Rewrite That Witch
CH151 · Rewrite
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Chapter 151: Negotiations (Part 1)

The steam engine had satisfied her.

Roland could see it in the way Margaret Farman walked back from the workshop — the deliberate slowness of someone who did not want to appear impressed, the too-careful arrangement of her expression. She had not spoken for the first minute of the return walk, which was its own kind of eloquence.

Back in the office, she took the chair across from him without waiting to be invited.

“The first batch of saltpeter will arrive within a month,” she said. “Three sailboats’ worth. I’ll come with them.” She was already writing on a parchment, numbers flowing from her pen in a merchant’s cramped hand. “At current market rates, the value of the saltpeter will be three hundred and fifteen gold royals.”

“Border Town will have two steam engines ready by then.” Roland kept his voice easy, unhurried. Two was a lie by omission — they would have four, possibly five — but a deliberate one. “Combined worth: a thousand gold royals. You can settle the difference in coin, or in goods.”

“What goods?”

“Iron, copper, lead, green vitriol — processed ingots, not raw ore. And ten sets of crystal glassware. Clear, uncarved. Canteen or wine cup shape doesn’t matter, so long as they’re from the King’s City Alchemy Workshop. Best quality only.” He paused. “If the value exceeds the difference, I’ll pay the remainder. Or deduct it from future deliveries.”

Margaret set down her pen. The look she gave him was the look of someone recalculating.

“You want to make me your dedicated trader,” she said. Not an accusation — more like she was testing the shape of the idea in her mouth. “I have no mine, but I know people in the ore trade.” Her eyes moved around the room briefly, taking stock of the modest furnishings, the grey morning light through the window. “What I don’t understand is how a town this size consumes so much saltpeter. Border Town sits on the North Slope Mine, yet you buy this much ore on top of it.” She shook her head, almost admiring. “Your Highness. Your territory is simply inconceivable.”

“It will require more in future,” Roland said. “Which is why a long-term trade agreement serves us both.”

That was the moment Lightning appeared at the window.

She was outside it, airborne, pressing both palms flat against the glass. Her face was bone-white. Water streamed from her hair in rivulets, plasterig the dark strands to her forehead and cheeks, and her clothes had gone grey with saturation, heavy and clinging. Her eyes found Roland’s and she pushed against the glass again — urgent, frantic — the gesture of someone who had been flying through a storm and had no words left for whatever came after.

Roland was already standing. He heard the sharp intake of breath from Margaret behind him, did not turn, crossed to the window and unlatched it. Lightning fell through the moment it opened, straight into him — not a landing, a collision — and he caught her.

She was shaking. Her hands gripped the front of his coat. The warmth of her was muffled under the rain-soaked clothes, but the trembling was unmistakable — not cold, something worse than cold.

“Nightingale.” His voice was steady. “Get Nana.”

“Yes.” The response came from the empty air beside him, and a moment later the air was simply empty.

He checked Lightning over quickly, hands moving along her arms and shoulders: no cuts, no blood, no obvious wound. The panic was the injury.

“Your Highness.” Margaret’s voice was careful. “Is she — the one you call Lightning?”

Damn. The thought arrived before he could stop it. He had forgotten about her entirely.

“Sean.” The guard stepped in at the call. “Miss Margaret.” Roland turned to face her without releasing his grip on Lightning. “I apologize. There’s no other way — you’ll need to wait in one of the rooms downstairs for a while. First floor. Make her comfortable.” He met Margaret’s eyes. “No one in or out without my order.”

“I have no quarrel with witches,” Margaret said, and her voice had lost its merchant’s smoothness. “Her father is Sir Thunder. I would never—”

“A precaution.” He kept his tone even. “I’ll come down to verify that personally.”

Lightning woke in the early evening. Someone had put steam-heated water in a bucket by the bed; her wet clothes hung over its edge. Wendy sat on the mattress beside her, drawing a comb through the girl’s still-damp hair with the unhurried patience of long practice. The other witches had gathered in the ways they always did when something was wrong — Scroll near the doorway, Leaves at the window, Soraya quiet in the corner, the new arrivals ranged along the wall with expressions that hadn’t learned yet how to be neutral.

Roland pulled up the chair.

Lightning’s eyes had been on him since he entered. Above the quilt-line she looked scrubbed clean and young and exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with flying.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I found the ruins.” Her voice came out small. “But the Devil was already there.”

The room’s quiet deepened.

“Did you go in?” Scroll asked.

“No.” Lightning’s throat moved. “It was standing in the doorway of the basement. I could hear crying — someone crying for help — but I couldn’t—” She stopped. Started again. “I couldn’t do anything. I only ran. I didn’t even try to save her.” The whisper at the end was the worst part of it. “Am I not qualified to be an Explorer?”

Roland had been preparing to speak, but something in the question — the specific shape of the shame in it — stopped him for a moment. Not qualified. As if courage were a credential she might have failed to earn.

“You did exactly right,” he said. “Good Explorers read the situation. They don’t take unnecessary risks. If you couldn’t save her, leaving was the correct choice.” He held her gaze until he saw something in it settle — not belief, not yet, but the beginning of belief. “You brought back the information. That’s the job.”

“She must have been a witch,” Wendy said quietly, half to herself. “No one else could reach the depths of the Concealing Forest.”

“Not even a witch, without a map.” Scroll shook her head. “The stone tower is four hundred and fifty years old. Without the map indicating direction, finding it in that forest would be nearly impossible.” A pause. “Unless someone was already there.”

“You mean they never left,” Roland said.

“One generation after another. Living in seclusion since the tower was built.”

He let the idea sit for a moment, then put it aside. The Concealing Forest in winter: insects, poisonous plants, no stable food source, demonic beasts in the snow months. You would need to be something genuinely extraordinary to survive there for four centuries. Extraordinary — or not quite human.

“Were there smoke traces near the ruins?” he asked Lightning. “Any sign of fire?”

She shook her head.

“Then perhaps there are other maps,” Soraya offered. “Others searching, the same as us.”

“It doesn’t matter right now.” Leaves’s voice was flat with a quiet grief. “No one can reach the tower fast enough to help them. Not without Lightning.”

“We need more information before we can act.” Roland stood. “Teaching is cancelled for today. Everyone rest. The answers will come when we can pursue them safely.”

In the corridor, Nightingale materialized out of the wall beside him.

“There’s still the other problem,” Roland said.

“Miss Margaret.” A glint of something amused entered Nightingale’s voice. “Just take off her God’s Stone of Retaliation. Then everything will be clear.”

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