Rewrite That Witch
CH309 · Rewrite
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Chapter 309: The Exploration of Knowledge

The letter arrived on the second day of autumn, delivered by a flying messenger from King’s City, almost certainly written by Theo.

Roland unrolled it at the window, where the morning light was generous enough to read by.

Because the palace was quickly sealed and no one was permitted to enter or leave, I was unable to scout the full extent of the damage. But by evening, almost every resident of King’s City had heard of the attack — in the pubs, the inns, the city squares, wherever people gathered, there was only one topic. Even the death of the former King had not caused such a sensation. Furthermore, since you gave warning beforehand, there are now many people who believe Timothy died in the attack, and that you will soon rule from King’s City as the new King of Graycastle.

Roland set the paper down for a moment. The relief was clean and specific: the bombing had succeeded, the witches were returning safely, and the information had landed in the city’s bloodstream before anyone could control it.

He made himself a cup of tea and returned to the letter.

According to collected information, there is currently no sign of movement from the major noble houses outside the capital. The palace has responded quickly, which leads me to believe Timothy Wimbledon is likely still alive.

Some eyewitnesses claim the attack came from the sky. Several residents report seeing a plain-colored object fall rapidly from above and strike the palace. Based on this, I have formed an initial plan for the task you’ve assigned me — if I can frame this as heaven’s punishment visited upon a false king, I believe many people will accept it as true.

The people working under my direction are already full of enthusiasm. During daylight hours they are collecting accounts of Timothy’s more egregious practices. Combined with the story, the effect should be compounding. I don’t think it will take a month before this version of events has spread to every ear in the city.

I will continue to monitor the Eastern Barracks closely. As of now, Timothy appears to have no effective countermeasure; he seems too occupied to direct his attention elsewhere.

No signature. Roland folded the letter and slipped it into the drawer.

If Easterly Wind No. 1 has actually succeeded in delaying his troop movements, it’s already more than good.

The drugged militia were a wasteful weapon — effective but expensive in human terms, difficult to sustain, and the longer Timothy held off deploying them, the more time Roland had to convert his refugees into something other than a liability. Every week of delay was a week of houses, wages, bread, trust. He’d rather win that war than the other kind.

He drank his tea and let the quiet sit with him for a moment. Several days since he’d last seen Anna. Nobody had stolen any dried fish from his desk drawer. The office felt different without either of those facts.

Carter opened the door.

“Your Royal Highness. Two fleets have arrived at the pier.”

“Has Margaret’s Chamber of Commerce finally—” Roland stopped. “Two fleets?”

“Yes.” Carter was smiling with the particular pleasure of someone delivering good news they’ve been holding all morning. “You remember the delegation you sent south to recruit from the refugee population? They’ve returned. The pier is crowded to its limits. City Hall has begun processing them and Miss Lily is executing the—”

“Quarantine operation.”

“That’s the one.” The chief knight coughed. “The program to eliminate the threat of plague or contagion. The group numbers four or five hundred.”

The corner of Roland’s mouth lifted before he could stop it. It had seemed theoretical not long ago — a plan, a possibility, a request sent south with uncertain prospects. Now it was four hundred people standing on his pier. Lotus will need more temporary housing. “Let’s go and take a look.”

Kyle Sichi set down the final thin pages of the Intermediate Chemistry and said, very quietly, “So that is what it is.”

“Mentor?” Chavez asked.

Kyle had been awake for two days. He had received the volume, read it through a single night, read it again the following morning, and was now on his third pass. His eyes held a strange light — not the flat brightness of sleeplessness but something burning steadily underneath, the look of a man who has seen through a wall he didn’t know was there.

“I’m fine,” he said. And he was. The fatigue existed but it was irrelevant, pushed below the threshold of attention by something larger pressing upward.

The rule in Kyle’s workshop: when the mentor descended into alchemy, you did not interrupt. Chavez had waited through the night, through breakfast, through the morning, and now at last he allowed himself to ask. “This book — I can’t follow it. What is an atom? What is an electron?”

“You’re a qualified alchemist now. Don’t call yourself a disciple.” Kyle paused. “As for your question — I don’t know how to begin answering it. When His Highness gave me the Intermediate Chemistry, this was enclosed with it.”

He gestured at the other book on the table. Chavez read the cover: Theoretical Foundations of Natural Science.

“I looked at a few pages,” Chavez admitted. “It doesn’t seem related to alchemy at all. Or to anything.”

“I thought the same.” Kyle stroked his beard. He was quiet for a moment — not the quiet of a man gathering words, but the quiet of a man still inside the experience he is trying to describe. “But after a few pages, I realized I had been entirely ignorant of this world. Not of alchemy. Of the world.”

“Of the world,” Chavez repeated carefully.

“The concept behind it. Consider what we have always told ourselves: alchemy is alchemy. It concerns the composition of matter, the nature of elements. The sun rising and setting, the flowers opening and closing — these things have nothing to do with us. An astrologer watches the sun. A farmer watches the plants. We watch the reaction in the crucible.”

“Isn’t that correct?”

“That is precisely why we know nothing.” Kyle shook his head. “From its very beginning, this book attempts to connect everything — stone, flower, lightning, fire — as expressions of the same fundamental rules. Not chemistry’s rules, not astrology’s rules: the rules, the ones from which all the others follow. Chemistry is a fraction of this. One room in a house we did not know we were standing inside.” He unfolded the periodic table that had been tucked between the pages. “In the Intermediate Chemistry, it describes elements as a central body surrounded by smaller ones. The central body determines which element you are dealing with. The outer arrangement determines behavior. This table is organized according to that law — as precisely ranked as soldiers in a parade ground.”

He set the table down. “Now I understand what His Highness meant when he said we could predict the properties of elements we’ve never encountered. Because the smallest interaction — the gain or loss of an outer body — never touches the central one. Elements don’t disappear in a reaction. They transform.”

Chavez sat with this. “Do you — believe it?”

These were not theories you could verify with your eyes. The people who had written this book had never seen an atom, had never watched an electron move from one shell to another. On what basis did they claim to know?

“I can’t answer that,” Kyle said. He was still smiling, with the ease of a man who has made peace with not knowing. “But whether you believe it doesn’t matter as much as you’d think. What matters is the perspective. A door I didn’t know existed, and behind it — not just chemistry. Something much larger.” He paused. “Unfortunately His Royal Highness wasn’t able to record everything. He may have been missing portions himself.”

Chavez couldn’t follow everything he’d heard — the same sensation as his first days as an apprentice, when the language of alchemy had been a foreign tongue. He wasn’t troubled by it. He had learned one foreign tongue already. And as long as he followed his mentor’s direction, he would learn this one about the interconnection of all living things. What he lacked was not aptitude. It was time.

After a moment’s silence, Chavez looked at the books arranged on the table. “Why does His Highness use different colors for the covers?”

Kyle looked up with a brief expression of surprise, as if he’d genuinely forgotten. “I noticed that as well and set it aside.” He frowned. “If it were simply black and red, it might be a matter of available ink. But these specific colors are difficult to produce. It’s unlikely to be casual.”

Elementary Chemistry was blue. Theoretical Foundations was also blue. Elementary Mathematics was green. Intermediate Chemistry (Remnants) was purple. Individually unremarkable; together, striking.

“Perhaps for appearance’s sake?” Chavez guessed.

Kyle studied the arrangement a moment longer. His expression had settled into the particular stillness that preceded a new line of inquiry. He did not answer the question.

He reached for the Theoretical Foundations and turned to the first page.

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