Rewrite That Witch
CH031 · Rewrite
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Chapter 31: “Our Friend”

Roland sat at his desk in the grey hour before dawn and tried to feel less shaken than he was.

Someone had tried to murder him — or burn his food, which in the middle of the Months of the Demons amounted to the same thing — in his own castle, using men he had trusted with the town’s patrol. He had been told this world was dangerous and he had believed it abstractly, the way one believes a thing that hasn’t happened yet. Now it had happened, and the abstraction was gone, and what remained was the particular alertness of a man who has realized that the building he was in has exits he didn’t know about.

He drummed his fingers on the desk. Garcia, Viper, Fierce Scar, Longsong Stronghold, the Duke — the connections were there but loose. He needed the surviving members of the group to talk before they found a way to die.

Carter appeared at the door, knocked once, and pushed it open. He was wearing the expression of a man who has been awake all night doing unpleasant but necessary things.

“Eight dead, two surviving. Seven of the eight were original patrol members. The eighth has no identification. The two survivors have been treated by—” Carter paused the way he always paused when the subject required wording he hadn’t settled on yet. “They were treated. They haven’t woken up. The sewer access is sealed and under guard.”

“Good. When they wake, I want everything: command structure, contact names, who was paying them.”

“Yes, Your Highness.” Carter did not leave. He went down on one knee. “The intruders reached the castle basement. That is a failure of my duty. I ask Your Highness to assign appropriate punishment.”

“You weren’t in the castle. It’s not on you.” Roland waved him up. “There’s something else you want to ask.”

Carter rose, and his professional poise developed a slight crack. “The scene in the warehouse. The pattern of the wounds. Everyone taken in the same confined space, no defensive damage to the goods around them — not even a sword mark on the boxes.” He chose each word carefully. “In a situation where a defender is surrounded, superior swordplay alone isn’t enough. You can’t hold sight-lines against seven people without one of them getting behind you. But whoever was in that basement apparently had no blind spots.” He looked at Roland. “Who is it?”

“I can’t tell you yet. When the time comes, I will.”

Carter absorbed this without visible reaction, saluted, and withdrew. Roland knew what the knight was thinking. Carter had built his identity around a family tradition of swordsmanship — centuries of accumulated technique, passed down, refined, practiced from childhood. He had just seen what happened when someone operated entirely outside that tradition, and he was doing the internal arithmetic that required.

The door had barely closed when Nightingale materialized on the corner of the desk. She had a cup in her hands — Roland’s cup. She drank from it without asking.

“I thought you might introduce me,” she said.

“Not yet. You’re not mine to introduce.”

She considered this. “Fair.”

“Stay as my hidden sword,” Roland said. “Two gold royals a month. A house with a garden. Two days off per week, paid leave annually.” He watched her. “Anna and Nana are here. Your companions.”

She smiled, and it was the kind of smile that acknowledged a good argument without conceding to it. “I can’t abandon the others.”

“Not now. But after winter, when the reconstruction begins — when this town becomes somewhere witches can walk without hiding—”

“You always say that.”

“I know.” He let it go. Actions were the argument, not words. “Nana — she’s back safely?”

“I took her home. She was disturbed.” Nightingale’s expression softened very slightly. “She’s never healed a person before. Only chickens. When she saw the scene in the warehouse—” She tilted her head. “She healed the patrol captain with tears running down her face. I found it somewhat affecting.”

Roland leaned back in his chair. The window behind him was grey with the beginning of morning. “The group — does this trace to one of my siblings?”

“I don’t think so.” Nightingale turned the cup in her hands. “Wrong style. There was infighting within the group throughout the operation — professionals don’t fight amongst themselves mid-mission. Two survivors left alive without effort to silence them. The only professional in the group was the one I don’t have a name for, but even he wasn’t coordinating the others. It reads as a plan put together by someone with money but limited operational experience.” She paused. “Longsong Stronghold. The Duke, or someone acting on his behalf.”

“Not Garcia.”

“Garcia’s work is cleaner. Her maid had a poison tooth and training that took years to prepare. This was opportunistic.” She took another sip. “Also — Anna was sleeping in the room below yours. If they had made it to the upper floor, they would have encountered her before they reached you. I don’t think they accounted for that.”

Roland filed that away. He would need to think about what Anna constituted as a defensive resource — and how to think about that without treating her as one.

“The patrol captain,” he said. “The one who fought them. You said he was the one I’d called in some weeks ago.”

“The hunter.” Nightingale nodded. “Brian. He led them into the basement instead of the warehouse. If he hadn’t, I might not have found them in time.” She considered. “You should reward him.”

“He opposed the scheme and paid for it. That’s more than loyalty — that’s character.”

“It is.” She returned the cup to the desk. “The enemy of your enemy.”

“He’s not just that.”

“No.” She looked at him with the specific quality of someone measuring a person against an expectation and finding the expectation was too low. “He’s our friend.”

The word landed in the grey early morning, simple and exact.

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