Snap.
A stick of drawing charcoal broke cleanly in half between Roland Wimbledon's fingers, leaving a jagged black streak across a fresh sheet of calculation parchment.
Muttering a quiet curse in Mandarin under his breath, the prince tossed the broken stub onto the oak desk and raised both hands to rub his temples.
What had once been a quiet royal study used by the previous prince to sign unfair tax decrees and drink spiced wine now looked like the war room of a besieged engineering firm. Every square inch of the dark wood was buried beneath geological sketches, charcoal drafts, and wide territorial maps of Border Town held flat by heavy brass weights.
Across those maps, a thick black line had been drawn connecting the rocky cliffs of the North Slope to the winding, turbulent bend of the Redwater River.
For the past hour, Roland had been crunching the numbers on stone volume, tons of burned limestone clinker, curing intervals, and daily man-hours. Yet no matter how many times he checked the equations, the schedule refused to balance.
Standing a few paces away near the warmth of the hearth, his arms crossed calmly over his chest, Arthur watched the prince's growing frustration in silence. With his Intelligence 14, Arthur didn't even need to look at the parchment to know the exact wall Cheng Yan had just slammed into.
— "The raw output of the kilns isn't the problem anymore, is it, Your Highness?" — Arthur asked smoothly, breaking the quiet tension of the room.
Roland let out a long, exhausted sigh and leaned back against his leather chair, tossing his remaining piece of charcoal onto the map.
— "Anna's fire is producing more than enough clinker, and you solved our silver flow with the Willow Town merchants," — Roland admitted, tapping his knuckles against the blueprint of the southern defense line. — "I have the 'what' and I have the 'how.' What I am completely missing right now is the 'who.'"
Roland gestured with irritation toward the window overlooking the outer town:
— "Yesterday afternoon, I went down to inspect the central trench section myself," — the prince explained, his voice tight. — "Because the local foremen are illiterate miners who have never built anything taller than a mud shack, they laid twenty meters of timber formwork three degrees off-level on soft river silt without compacting the gravel base. If I hadn't caught it in time, that entire section of the wall would have tilted and cracked the moment the river rose in spring."
The ticking clock of the incoming Months of Demons weighed on Roland's shoulders like a slab of lead.
— "I cannot stand knee-deep in the mud sixteen hours a day holding a plumb line for two hundred peasants while also designing flintlock mechanisms, blast furnaces, and artillery pieces here in the castle," — Roland said, rubbing his tired eyes. — "And William is already buried up to his neck turning starving farmers into soldiers. I need a real civil engineer out there. Someone who actually knows how to read a blueprint."
Arthur took two slow steps forward, stopping beside the edge of the map table.
— "A fortress wall is only as solid as the man who oversees its foundations, Your Highness," — Arthur said in a calm, measured voice. — "To finish a defensive line of this scale before the first blizzard hits, simple ditch-diggers and quarry foremen will never be enough. You need a true master mason. Someone who grasps the geometry of load-bearing structures, understands soil saturation, and — above all else — is a man you can trust with your life."
Roland raised his head from the drawings, fixing a skeptical, half-amused stare on his strategist.
— "Competence AND genuine loyalty?" — Roland gave a dry laugh. — "Those are two of the rarest commodities in Border Town, Arthur. Half the nobility in this region looks at me as if I were a rabid wolf wearing a crown, and the peasants still cross the street when my guards walk past. Who on earth do you have in mind?"
— "There is a man living quietly among the commoners in the eastern district named Karl van Bate," — Arthur replied without hesitation. — "Before moving to this frontier years ago, he was a senior master builder in the construction guild of King's City. He is not just a bricklayer; he is an educated scholar who understands classical architecture, structural mechanics, and mathematics. Right now, he earns a modest living running a small private school for the townsfolk's children while taking on minor masonry contracts."
Roland leaned forward slightly, his gray eyes sharpening with immediate interest.
— "A former guild master from the capital hiding out in a muddy mining town?" — Roland murmured, resting his chin on his hand. — "His resume sounds ideal on paper. Why him specifically, though? How do you know he won't run straight to Assistant Minister Barov — or worse, to the local Church priests — the moment he sees how we are producing our cement?"
Arthur looked straight into Roland's eyes and dropped the trump card:
— "Because Karl van Bate was Anna's teacher," — Arthur revealed quietly.
Roland blinked, his posture stiffening noticeably behind the desk.
— "When Anna was just a starving miner's daughter who couldn't afford tuition, Karl allowed her to sit in his classroom for free," — Arthur explained, watching the prince's expression shift. — "He was the one who taught her how to read, how to write, and how to look at the world with curiosity instead of fear. According to what I gathered in town, when the Church informers exposed her awakening and dragged her to the dungeon two weeks ago, Karl tried to use every copper coin of his life savings to bribe the jailers, only to be beaten back with spear shafts."
A faint, knowing smile touched the corners of Arthur's mouth:
— "Right now, because of the fake execution we staged at the gallows, Karl believes his favorite student is rotting in an unmarked grave outside the cemetery," — Arthur concluded. — "When he walks through that door and sees with his own eyes that Your Highness not only spared Anna's life, but gave her a clean dress, a warm seat, and a stack of scientific books... you won't need silver coins to buy his loyalty, Your Highness. His devotion to your cause will be forged in solid steel."
For five full seconds, Roland said nothing.
The prince weighed the political risk of bringing another local citizen into the inner circle of the castle's greatest secret against the desperate need to finish the wall on time.
Finally, the cold calculus of survival won out. Roland gave a single, decisive nod and raised his voice toward the closed hallway door:
— "Carter!"
The heavy oak door opened instantly, and Chief Knight Carter Lannis stepped inside, his steel armor gleaming in the firelight.
— "Yes, Your Highness?"
— "Take two guards, ride down to the schoolhouse on the eastern street, and bring the mason Karl van Bate back to my study immediately," — Roland ordered. — "Do not put him in irons, and do not rough him up, understand? Just escort him here as fast as possible. Also, on your way down the stairs, tell Anna to wrap up her kiln test in the courtyard and join us up here."
— "At once, Your Highness," — Carter bowed his head and marched out, his heavy boots echoing down the stone corridor.
As the door clicked shut, a deep, heavy silence settled back over the study.
While Roland bent back over his desk to organize the elevation sketches for the incoming mason, Arthur turned slowly and walked over to the tall stone window on the far side of the room, his eyes sweeping across the shadowy corners near the towering oak bookshelves.
Then, out of nowhere, an inexplicable, freezing chill crawled straight up Arthur's spine.
Every tiny hair on the back of his forearms stood on end, and his heart skipped a beat inside his chest.
Wait a second... what do I do right now?, Arthur thought, his Intelligence 14 mind kicking into overdrive as he reviewed the exact sequence of events from the original novel. I already know everything about Nana Pine. I know she is Karl van Bate's other young student, I know she just awakened the rarest biological healing magic in the kingdom, and I know Roland is going to desperately need her divine medical power very soon to keep our soldiers from dying of infection!
Instinctively, Arthur half-turned his head back toward the desk and opened his mouth by a fraction of an inch, intending to tell Roland to have Carter swing by Baron Pine's manor on the way back.
He froze before a single syllable left his throat.
Focusing his newly trained mental sensitivity — that faint, invisible radar granted by his Level 1 Telekinesis — Arthur felt something terribly wrong in the corner of the office.
Three paces to the left of the heavy oak bookshelf, where the warm orange light of the fireplace failed to reach the cold stone wall, the air felt... dense.
There was no sound, no smell of perfume, and no physical shadow on the carpet. Yet, as Arthur narrowed his eyes and stared subtly through his peripheral vision, he swore he caught a microscopic ripple in the ambient dust motes — as if an invisible, three-dimensional boundary were displacing the air molecules in the shape of a person standing completely still.
It felt exactly like standing in an interrogation room and realizing that the mirror on the wall was actually a one-way glass with a loaded gun pointed at your head from the other side.
Don't say a word, Arthur commanded himself, clamping his jaw shut while keeping his facial expression completely blank and relaxed. In the original novel, Roland didn't even realize Nightingale had infiltrated the castle until the night she put a dagger to his throat in his bedroom! I have no way of knowing the exact day she arrived in Border Town. For all I know, she is standing right there in the monochrome distortion of her Mist World at this very second, listening to every breath we take!
A single drop of cold sweat formed beneath Arthur's collar, though he didn't dare raise a hand to wipe it.
Think like an assassin, Arthur, he calculated rapidly. Nightingale came here on orders from the Witch Cooperation Association to rescue Anna or investigate her death. Right now, she is suspicious of everyone. If I suddenly open my mouth and start listing the names and exact home addresses of newly awakened, undiscovered thirteen-year-old witches like Nana Pine out of thin air... how will that look to her?
The answer was horrifyingly simple: he wouldn't look like a helpful scholar. He would look like a high-ranking Church Inquisitor with an informant network, or a master spy hunting down young girls!
If Nightingale decided that Arthur was a threat to her witch sisters, she wouldn't wait to hear his backstory about the Fjord Islands — she would step out of the mist behind his back and slit his carotid artery before William could even reach the second floor.
Let the script play out naturally, Arthur decided, turning his gaze calmly back out the window as if he were merely admiring the clouds. Once Karl sees Anna safe, he will bring up Nana on his own within five minutes. Sometimes, the smartest move on the chessboard is keeping your mouth shut.
Two minutes later, a light knock sounded at the side door, and Anna stepped quietly into the study.
She had washed the gray limestone dust from her hands and face, though a faint smell of woodsmoke still clung to her simple linen dress. Walking straight over to the small reference table set up beside Roland's desk, she sat down with quiet familiarity and picked up a stack of furnace cross-sections without needing to be told.
Ten minutes after that, the heavy iron boots of the castle guards echoed loudly up the main staircase.
Knock-knock.
— "Come in," — Roland called out, sitting up straight in his chair and adopting the composed, serious demeanor of the Lord of Border Town.
Carter Lannis pushed the heavy oak door open and stepped aside, gesturing for a middle-aged civilian to enter the room before closing the door behind him.
Karl van Bate walked across the threshold looking exactly like a man marching to his own beheading.
He was a man in his late forties wearing a frayed brown wool coat stained at the elbows with white chalk dust and dried lime mortar. His shoulders were hunched low, his graying hair was disheveled from the windy ride up the hill, and his eyes were glued firmly to the floorboards in front of his worn leather shoes.
When three armed castle guards led by the Prince's own Chief Knight had banged on his schoolhouse door in the middle of the afternoon, Karl's heart had dropped into his stomach. He was certain that the notoriously cruel Fourth Prince had either discovered his attempt to bribe the dungeon guards for Anna two weeks ago, or — even worse — had caught wind of the secret he was currently helping Baron Pine hide.
Stopping in the middle of the carpet, Karl swallowed hard and began to bend his knees to kneel before the desk:
— "Your... Your Royal Highness, I—"
As Karl raised his head by an inch to look toward the prince's desk, his eyes caught the small side table just two paces to the left.
Karl froze completely.
All the air rushed out of his lungs in a sharp, audible gasp that echoed through the quiet study.
Sitting right there on a padded wooden chair, bathed in the warm golden glow of the fireplace, was a teenage girl with vibrant orange-red hair.
She wasn't bound in heavy iron chains. She wasn't starving, bruised, or weeping in terror. She was wearing a clean, well-tailored dress, holding a charcoal pencil in her hand, and calmly examining a stack of architectural drawings with a serene, dignified peace that Karl had never once seen on her face during all the years she lived in the slums.
— "B-but how... Anna?!" — Karl's voice cracked completely, a fragile storm of disbelief, shock, and overwhelming relief crashing across his weathered face. — "The gallows... the town crier said you were—"
At the sound of his voice, Anna looked up from her parchment.
The moment she saw her former teacher standing on the carpet, a bright, genuine warmth lit up her clear blue eyes, softening her serious expression into a gentle smile.
— "Good afternoon, Master Karl," — Anna said softly, offering him a respectful nod of her head. — "It is good to see you again."
Karl van Bate's knees buckled underneath him.
He dropped onto the carpet with a dull thud — not out of fear of the Prince's executioners, and not out of forced feudal protocol, but because the crushing weight of guilt that had been suffocating his chest since the day of the execution had just shattered into a million pieces.
He stared wide-eyed at Anna, then whipped his head around to look at the young prince sitting behind the desk, and then back at his favorite student.
Karl was an educated man; it took him less than three seconds to connect the pieces. The hanging in the square had been a ruse. The Fourth Prince hadn't handed Anna over to the Church Inquisitors, nor was he torturing her in the dungeon. By keeping a condemned witch alive, healthy, and working inside his personal study, Prince Roland Wimbledon was actively defying the deadliest religious institution on the continent!
— "Your... Your Highness..." — Karl stammered, his eyes shining with unshed tears as he turned on his knees toward the oak desk, his voice trembling with sudden, fierce reverence. — "I thought... the whole town thought she was gone! If you staged that execution to protect her... if Your Highness is truly giving shelter to witches within these walls... then what you are building here is far greater than any stone fortress!"
Before Roland could even say a word, Karl leaned forward, grabbing the edge of the carpet with both chalk-stained hands as urgency took over his voice:
— "Your Highness, please listen to me! It isn't just Anna!" — Karl blurted out breathlessly. — "There is another one in town right now! Another young student from my school — little Nana, the youngest daughter of Baron Pine! Three days ago, she awakened the signs of magic too! Her father and I have been terrified out of our minds, keeping her locked inside her bedroom so the servants and the Church informers don't find out! If Your Highness can protect Anna, I beg you... please save little Nana too!"
Behind the oak desk, Roland slowly turned his head and locked eyes with Arthur standing by the window.
Arthur kept his face a masterpiece of calm, polite surprise, giving the prince a single, almost imperceptible nod while his heart beat fast against his ribs.
Bingo, Arthur thought, feeling a wave of pure satisfaction. Karl delivered her right into our laps without me having to burn my cover in front of our invisible guest.
Turning his attention back to the kneeling mason, Roland stood up from his chair, walked around the desk, and spoke in a firm yet surprisingly gentle tone:
— "Stand up off the floor, Master Karl," — Roland said, gesturing with his hand for the older man to rise. — "No witch will ever be sent to the gallows in Border Town while I rule this territory. We will speak about Baron Pine's daughter in detail in just a moment, and I promise you she will have the exact same protection Anna has."
As Karl rose shakily to his feet, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his brown coat, Roland tapped his knuckles against the heavy oak map table:
— "Right now, however, if I am going to keep Anna, little Nana, and the two thousand citizens of this town alive long enough to see the spring thaw, I need your hands and I need your mind," — Roland stated, his gray eyes locking onto the builder. — "Come to the table. Thanks to Arthur, William, and Anna's fire, we have developed a new hydraulic mortar called cement that cures harder than mountain granite. We have the limestone of the North Slope, and we have fewer than eighty days left before the first wave of Demonic Beasts hits us. Show me how we anchor this wall into the riverbank so the monsters never break through."
Karl van Bate took a deep, steadying breath.
In a matter of seconds, the hunched, terrified schoolteacher who had walked through the door vanished completely; in his place stood a veteran master builder who had finally found a cause worth wagering his life on.
Stepping up to the map table, Karl picked up a wooden scale ruler and leaned over the blueprints alongside Roland, Arthur, and Anna.
For the next two hours, the four of them — the twenty-first-century engineer wearing a prince's crown, the corporate strategist carrying the timeline of the future, the master mason of King's City, and the seventeen-year-old fire witch — debated trench depths, drainage angles, and stepped firing platforms, drawing the exact blueprint that would forever change the warfare of Graycastle.
Meanwhile, two floors below in the fading orange light of the courtyard, the rhythmic whoosh-clack of an iron practice greatsword slicing through the freezing air continued without pause, as William pushed his muscles to the absolute limit in preparation for the coming storm.
He was the shield on the outside, while inside that warm study on the second floor, the sword of industry was being forged.
And standing less than two feet away from the map table — completely invisible inside the silent, black-and-white ripples of the Mist World — a pair of sharp blue eyes under a white hood watched the four of them without blinking.
Nightingale held her breath, her gloved right hand resting lightly on the silver hilt of the dagger strapped to her waist.
She had slipped into this room expecting to find a depraved royal holding her sister hostage as a lab rat or a slave. Instead, she had just watched a prince treat Anna like an honored equal, listen to a mysterious scholar named Arthur who spoke of witches without a shred of hatred, and immediately promise shelter to a newly awakened thirteen-year-old girl.
Slowly, silently, Nightingale's fingers relaxed on the grip of her blade. The cold, lethal suspicion that had brought her to Border Town was beginning to crack, giving way to a deep, bewildered wonder. For the very first time in four hundred years of running, the witches of the Association were no longer the only ones fighting for a place in this world.