Rewrite That Witch
CH787 · Rewrite

Chapter 787: Go! To the New World!

Roland was quiet for a long moment.

Phyllis was right about what this place was — not to him, but to her. To Roland, sensation was furniture: always present, never noticed, not something that required a thought until it was gone. He had never gone without it. He had never had to imagine going without it. This dream world, with its peculiarities and its gaps, its apartment building that housed fragments of his former life, existed to him as a puzzle, sometimes a burden, occasionally something stranger. To Phyllis, standing in the same space, it was the only place in several hundred years where she could feel the pressure of fingers on her wrist and know, beyond any doubt, that the sensation was hers.

If this intrusion was an accident — if the conditions that had brought her here could not be reproduced — then leaving now would mean leaving permanently. He could not know what she would lose by that. He was not sure he wanted to find out.

“I see,” he said at last. He held out his hand and, after a moment, she took it. “We’ll do the test this evening.”

Phyllis breathed. It came out long and unsteady, the release of someone who had been holding something for longer than they knew. Then she placed her free hand over her heart in the formal salute — the senior Union gesture, older than Neverwinter, older than anything Roland could trace — and said, quietly: “Now I understand why the Witch Union follows you.”

He was forming a response when the bedroom door took a knock.

Zero’s voice: “I made tea. You guys want some?”

No, Roland thought. Zero in genuine anger vanished; she didn’t offer beverages. This was reconnaissance.

He opened the door. Nothing in her hands. She angled her head into the room and assessed Phyllis with the flat, unblinking appraisal of a small animal deciding whether something is prey or danger or merely interesting.

“Where’s the tea?”

“Living room. Get it yourself.” A beat. “And don’t make strange noises. I’m trying to do homework.” One more look at Phyllis — filing information — and she was gone.

Roland shut the door and shook his head. “Pay no attention. Children born in the 2000s come like this. It’s the era.”

Phyllis’s confusion was complete and genuine. “The 2000s? A different era? What is your —”

“I’ll explain outside.” He waved the question away. Zero was simple to understand for anyone who had spent time around her; he’d leave that to proximity to do its work. He hadn’t told Phyllis — hadn’t told anyone — that Zero was the former pope, the Pure Witch. Zero had started over. Her past was hers to keep or discard; Roland had no intention of reassembling it for her.

Phyllis bit her lip. “I see… Then, about what we were —” She glanced at the ladder still leaning against the wall. “Perhaps you could — other methods — I’ll try to stay quiet this time.”

Roland put a hand to his forehead. He stared at the ancient witch. He looked at the ladder.

He was suddenly very grateful they had decided to spend the day outdoors.

“Ahem.” He straightened up. “Since you’re here, I’m going to show you the city. That was always the better plan.”

“Can I go out looking like this?” Phyllis glanced down at herself — the ragged robe, the bare feet. “Will people — are witches persecuted here too?”

“You’d be a celebrity,” Roland said, and meant it without embellishment. “Different is fine here. Different attracts attention and attention isn’t punishment. You’ll be admired.” He added: “Though we should find you different clothes first. You can’t go through a city in a Taquila uniform that’s had a few centuries of hard use.”

He had spare clothes — an undershirt, shorts, both technically unisex. He found her something close to her size. The cheap cotton, on Phyllis, looked somehow casual and considered; whatever the Taquila witches had been doing for several hundred years, they had not lost their bearing.

“By the way,” Roland said, “you’re back in your own body here. Can you still summon your magic?”

“I —” She blinked and straightened slightly, remembering there were things in the world besides food. “Let me try.”

She closed her eyes. Held her breath.

For a moment, nothing. Then a slow exhalation — and from her back, two black skeletal shapes unfolded across her shoulders: narrow, articulated, too angular for wings, wrong for hands, exactly wrong in every direction.

“I call them Blade Claws,” Phyllis said. “Retractable, extensible as far as my ability allows. Sharper than ordinary ironware. In my fights against the Army of Demons, they protected my back and let me match Senior Demons in close combat.”

“So you were a combat witch,” Roland said.

“Guard of the Three Chiefs, in the Taquila age.” She paused. “There’s something I don’t understand, though. If magic power comes from the Bloody Moon — and that’s what the Quest Society’s research indicated — why does it exist here?”

Roland spread his hands. “This world was built from my memory, but the Bloody Moon is part of that. I’m still working out the connection. I’ll explain more outside.” He glanced toward the door. “Since we have until evening, we might as well start.”

Zero, who had been listening to approximately none of this with approximately all of her attention, collected her ice cream cone and looked at him.

He said: “You’re coming too. Saturday is a public day.”

This did not produce the dramatic reaction he’d expected. She simply gathered herself and stood, with the slightly-too-dignified air of a child who has decided to be gracious about an invitation she wasn’t going to refuse anyway.

“Also,” Roland said as they got up, “don’t call me ‘Your Majesty’ out here. There aren’t kings in this era. Just Roland.”

Phyllis tilted her head. “Then — please excuse my impudence.”

Something in her deference had changed, he noticed. It was the same gesture, the same careful respect, but now it carried something warmer underneath it — a feeling that had nothing to do with hierarchy.

He decided not to point it out. Some things were better left to settle on their own.

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