Rewrite That Witch
CH235 · Rewrite
☕ Support

Chapter 235: A Letter Beyond Expectation

Roland opened the letter and handed a strip of jerky to Maggie at the same moment.

“Googoo!” She seized it in her beak and worked it down in two or three methodical swallows, then settled her belly on the edge of the table and tucked her head into her feathers.

He began to read.

I hope this letter finds you well, my dear older brother—or should I say, Your Royal Highness, Roland Wimbledon.

I have received your letter. I agree with your opinion and wholeheartedly approve of it. Even though I do not understand why you have so suddenly corrected your previous lifestyle, or why you are now willing to help witches—you have done it, and that makes the Church our common enemy.

You may already know this: I have become a witch. It is also why so many are willing to trust me. But you are a prince, noble to your core, and you have also obtained the trust of numerous witches—this I find genuinely inconceivable. Since receiving your first message, I have often wondered how you managed it. If you regarded witches as tools, as most of your kind do, Ashes would never have approved of you, and she would never have allowed Maggie to stay in Border Town.

Apart from this, Maggie mentioned something called a steam engine, and a theory that knowledge might allow a witch’s ability to evolve—both fascinating. The latter especially—I would like to discuss it with you in detail when the opportunity allows.

As for your invitation: I have considered it at length, and I have no reason to refuse. Building an alliance requires trust, and giving trust in return. If we act indecisively and in fear, we only help the Church in the end. I will attach a list to this letter containing most of our auxiliary witches and their abilities. Select those most useful to you and inform me through Maggie. If everything goes well, they can leave for your territory by next month—though for safety, send only five in the first group.

Please specify a reliable transfer procedure and send escorts in advance. Every witch lost—whether she lives in Border Town or on Sleeping Island—is a loss that cannot be recovered, and casts a shadow over everything we are trying to build. I hope you will care for them as you care for your own witches. And if you would, please allow them to attend your evening knowledge lessons. I believe that every witch who evolves her ability is good news for us both.

As you have said, the Church has already shown their hand. Their annexation of the Four Kingdoms is a matter of time. I hope you will be ready when the moment comes. But if you cannot hold, Sleeping Island will always be a harbor. And I will give you whatever help I can.

Finally—may we end the Church’s oppression, and build a new order. A kingdom in which not merely witches, but no one, must suffer under groundless persecution.

Your sister, Tilly Wimbledon.

He put the letter down and sat for a moment with his hands open on the desk.

Unspeakable—that was the word that came, though it wasn’t quite right. Pleasure was too small; relief was too private. The sensation was closer to having set down something heavy you’d forgotten you were carrying.

He took another piece of jerky and held it out.

Maggie’s head shot forward. “Goo, cuckoo!”

He stroked the smooth feathers at her neck and she narrowed her eyes in that way she had, the posture of a creature profoundly pleased with its circumstances.

“It must have been a hard journey,” Roland said. “Lightning is still with the fleet—she’ll be back in a few days. But you can find Nana or Leaves to play with. Or take a bath. Or sleep.”

“Goo—goo!” She spread her wings, hopped from the table, and flew out the window. Gone.

He was fairly certain that had meant I’m not tired, I want to go play. A strange thing, to understand a pigeon. The power of shared habit, or something more.

He turned back to the letter.

He had not expected Tilly to agree, let alone to append a list of her witches’ abilities—that was a genuine act of trust, the kind that was rare between strangers and rarer still between siblings in a royal family. The list, even a partial one, was a treasure house. Though she hadn’t specified how long the witches would stay, if they meant to attend a complete primary education course, that was at minimum half a year. And if he added further material, extended the curriculum—what could they bring to Border Town in a full year?

And if any of them evolved—the benefit to her would be greater than the cost to him. If they remained in Border Town after evolving, they would accelerate everything. If they returned to Sleeping Island, they became living proof of the promise he was making. More witches would hear. More would want to come. Tilly could not prevent that tide even if she wanted to.

Waiting, and demonstrating sincerity. That was the long strategy. Not promises. Not pressure. Just demonstrating, day after day, that Border Town was something different.

Tilly’s letter confirmed it was working.

As for the transit route, he had been thinking about this for some time. Avoid Port of Clearwater and the Seawind Region. Go south through the uninhabited territory below Border Town, reach the mountains, then cross by hot air balloon—directly into the Western Territory hinterland, bypassing the Church’s watch, Timothy’s scouts, Garcia’s reach entirely.

The more he thought, the more the thing felt possible. He forced himself to stop.

He spread the list over the desk and picked up his pen.

There were more than sixty auxiliary witches and their abilities recorded on it. Maggie had mentioned that Sleeping Island sheltered somewhere between two and three hundred people—so this was already a selection. Tilly had behaved as a leader should: reaching out a hand in friendship rather than relying on family bonds. The list itself was the measure of her sincerity.

He read it through several times.

It was a genuinely difficult decision. He went through the list again from the beginning, considered each name against Border Town’s most pressing needs, and eventually wrote down five.

Then he drew a fresh piece of parchment toward him and began his reply.

Meanwhile: the refugees.

He had not forgotten them, even as he read. Since the First Army’s departure for King’s City, ships had been arriving in a continuous stream—displaced people from everywhere the Church’s hand had reached. He had established a temporary camp west of the city wall, rows of wooden sheds arranged in grid patterns, with Lily assigned to prevent the spread of disease. Together with the serfs already working across the Redwater River, the total count was past eight thousand. At the current rate, ten thousand within a week or two.

Food was not the problem. Border Town had been importing steadily since the end of the Months of Demons, and the surplus held. But shelter was another matter entirely. Wooden sheds were adequate through summer—shade, ventilation, protection from rain. Come winter, there was no difference between a wooden shed and open air. The temperature outside would be the temperature inside.

If he could not move ten thousand people into brick houses before the cold arrived, most of them would not survive the long winter.

He had six months.

He put down Tilly’s letter, reached for a blank sheet, and began calculating how many workers he could redirect from Kingdom Avenue construction without stalling it entirely. The road could tolerate a delay of ten days or a half month. People freezing to death inside his territory was a different kind of problem—a permanent one.

Even during the first winter, when he’d had nothing—no capital, no allies, no nobles willing to help—he had kept everyone alive. Now he had the Witch Union. He had the steam engine. He had real income and a real workforce. There was no version of this in which he permitted that record to end.

He was still at the calculations when Carter walked in, his expression conveying the particular quality of someone who is choosing carefully whether to speak.

“Your Royal Highness.” A pause. “The chemical laboratory has just exploded.”

Discussion

Suggest a change