Suddenly, the very air in the corner of the room seemed to ripple. There was no sound, no flash of bright magic like Anna's flame. The air simply tore apart, like an invisible fabric being pulled back. The colors of the real world invaded a space that previously seemed to be just a monochromatic void. Between one heartbeat and the next, a silhouette materialized — a slender, hooded woman emerging from the rift between dimensions. She appeared a mere meter behind William's back.
Before William could even finish filling his lungs with air, the cold, metallic, and relentless kiss of steel pressed against the skin of his neck.
Nightingale's silver dagger gleamed dangerously under the faint moonlight that managed to seep through the dirty glass of the window. Its tip rested millimeters from William's carotid artery, held with the unwavering firmness of a master assassin who had already reaped enough lives to never hesitate. She was no longer the curious, invisible observer who prowled the castle corridors to steal dried fish; she was a predator defending her territory.
Her eyes, hidden by the veil of shadows under the hood, now shone with a lethal intensity and a cutting suspicion that seemed to want to consume all of William's modern bravado. She had heard enough of the conversations of those two strangers over the last few days to know they were walking anomalies, but the last straw had been a specific detail.
— "How do you know that name?" — Nightingale's voice was an icy whisper, vibrating with a primal threat that would make Graycastle's most decorated veteran knight break into a cold sweat. — "Veronica died a long time ago. She was buried under the ashes of a ruined house in the Silver City. No one outside the direct bloodline of my former family carries that memory. Who are you, and which noble bastard do you work for? Garcia? Timothy?"
William's breath hitched. He felt a thin drop of cold sweat run down the back of his neck, tracing an icy line along his spine. Despite the terrifying proximity of the blade, the nerves of steel forged by his new attributes and his Krav Maga instincts prevented him from reacting with panic. He forced his facial muscles to remain relaxed, even though his heart beat at a frantic pace against his ribs.
Mentally, his finger hovered over the trigger of his newly discovered ability. He knew that if he activated his Speed attributes combined with a disarming strike, he could try to turn the tables. But the stern warning Arthur had given him days ago echoed loudly in his mind: Revealing an inexplicable supernatural strength to a master of the Mist World, before she trusts us, will brand us as monsters. It's a death sentence for our credibility.
William swallowed hard, feeling the tip of the dagger scratch his epidermis. His mischievous and arrogant smile, characteristic of someone who thought of himself as the unwavering protagonist, fought to stay on his face.
— "Easy now... Nightingale, if you prefer the codename from the Witch Cooperation Association," — William said, slowly raising his hands with open palms in a universal and careful gesture of surrender. — "We are not agents of other nobles. We don't work for Roland's brothers. And we are definitely not from the Church."
Nightingale pressed the dagger a millimeter further. A drop of crimson blood bloomed on William's neck. She took a deep breath, using her innate passive ability to detect lies. The scent of magic around William was strange, static, but the words... the words did not carry the sour stench of deceit.
— "If you lie to me, if I sense the slightest hint of falsehood in the modulation of your voice or the heat of your blood, the Prince will have to clean your mess off the rug before dawn," — she hissed. — "How do you have information that belongs neither to wandering commoners nor to ordinary scholars?"
Arthur, who until then had remained absolutely motionless behind the door, slowly pivoted on his heels. He didn't look shocked, didn't widen his eyes, nor did he try to intervene physically. His dark tunic rustled slightly as he assumed a composed, almost clinical posture. His eyes scanned the scene with the coldness of a strategist who had simulated that encounter in his mind dozens of times. He had already expected that their presence — and William's loose tongue — would eventually provoke the witch's protective and lethal instinct.
— "Lower your weapon, Miss Nightingale," — Arthur said. His voice sounded like an anchor of pure logic in the storm of hostility, incredibly polished. — "If we were Timothy's spies or Garcia's henchmen, we would have revealed your presence and Anna's to the Church of Hermes as soon as we stepped foot in this castle. We are here to ensure that witches no longer have to live like rats fleeing from the fire."
Roland, who had frozen with his charcoal pen suspended in the air when the witch materialized, finally stood up. The modern and skeptical pragmatism of the engineer fought fiercely to keep up with the lethal fantasy drama unfolding on his desk. He looked at his two "consultants," wondering how the hell those men, whom he believed carried the knowledge of the 21st century in their minds, possessed a personal dossier on a mystical assassin he himself had just met.
"They said the first book detailed the future and the secrets of this world," Roland thought, his mind spinning to fit the facts into the lie he had bought days ago. "The book of the Fjords. Did it not only foresee my destiny, but the secrets of those around me?"
— "Nightingale, please... move the blade away from his neck," — Roland ordered, forcing the monarchical authority of the Fourth Prince to prevail over his internal panic. — "They might be annoying, eccentric, and incredibly prone to speaking through maddening riddles, but Arthur is the man who provided me with the exact process for creating cement. He is the reason the North Slope wall will become unbreakable. If they claim to know your history through their... peculiar methods of study and prophecy... I am inclined to ensure they are not enemies."
Nightingale hesitated. Her predatory purple eyes flickered between the Prince, Arthur's terrifying and analytical calmness, and William's almost suicidal confidence. She expanded her magic, drawing in air through her nostrils to search for the unmistakable scent of a lie. There was none. It didn't smell like a nobility conspiracy. It smelled of an overwhelming and terrifyingly calm sincerity.
Slowly, with the fluid reluctance of a feline releasing its prey, she pulled the silver dagger away. However, she did not retreat into the Mist World. She remained physical and visible, her hood slipping slightly to reveal strands of golden hair that caught the meager candlelight, forming a melancholy contrast with her deadly expression.
— "You walk in the dark with dangerous torches," — Nightingale said to William, wiping the trickle of blood from the blade on the fabric of her own boot. — "I am aware that you came from distant lands, that you bring 'ancient books' and absurd construction knowledge. But the Holy Mountain is not a puzzle for foreign scholars to dissect in their libraries. It is the final sanctuary of the witches. I came to evaluate Prince Roland. But if he and you intend to use Anna as a simple tool until the Church comes to burn us all, I will take her away."
Feeling the lethal pressure disappear from his neck, William rubbed the small cut, letting out a sigh that masked his relief. Completely ignoring the fact that her hand still rested casually on the dagger's hilt, he took a step forward. The arrogant protagonist inside him couldn't back down from a good dialogue.
— "The world is much smaller and much more brutal than you think, Nightingale," — William said, his eyes fixed on her. — "Our knowledge was not given to us to watch the world burn. We know about your sisters in the Association. We know the suffering of the Awakening. And we know that you march blindly toward a paradise that is nothing more than an icy grave."
Nightingale let out a short laugh, laden with bitterness and scorn, her eyes half-closed in contained fury.
— "And what do two common men, who arrived yesterday in a decaying castle, know about the fate of witches?" — She pointed a gloved finger at the dirty window. — "Look outside! This castle is damp, the city walls are crumbling clay, and the peasants are starving to death. The Months of the Demons are about to turn this entire region into a morgue covered in black blood. And you call my sanctuary a grave?"
Arthur intervened, moving with the contained elegance of an experienced diplomat, strategically placing himself in her field of vision to pull her attention away from William.
— "We call it a grave, Miss Nightingale, because the Holy Mountain is nothing but an ancient myth, an unproven legend that will force exhausted women to march to their deaths by hypothermia or by the claws of demons," — Arthur's voice was relentless, stripped of any poetic emotion. It was pure, cold logic. — "You seek a miracle in forgotten legends, but His Highness, Roland Wimbledon, is building an undeniable reality right here."
Arthur pointed to the maps on the Prince's desk.
— "We do not offer false paradises. We offer thick walls, powerful furnaces, and soon, long-range weapons capable of tearing a Demonic Beast in half before it gets within a hundred paces of the wall. With His Highness's inventions and the witches' power focused on production, and not just flight, we will turn this Border Town into an impenetrable bastion. If you take Anna and the others now, you will be trading a safe and warm haven for a desperate fairy tale in the freezing mountains."
Roland, listening to Arthur's passionate defense of his project, crossed his arms, assuming the imposing posture of the ruler he intended to be.
— "Arthur and William are a walking mystery to me, Nightingale. I admit that freely," — Roland declared, looking directly into the assassin's eyes. — "But the value they have brought to my table is undeniable. They saw Anna's power not as the devil's touch, but as nature's most beautiful and useful gift. They do not judge your sisters; they value her. Give this place the chance to prove it can be the fortress your Association desperately seeks."
Silence reigned while she processed everything.
— "I will stay," — she finally whispered, her voice losing a bit of its murderous edge, though it remained firm. She pulled her hood to cover her hair, her face returning to a mystery in the gloom. — "I will stay as a shadow and watch you. But listen well, strangers: if your promises and weapons fail, if the wall crumbles, or if the Prince turns his back on the first witch who suffers the terror of the Demonic Bite... I will take my sisters from here before the snow stains the ground. And as for you..."
Nightingale turned her head slightly, fixing her purple eyes on William as her physical form began to vibrate, dissipating into the fringes of the Mist World.
— "... Try to insinuate you know the name of my past again, and I will make sure you wake up missing the tongue you use with such recklessness."
With a soft rustle of fabric, the air closed. Nightingale's oppressive and lethal presence disappeared completely, returning the office to its cold and silent atmosphere.
William brought his hands to his knees, letting out a long, trembling sigh, breaking the tension accumulated in his muscles. When the color returned to his face, the mocking smile of an unbreakable protagonist slowly returned, even under the stern gaze of the Prince and his friend.
— "Well..." — murmured William, clearing his throat and laughing nasally. — "Considering the creative threat of vocal castration, I think she really liked me. The ice has been broken."
Arthur rolled his eyes so hard he felt a twinge in his forehead. He ignored William's reckless bravado and quickly turned back to Roland's desk, leaning over the wall maps once again. The first direct conflict with the Witch Cooperation Association had been circumvented with diplomacy and pure logic.
They had earned the benefit of the future most dangerous witch of the Witch Union. But as he heard the wind howl louder against the glass windows, bringing the biting cold of the deep north, Arthur knew that pretty words would not save them from the jaws of the beasts that were to come. The true test of survival in Graycastle was about to begin.