Rewrite That Witch
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Chapter 61: Return

They came out of thin air and nearly knocked him over.

Roland had been crouching over the steam engine’s drive shaft, trying to read a measurement, when three figures materialized approximately one foot in front of him. The first was Nightingale — he recognized her in the same half-second that she stumbled, catching herself on the engine housing. The second was a woman he’d never seen, tied to Nightingale’s back, limp and very pale, with one arm wrapped in cloth that had gone dark red from the inside out. The third was a girl, maybe fourteen, with short blonde hair and the expression of someone who had just arrived somewhere interesting.

Anna had her wall of green fire up before he’d fully registered any of this.

“It’s Nightingale,” he said, and the fire went back wherever it came from.

“Nana.” Nightingale lifted her head, and her voice had the particular quality of someone running on empty — still functional, still precise, but with nothing left over. “We need Nana now.”

He was already looking at the woman on her back. The arm wrapped in cloth was approximately the color of old wood, and the cloth itself was soaked through and had been for some time. He catalogued the situation in the two seconds he had before turning to his guard.

“Cardin. Medical center. Bring Nana.” The guard moved before the last word. “At a run.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Roland stepped forward and began working the straps that held the injured woman to Nightingale’s back. Nightingale’s hands came up to help and were shaking slightly in a way she was clearly trying not to notice.

“Were you hurt?”

“No. I’m sorry, Your Highness. I couldn’t—” She stopped, steadied herself. “I couldn’t bring them back with me. Most of the Association.”

“You’re here. Tell me the rest later.” He got the last strap free and took the injured woman’s weight, adjusting so her head was supported. “Can you walk?”

“Yes.” She was already doing it, Anna at her elbow.

The blonde girl fell into step beside Roland, looking at the steam engine over her shoulder as they went.

“That’s the monstrosity,” she said, not quite to anyone. “She said it huffs and puffs white smoke. It actually does. She wasn’t lying about it.”

“Who are you?” Roland asked.

“Lightning. I’ll explain later. The woman you’re carrying is Wendy — she was bitten by a snake, the venomous kind, not the ordinary kind. She lost a lot of blood. Your healer can fix this?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Because we were in a hurry and I don’t think the arm is — well, I’ll explain later.”

He handed Wendy off to Nana at the door to the medical room and stepped back, because there were some things that required space to work and people hovering at the edge of them didn’t help. Lightning stayed in the corridor with him, which he appreciated, because he had questions.

“The arm,” he said.

Lightning’s expression clarified into the slightly-formal look of someone about to make a report. “Cara’s snake bit the back of her hand. The venom spreads — I don’t know how fast. Nightingale did what she could. She cut the wound open and tied off the arm. We moved as fast as we could.” A pause. “It’s been more than a day.”

He’d done the calculation already. Six to eight hours for limb reattachment, less than that for vascular damage from a tourniquet. Past one day, the prognosis without Nana’s ability was amputation at minimum.

“What happened?” he asked.

Lightning told him. She told it efficiently, organizing events in sequence without unnecessary embellishment, and he listened without interrupting. The Witch Cooperation Association. Cara. The speech. The paralysis. The God’s Locket. Wendy’s intervention. Nightingale’s decision.

When she finished, Roland stood in the corridor and thought.

He had constructed a mental model of the Association as a frightened community that had retreated into the mountains because the alternative was worse — and that model was not wrong, but it was incomplete. Cara was something else. Not just frightened. Not just hiding. Something had grown in her through years of persecution and loss, and what had grown was its own system, with its own internal logic, and the logic included classifications that would have been familiar to anyone who had ever watched the thing they hated become the thing they worshipped.

She called the Demon’s Bite a test. The ones who didn’t survive it weren’t strong enough.

“Cara,” he said. “Will she survive?”

“Probably.” Lightning did not seem particularly conflicted about this. “They have a healer. Not like yours — she boosts the effectiveness of herbs rather than directly healing. But enough for that kind of wound, with care.” She paused. “She’ll be furious, though. She—” Another pause. “Actually, I don’t know how she processes what happened. She may decide it was our fault. She may decide it was God’s will. I think she’s someone who tends to put things into frameworks that let her keep believing what she already believed.”

Roland nodded.

“You weren’t afraid of her?” he asked.

Lightning considered this with visible seriousness. “She’s frightening,” she said finally. “But she’s wrong. Those are different things.” She looked at the door to the medical room. “And also I can fly, so she can’t actually catch me.”

The door opened. Nana came out first, moving with the deliberate steadiness of someone who has spent sustained effort and is now actively managing their exhaustion. Anna followed.

“Well?” Roland asked.

Nana nodded.

He let out a breath he had not been fully aware of holding.

“The arm is saved?”

“And the venom.” Nana’s voice was tired but clear. “All of it. She’ll need to sleep.” A pause. “I’ll need to sleep too.”

“Room assignments,” Roland said to Anna. “Dinner first. Then bed.” He looked at Lightning. “You too.”

Lightning brightened considerably. “Dinner,” she said. “Yes. What kind?”

“I’ll have the chef surprise you.”

She seemed to find this satisfactory.

Anna steered Nana back toward the stairs with the competent care of a person who had been watching over someone for long enough to do it without thinking, and Roland watched them go, and permitted himself the specific relief of a man whose plan had not survived contact with events but whose people had come through anyway.

Three witches now. Three, counting Nightingale.

He thought about the housing Karl was building south of the castle. He thought about drafting rules for a community he didn’t know the shape of yet. He thought about Wendy, sleeping in a medical room with a healed arm and a situation she had not intended to be in, because she had stepped between a woman and an iron skewer.

I never counted on this particular variable, he thought. But I’m glad it’s here.

He went to find his chef.

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