained.

Joan had not swum back to Shallow Port under her own direction. A Neverwinter fisherman had found her.

He had been out hauling fish in the small hours of the night when something heavy struck the aft of his boat and woke him. He heard a sound he later described as nibbling. He reached for the nearest thing to hand, prepared to fight whatever sea ghost had come for him, and found instead something shaped like a human but far too large, holding cooked fish in cupped hands and eating with the single-minded intensity of someone who had not eaten in days. When it noticed him it made no threatening move — only produced a series of sounds that weren’t words, retreated to a corner of the deck, and fell asleep.

The fisherman had lived in Neverwinter long enough to know how to read the signs. A sea ghost or a witch — and the reward for bringing a witch home was worth far more than a full catch. He turned the boat around.

The big fish was Joan.

“Lily examined her.” Camilla set down the comb. “Parasites, infections — multiple kinds, and some of them couldn’t be removed even with Lily’s ability. While Joan was sleeping I injected Dreamland Water and cut out the shell worms under her skin with a blade. Those worms are found on old boats and very large whales. Not at the depth she would have encountered from the Shadow Islands at that distance.”

“You mean she didn’t swim straight here.”

“It would have taken her hours from the Shadow Islands, not nearly a year.” Camilla shook her head. “With her speed. What I’m worried about is that whatever she went through — whatever took so long — may have done damage that physical treatment can’t reach.”

The chain of signs: she had not removed the parasites, had not eaten properly, had eaten her fill on a fisherman’s boat and lost consciousness from exhaustion before she could even ask for help. A long journey, under conditions that could not be called anything other than ordeal. Extended exposure to the kind of extremity that had already taken Maggie’s words away, and left her communicating through action and sound and whatever small animal comforts she could reach.

That was the possibility Camilla was carrying. Not that Joan’s body was broken, but that Joan’s mind might have gone somewhere too far away to call back from.

Roland was silent.

Nana’s healing and Lily’s Cleansing Water could address physical damage. Neither of them had been designed to reach what might be wrong here.

A knock broke the quiet.

Nightingale turned and opened the door. Mystery Moon’s face appeared in the gap, wide-eyed and eager.

“I heard Joan was back? Hey — stop pushing, don’t—”

The door opened under pressure and several figures stumbled into the room together: Mystery Moon, Summer, Sharon, Amy. The last through the door was Lily, who shrugged at the reproachful look. “I didn’t have a choice. They noticed.”

“For the record,” Mystery Moon said, straightening her collar with considerable dignity, “I only came because I heard she was sick and wanted to visit. Although she’s technically part of the Exploration Group, Lightning and Maggie aren’t here, so of course we — the ones who are here — would come. This is completely unrelated to the Detective Group. We are not here to recruit anyone. Absolutely not recruiting. We are definitely not—”

Summer’s hand went over her mouth.

“Completely her idea,” Sharon said, with the expression of someone establishing their alibi. “Nothing to do with the rest of us.”

“I mean… is having another member really such a terrible thing?” Amy scratched the back of her head.

“Quiet—” Lily pressed a finger to her lips.

Roland watched the dispute play out and couldn’t help the laugh that came, quiet and unbidden. He glanced at Camilla Dary and spread his hands: what can you do? The Chief Butler’s expression, which had been drawn tight since the moment he arrived, eased in spite of itself.

Perhaps Joan had encountered something terrible in the deep. He didn’t doubt it, looking at the stillness of the figure in the bed. But she had come back. And she would wake up to these people — their bickering, their warmth, their complete inability to maintain any atmosphere for longer than thirty seconds. If anything could call someone back, Roland thought, it was probably that.

After Roland and Nightingale left, Camilla Dary found herself alone with the Detective Group.

They arranged themselves around the bed in a semicircle of concentrated helpfulness, and collectively there was very little they could actually do. It was touching. It was also excessive.

“Is there anything here? Lily, can you sense germs?”

“Take it away from me — now—”

“Don’t tear it. What — it won’t tear? Sharon, pull this end—”

“It really won’t—Summer, you try—”

Not slightly excessive, Camilla corrected herself. Too much. Simply too much. She was drawing breath to suggest they come back tomorrow when Joan’s eyelids moved.

Camilla stopped breathing.

The room held still around her, the quarrel dying without conclusion.

A few seconds later, Joan opened her eyes.

“Ya…”

The exhale was faint. Almost nothing.

But silence followed it — total and immediate — as though the room had recognized the sound for what it was.

She can’t speak. She really can’t—

Camilla held down whatever was rising in her chest and reached out. She placed her hand gently on Joan’s sternum.

The moment contact was made, a torrent of fragments hit her — not images assembled by thought but direct impressions, raw experience, rushing in all at once through the channel that Mind Resonance opened.

She saw Joan’s body elongating and distorting in the total darkness of the deep ocean floor.

She saw sky and sea reversing, seawater pouring downward in vast columns as though the world had been turned upside down.

She saw monstrosities scattered across the ocean floor, and waves rising toward the continent — waves that were not made of water.

She saw layers of stone tablets suspended in mist, and a woman in white robes walking toward her through the fog.

And last of all she saw something vast and circular, a pit without bottom, stretching from horizon to horizon without end.

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