Rewrite That Witch
CH213 · Rewrite
☕ Support

Chapter 213: The Paddler Blueprint

Four days after the banquet, the merchant fleet made sail.

Theo and a hundred soldiers of the First Army stood on the deck as the ships moved north out of the docks and into the Redwater River’s current. In the time between the banquet and departure, Roland and Margaret had settled the financial arrangement: Theo could draw from her shop in any amount, and whatever he spent would be deducted from the price of the steam engines—plus one percent interest. The number was low enough that Roland didn’t argue.

This shipment had carried twice the saltpeter and ore of any previous transport. After the deposit on the paddle-ship conversion was applied, Roland was left with over twenty-two hundred gold royals. During the Months of Demons, a month of ore sales had brought him three hundred. He had spent a long time not letting himself think about those numbers directly.

When the merchant fleet cleared the horizon, Maggie’s time had also come.

Her agreement with Ashes had been made before the witch’s departure: Maggie would carry news of the West to the islands in the Fjords. Roland had spent an afternoon on a letter—longer than usual, more careful in its address. He wrote as the Lord of Border Town and Lord of the Western Territory, the man who had killed Duke Ryan, not as a fourth prince addressing his sister. He expressed his wish for cooperation. He asked Tilly, carefully and plainly, whether she might spare any auxiliary witches to assist in Border Town’s work. He understood the probability was low. He wrote it anyway.

The farewell gathered in the castle’s backyard. All the witches came.

Nightingale pressed a small bag of dried fish into Maggie’s wing. Lightning gave a package of ground pepper, wrapped tight. The others moved forward one by one—stroking her feathers, pressing their faces against the soft grey of her pigeon-form, hugging her with the particular urgency of people who have learned not to take goodbyes for granted.

“Rest assured, goo,” Maggie said, drawing herself up with as much dignity as a large pigeon could manage. “I’ll be back soon, goo!”

“What if Tilly doesn’t let you come back?” Lightning asked, her voice carrying the specific worry of a child who has thought this through.

Maggie shrunk her neck. Considered it.

“Then I’ll just sneak back, goo!”

“Then we have an agreement.” Lightning’s expression was solemn, the way she was when she meant something completely. “When you come back, I’ll catch a bunch of birds and roast them for you myself. And the honeycomb we found last time—I’ve been saving it.”

“Goo!” Maggie nodded several times in rapid succession. “Agreed, goo!”

Roland stood a little apart and said nothing. Only a month, he thought, watching her. And yet she’s entirely one of us. He was not sure when that had happened. Only that it had, and that Lightning deserved the credit for how quickly.

“Goodbye, everyone, goo!” Maggie spread her wings, ran three steps, and lifted into the sky. She circled twice above the backyard—twice—and then found her bearing southeast and became a point, then nothing.

“She’ll reach the island without trouble.” Roland kept his eyes on the place where she’d disappeared.

“Yes, definitely no problems,” Lightning said immediately. Then: ”…There won’t be any, right?”

Back inside, Roland cleared his desk and began to draw.

The conversion of the Crescent Moon Bay Caravan’s two ships was his immediate project. Paddle-ships—the world’s first steam-powered ones, if things went according to plan. The principle wasn’t difficult. A single power source connected to a paddle wheel, with intake pipes controlling direction: close the inlet to slow, let the exhaust port handle the excess pressure, keep the fire burning so the restart was immediate. The rough design came quickly. For precision drawings he would need the actual hull measurements.

He had just set down his brush when Anna appeared in the doorway. She was carrying a book.

“I finished this one,” she said, and placed it on his desk.

Theoretical Foundation of Natural Science.

Roland stared at the cover. His expression went through several changes he made no attempt to manage. She had completed—actually completed, because for Anna finished always meant understood—an entire high school mathematics and physics curriculum. In a few months. Entirely in her spare time.

“Are you drawing the blueprints for steam-powered ships?” She had already moved to the table, her attention fixed on his sketches. “But…”

“But?”

“These two wheels—they’re like rowing paddles, aren’t they? When they rotate, they push the ship forward. But half the wheel is exposed above the water. That’s a significant waste of power.” She tilted her head. “Why not submerge them entirely?”

Roland said nothing for a moment. He was thinking about the word moments—how long she had been looking at his sketch before she arrived at that observation.

“How would you improve it?” he asked.

Anna picked up the brush. She thought for a moment—not long—and began to draw.

Roland leaned forward on his elbows and watched her work. The hair clip he had given her held her bangs back; they swayed with small movements of her head. Her concentration was complete and effortless, the way all her concentration was: not fought for, simply present. From the side, the line from bridge of her nose to chin to throat was a clean curve against the bright window.

Nightingale materialized between them and set a piece of dried fish on the edge of Anna’s paper.

“En.” Anna took it without looking up. “Thank you.”

Roland cleared his throat and looked back at the sketches.

Anna had started with full submersion—logical—but quickly found the problem: a wheel entirely below the waterline was nearly invisible near a dock, which made striking the pier a genuine hazard. She moved to the stern placement, which eliminated the visibility issue but complicated the transmission: the steam engine was too bulky to position at the rear of the hull, which meant a drive shaft and gearbox cutting through a substantial portion of the cargo space.

Her next attempt was the one that made Roland sit up straight.

The sketch was not quite a propeller—not yet—but it was close. The engine at the hull’s base. The drive shaft extending out through the keel, below the waterline. At its end: four square blades arranged like a windmill, rotating in the water.

“I don’t know if this would work,” she said, hesitating over the drawing. “If the blades are angled correctly, they should generate horizontal thrust—but with only four blades, reduced from a full wheel… I’m not certain there’s enough force to move a ship.”

“It would work.” Roland took the brush from her hand and drew the actual propeller shape alongside her version—the curved, asymmetric blade profile that made a propeller a propeller rather than a windmill. “This geometry is more efficient. Your reasoning is entirely correct—the position, the drive shaft, the angle of attack. One small modification to the blade shape and this is the right answer.” He set the brush down. “But the contract with the caravan is for paddle-ships, so that’s what we’re building. Not because paddle-wheels are better technology—they’re not—but because they’re what was agreed.”

He looked at her. “I’m going to the dock to measure the hulls. Want to come?”

Anna blinked. “Yes.”

Theory into practice. The best way to learn.

At the doorway, Anna paused. Nightingale was still at the desk, turning the sketches over in her hands, comparing them carefully.

“We’re going,” Anna said. “Are you coming?”

“Yes, just—” Nightingale set the drawings down, still looking at them. “Go ahead. I’ll catch up.”

She held one sketch up beside the other.

They just moved the wheel to a different position, she concluded. That’s all they did. She set them down and went to find her shoes.

Discussion

Suggest a change