Rewrite That Witch
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Chapter 698: Nightingale’s Suspicion

He woke from the Dream World and lay still for a moment, pleased.

The guess had held. Every apartment in the building had one — a gate at the back of the storage room, leading into whatever memory the resident had carried in with them. Garcia’s had smelled of the sea. The Port of Clearwater, almost certainly: her ambition’s starting point, the foundation she’d built her claim on before everything had narrowed to the conclusion it arrived at. The place her hope had been largest.

He’d had to leave it there. Garcia could have ended the call at any moment, and being discovered standing in a woman’s closet with ocean air coming through an apparently solid wall would have created a set of explanations he wasn’t ready to give. Before leaving he’d mentioned the iron door in his own room — dropped it casually into the end of the conversation, watching for any reaction. Her response had been flat. Either she knew about the gate behind her closet and saw no reason to discuss it, or she’d redecorated the room, hung the clothes, arranged everything around the gate, and genuinely never noticed what was at the back of it.

The second possibility was worth sitting with. It suggested he might be the only person in the building with access to those sealed memories — able to see the gates, able to open them, while the other residents simply didn’t register what was there. Zero’s storage room would answer the question. He’d ask her to clear it out; her reaction would tell him what he needed to know.

The practical conclusion either way: the demons Zero had swallowed had become the building’s residents. Their memory fragments held whatever their personal histories held, and those histories might contain things useful to understanding the first Battle of Divine Will. He didn’t need to map the whole building. He needed to identify which doors led somewhere.

He got up.

Wendy had been waiting in his office for some time when he arrived. A sheaf of papers occupied the center of the desk — detailed profiles on the four Wolfheart witches, assembled by Wendy and Scroll from everything the initial interviews and Yorko’s account had yielded.

He read through each one carefully. The circumstances they’d survived. The routes they’d taken. The shape of what had happened to them before they found each other.

His eyes stopped on Annie.

He’d noticed the name when Yorko first mentioned it, and then Nightingale had reminded him — the history between the Bloodfang Association and the Wolfheart witches. Annie was a common name among the lower classes; five or six in a hundred would carry it, and that meant the coincidence meant nothing by itself. But the profile was specific. Annie had sought the Bloodfang Association and been turned away. Had come close to being sold to a noble family before getting out. The Bloodfang’s record of that interaction matched, feature by feature, the story Iffy had told about the “sister Annie” she had betrayed.

He put the page down.

A week ago a carrier pigeon had arrived from the Fjords. Tilly and her group were on their way. By now they would be roughly halfway. He did not know what the scene would look like when Annie and Iffy found themselves in the same room. Whether the time that had passed between the betrayal and this moment had done any of the work that time was supposed to do.

He hoped so. He put the thought aside, because hoping wasn’t the same as knowing, and there wasn’t anything useful he could do about it in advance.

He set the files in order. “Which places are you taking them today?”

Wendy straightened slightly. “North Slope Mine. The steam engine assembly plant. The Chaos Drinks plant.”

He considered this. The proposal had come from Wendy herself, some months ago — a structured orientation for incoming witches, designed to show them what Neverwinter was before asking whether they wanted to be part of it. Two days touring, one day rest, then a voluntary choice about the contract. It had become standard. No pressure in either direction, just the city and what it had become, available for inspection.

The three sites she’d chosen were well-selected. The Mine showed witches and workers cooperating underground, where trust was not optional. The assembly plant demonstrated non-combat ability applied to production — what a witch’s power looked like when it was building something rather than destroying it. The Chaos Drinks plant was simply pleasant, and pleasantness had its place in these decisions.

“Good. Take Lightning and Maggie with you.” He set his cup down. “Not to watch the group — Wendy is enough for that. But if something unexpected comes up.”

“Understood.”

“One more thing.” He leaned back. “The guide. No. 76. I’d like to offer her a position as a clerk in the Union office. Yorko spoke well of her, and the profile holds. If her identity checks out completely, she’d be an asset — you’re running that office with three people.”

Wendy’s expression warmed slightly. “If she’s willing, I have no objection. Someone who risked herself to protect the others at the critical moment — I don’t read that as vicious.”

“My thought exactly—”

“No.” Nightingale stepped out of the air between one sentence and the next, the way she always appeared when she’d been listening. “Don’t assign her anything yet.”

Roland looked at her. “Something wrong?”

She paused. The pause was long enough that he recognized it as genuine deliberation rather than hesitation. “I can’t say exactly. But something isn’t right.”

He studied her. Nightingale’s instincts were, in his experience, not things to argue with on principle — but they were also not an explanation in themselves. “Your documents show no evidence against her. She didn’t lie.”

“I know.” She shifted her weight slightly. “That’s part of what bothers me. No. 76 told me everything without hesitation. Her background, her past, her reasons for being there. All of it clean.” A beat. “People who have been through what slaves go through don’t talk to strangers that way. They hold things. Even small, innocent things. She held nothing.”

He was quiet for a moment.

“How much time do you need?”

“I don’t know.” She looked uncomfortable with the uncertainty. “More observation. She may simply be an unusual person. But I’d rather be wrong about caution than right about trust.”

Wendy had already collected her papers and was waiting near the door with the particular consideration of someone who understood exactly when to stop being present.

After she left, Nightingale looked at him with an expression he recognized — the one that appeared when she suspected she’d exceeded her authority and wasn’t sure whether to apologize or defend it.

“Did I overstep?”

“For security?” He reached across the desk and briefly pressed the backs of her hands. “This is exactly what security looks like. An instinct you can’t fully explain is still a reason. We hold on the job placement.” He paused. “Just keep watching. And if you figure out what it is you’re seeing, I want to know.”

The tension in her shoulders settled, slightly. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

She stepped back into the air and was gone.

Roland picked up his tea, found it had gone cold, and held it anyway.

A slave who held nothing from an interrogation. He turned it over.

What kind of person has nothing they’re afraid to share?

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