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Roland Wimbledon paced across the thick wool rug of his bedroom for the twentieth time in an hour, counting his own footsteps in the dark just to give his racing brain something to do.
Stopping beside the cold stone hearth, the prince let out a long, frustrated sigh and rubbed the back of his neck.
Even though his new body was exhausted from a full day of drafting furnace blueprints and teaching atomic theory in the dining hall, his mind—still wired to the biological clock of a twenty-first-century engineer—flatly refused to shut down at eight o'clock in the evening.
In the cruel, monotonous reality of the Middle Ages, there was no such thing as nightlife. In fact, the commoners of Graycastle didn't even have a word for it in their vocabulary. The moment the sun dipped below the western hills and took its warmth with it, an absolute, suffocating darkness swallowed Border Town whole, broken only by the distant orange specks of guard braziers on the wall and a few flickering tallow candles.
Without the hum of refrigerators, the glow of television screens, smartphone notifications, or the distant rumble of midnight city traffic, the silence inside the castle after supper was positively deafening. Every miner, mason, and servant went straight to sleep as soon as the sky turned black, collapsing onto their straw mattresses from sheer physical exhaustion.
Roland, however, was wide awake, his nerves still buzzing with modern restlessness.
For a brief, desperate moment, he had actually considered using his absolute authority as a royal prince to summon one of the young castle maids into the hallway and order her to jog laps or do calisthenics with him just to get his blood moving and burn off the insomnia.
In the end, his modern self-awareness got the better of him. He simply couldn't bring himself to issue such a bizarre command; the poor servants already looked at him with a mixture of terror and bewilderment whenever he talked to himself about steam pressure, and forcing a maid to do jumping jacks at midnight would seal his reputation as a complete lunatic.
Resigning himself to another hour of reading structural notes before bed, Roland walked over to the wooden nightstand beside his four-poster bed.
Picking up the small brass tinderbox, he struck a spark onto the charred linen, blew gently until a tiny flame caught, and touched it to the wick of the single tallow candle sitting in its iron holder.
As the weak, yellow flame flared up, pushing back the heavy darkness just enough to illuminate the faded wall tapestries and the rough oak furniture of his bedchamber, a sharp, dry sound echoed right behind his back.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
Someone was applauding.
The blood in Roland's veins turned to solid ice on the spot. Every muscle in his back locked up, and his breath caught halfway down his throat.
— "That was a truly spectacular lecture down in the dining hall today, I must admit," — a woman's voice floated out from the dark corner of the room, smooth, velvety, and dangerously calm as it blended with the flickering shadows. — "A performance worthy of a standing ovation. I honestly never expected His Royal Highness, the infamous Fourth Prince of Graycastle, to be such an educated and... peculiar man."
It was the voice of a complete stranger.
For a full second, Roland's rational mind completely short-circuited as a cold shiver crawled straight up his spine, paralyzing his lungs.
How in the name of God did someone get inside my room?!, Cheng Yan screamed internally, his heart slamming against his ribs like a trapped bird.
His bedchamber was on the top floor of the inner keep! Chief Knight Carter Lannis had stationed four armed guards at both ends of the outside corridor, the narrow windows were forty feet above the courtyard flagstones, and Roland himself had slid the heavy iron bolt across the inside of his oak door twenty minutes ago!
How could a woman slip past veteran sentries, bypass a barred door, and stand ten feet behind him without making a single floorboard creak?!
If she isn't a professional assassin hired by my brothers Gerald or Timothy or Sister Garcia to slit my throat in my sleep... what else could she possibly be?!
Driven by pure survival instinct, Roland didn't turn around to look at the shadow; instead, he lunged sideways toward the heavy oak door, reaching out a desperate hand to grab the iron bolt and scream for the corridor guards.
His cold fingers had barely brushed the iron latch when he felt a sudden, violent rush of displaced air whip past his left ear—followed instantaneously by a heavy, sickening THUD into the solid timber right in front of his nose!
Roland froze as if struck by lightning, a sharp gasp tearing into his throat.
Slowly turning his wide, terrified eyes half an inch to the left, he saw a lethal, double-edged dagger made of gleaming silver-plated steel buried two inches deep into the solid oak doorframe.
The razor-sharp edge of the blade was less than a finger's width away from the skin of his left cheek. Worse still, the leather-wrapped hilt was still humming and vibrating in the candlelight from the sheer kinetic force of the throw.
Had he taken half a step further forward, or had the thrower aimed one inch to the right, five inches of cold steel would be sticking out the side of his skull right now.
— "Please, do not be so impulsive, Your Highness," — the velvety voice spoke again from the bed behind him, this time carrying a cool edge of dark amusement. — "I have no desire to hurt you tonight. If I had come into this room to take your life, I assure you that I would not have clapped my hands to warn you first. I simply came here to have a quiet chat with the young lady."
Roland's heart was hammering against his ribs like a war drum.
Well, isn't this just wonderful, he thought hysterically, forcing himself to swallow the lump of dry cotton stuck in his throat as his trembling legs barely held up his weight. Is throwing a knife an inch from someone's face considered polite dinner-party etiquette in Graycastle now? What a way to start a conversation!
Knowing that a single shout for the guards would result in a second blade piercing his windpipe before the door could even open, Roland surrendered to the crushing pressure in the room. Keeping both hands raised slightly away from his sides to show he was unarmed, he slowly pivoted on his heel to face the intruder.
Under the weak, flickering orange light of the single tallow candle on the nightstand, Roland finally saw her.
She was sitting on the edge of his soft mattress, her posture remarkably relaxed, casual, and completely confident, as if she owned the castle.
Her slender frame was wrapped from neck to boots in a fitted cloak and travel robe made of thick, dark fabric, and a deep hood was pulled low over her head, drowning her entire upper face in shadow so that not a single feature was visible. Behind her, magnified by the low angle of the candle flame, her dark shadow stretched halfway up the stone wall and across the ceiling beams like a phantom straight out of a winter nightmare.
Roland cleared his throat once, trying desperately to put some royal dignity back into his voice despite the cold sweat on his neck.
— "Who are you?" — Roland asked, leaning his back lightly against the closed oak door for support. — "And who sent you here?"
From beneath the dark shadow of the hood, the woman let out a soft sigh that carried a trace of quiet melancholy.
— "It has been a very long time since I used the name I was born with," — she replied softly. — "However, among my sisters... they call me Nightingale."
Before Roland could process the nickname, the cloaked woman moved.
With a fluid, weightless grace that seemed to ignore gravity altogether, she rose from the edge of the bed without making the mattress springs creak. Straightening the dark folds of her cloak with military precision, she took three silent steps into the center of the bedroom rug and, to Roland's complete surprise, gathered the hem of her robe and sank into a flawless, textbook courtly curtsy.
It wasn't the clumsy bow of a country assassin; it was the refined etiquette taught only inside the high noble halls of the kingdom's oldest families.
— "Before we speak of anything else, Your Highness—and before your racing heart gives you a seizure right there by the door," — Nightingale said, keeping her hooded head bowed slightly, — "allow me to express my deepest, most sincere gratitude to you, Prince Roland Wimbledon."
Express sincere gratitude?! After pinning my ear to my own bedroom door with a throwing knife?!, Roland's mind reeled from the sheer cognitive dissonance of the scene.
Yet, as she bowed forward under the direct glow of the nightstand candle, Roland's sharp engineer's eyes caught a faint, metallic glint along the collar and chest of her dark tunic underneath the open cloak.
Woven into the dark fabric with subtle, silver-gray thread was an intricate geometric emblem: three overlapping triangles forming a mountain peak, with a single, unblinking eye stitched right into the center.
Wait... I know that symbol!, Roland's memory flashed back immediately to his first morning in the castle study, when Assistant Minister Barov had tossed a confiscated bronze coin onto his desk in disgust.
It was the Eye of the Sacred Mountain—the heretical badge of the Witch Cooperation Association!
All of Barov's terrified warnings about fugitive witches hunting for their mythical paradise echoed in Roland's head at once, and the realization slipped out of his mouth in a stunned whisper:
— "You... you are a witch?!"
— "Hahahaha!" — Nightingale let out a series of light, musical laughs that sounded like silver bells chiming against the cold stone walls, genuinely entertained by his reaction. — "Your Highness really is as sharp and quick-witted as you looked downstairs. Yes, I am a witch."
The instant she confirmed her identity, going against every instinct of a normal medieval lord, Roland actually let out a massive, audible breath of pure relief.
The rigid tension in his shoulders melted away, and his heart rate dropped by half.
She wasn't a bloodthirsty political assassin hired by Timothy or Garcia to poison his wine or cut his throat for the crown! A witch of the Association had zero interest in the succession struggle for the throne of Graycastle!
Feeling the immediate danger to his life recede, Roland straightened up from the door, smoothing down the front of his wool tunic as he recovered a bit of his princely composure.
— "And why would a witch of the Association—someone hunted across the entire continent by the Church—risk sneaking into a remote, freezing mudhole like Border Town?" — Roland asked, crossing his arms over his chest. — "I assume you caught wind of Anna's arrest. Though I must say, for a rescue mission, your arrival is a few weeks too late. If I had actually intended to hang Anna at the gallows that day, she would be buried and forgotten by now."
— "Oh, I am very well aware of the timeline, Your Highness," — Nightingale replied coolly, rising from her curtsy and walking gracefully back over to sit on the edge of his bed as if it were her own sofa. — "And I can guarantee you right now that if you had actually pulled that lever in the town square, you and I would not be wasting time having a polite conversation tonight. Your royal head would have rolled down the main staircase two weeks ago."
Roland felt his throat tighten again as she tilted her hooded head toward him:
— "The Witch Cooperation Association tries to stay out of mortal politics, and we prefer not to spill the blood of ordinary people," — Nightingale continued in a matter-of-fact tone. — "Honestly, for a witch with my particular ability, slipping into this castle to assassinate an unguarded prince in his sleep would have been child's play. I held my blade back because I wished to honor our Association's code—and because I saw what you did in the dungeon. However... do keep in mind that if you give me a reason to doubt your intentions tonight, I can still pull that dagger out of the door and finish the job before you hit the floor."
There was zero boasting in her voice; it was a cold, factual statement of capability.
Knowing he couldn't match her speed, Roland decided to steer the conversation back toward solid ground.
— "There will be no need for bloodshed," — Roland said evenly, walking three paces closer to the nightstand while keeping a respectful distance from the bed. — "As you clearly know, the witch you came here to rescue—Anna—is alive, healthy, well-fed, and sleeping in a warm room down the hall. Tomorrow morning, I can call her in here so you can see for yourself that she isn't being held by force."
— "You do not need to call her to prove anything to me, Your Highness," — Nightingale interrupted softly. — "I have been hiding inside this castle for the past week, walking beneath a veil that mortal eyes cannot pierce. I have already seen her. In fact... I have watched everything you have done within these walls."
Nightingale paused.
For a long moment, the silence in the dimly lit bedroom stretched tight, broken only by the faint sputter of the tallow wick. When she spoke again, the playful, mocking irony had completely vanished from her voice, replaced by a deep, guarded, and almost bewildered curiosity:
— "In truth, I originally planned to reveal myself to Anna on my very first night here and spirit her away into the mountains," — Nightingale confessed, leaning forward slightly with her gloved hands resting on her knees. — "Yet I stayed. And if I am being completely honest with you, Prince Roland... you were not the only mystery that kept me anchored inside this castle. While it is certainly shocking to find a royal prince who holds no malice toward witches, what truly stopped me in my tracks were your two companions."
Roland froze, his eyebrows drawing together in genuine surprise.
— "My companions?" — Roland blinked. — "Do you mean Minister Barov and Carter?"
— "Do not play the fool with me, Your Highness," — Nightingale cut him off sharply, the edge returning to her voice as she saw through his weak deflection. — "I am speaking of the two foreigners who walk beside you as equals. They call themselves Arthur and William, correct?"
Roland clamps his mouth shut, his heart picking up speed again.
— "Over the past seven days, I have followed and studied those two men just as closely as I have studied you," — Nightingale continued, her voice dropping to a low, mesmerized whisper. — "Your Highness, my duties for the Association have taken me across all four kingdoms. I have walked invisible through the palaces of high lords, the chapels of bishops, the camps of mercenaries, and the huts of starving peasants. Even among my own witch sisters, I have seen every type of human mind imaginable. Yet I have never—not once in my life—encountered two human beings like them."
She raised a gloved hand, counting off a finger in the candlelight:
— "First, there is the quiet one with the dark hair—Arthur," — Nightingale said, a hint of genuine unease creeping into her tone. — "Two days ago in your study, right before the mason Karl van Bate arrived, that man suddenly stopped by the window and looked straight at the dark corner where I was standing. He could not see into my Mist World, that is impossible for a mortal... and yet I watched the hair on his arms stand up, and he deliberately bit back whatever he was about to say to you about the Pine girl."
Roland's eyes widened slightly. Arthur actually sensed her in the study?!
— "And then this afternoon, in the dining hall, I stood ten paces behind him and listened to every word he taught little Nana about her healing gift," — Nightingale went on, her voice filled with wonder. — "I do not know where he learned such bizarre stories about 'cells' and 'invisible workmen' building walls inside human blood... yet when Nana tested his method on a bruised guard before going home, her magic consumed half the mental stamina it normally takes! He speaks of the royal court in the capital, of Duke Ryan's trade routes, and of the Church's movements as if he is looking down at the entire continent from the clouds with cold, omniscient eyes!"
Nightingale shifted on the edge of the mattress, raising a second finger:
— "And then... there is the tall one. William," — she whispered, her tone shifting from unease to the professional awe of a killer recognizing another predator. — "Four days ago, I stood on the wooden fence of the barracks yard and watched him and that Mojin hunter dismantle five armed men in the mud in less than seven heartbeats. And today, in the dining hall, I stood five feet away when he struck your Chief Knight."
Beneath the shadow of her hood, Nightingale shook her head slowly:
— "Your Chief Knight Carter Lannis is an elite warrior by the standards of this kingdom; his reflexes are sharp," — she analyzed. — "Yet when William threw that punch from six inches away, Carter couldn't even see the motion start. The way William shifts his center of gravity, the terrifying, stripped-down brutality of his unarmed strikes, and what he called 'kinetic impact vectors'... there is not a single wasted breath in his body. It is as if his flesh and bones were forged on an anvil exclusively for war."
Nightingale leaned forward until the candlelight caught the lower edge of her pale chin beneath the hood, her unseen eyes boring straight into Roland's soul:
— "Those two men do not fear death, they openly mock the teachings of the Church, and when they look at Anna's fire or Nana's healing light, there is not a single drop of greed, lust, or religious disgust in their eyes," — she whispered intensely. — "They look at magic not as a divine miracle or a demonic curse, but simply as a... a natural tool to build their machines. Who in the world are they, Your Highness? Where did an exiled prince find two monsters wearing scholars' clothes who hold zero hatred for witches?"
Standing by the closed oak door, Roland slowly raised a trembling hand and rubbed his forehead hard, trying to process the sheer magnitude of the bombshell she had just dropped on him.
She was there the entire time, Cheng Yan realized, a wave of cold panic washing through his stomach.
For an entire week, this invisible assassin had been walking through his locked doors, standing inches away from their backs in the study, in the dining hall, and in the courtyard!
She had heard every single strategic meeting he had held with Arthur! She had heard them plot the economic destruction of Duke Ryan, she had seen the blueprints for the flintlock muskets, she had heard them discuss the vanished "prophetic books" from the Fjord Islands, and she had watched every move they made!
Worst of all, neither Carter Lannis's veteran guards nor William's razor-sharp combat instincts had detected her breathing right next to their ears—only Arthur's borderline paranoid intuition had caught a faint whiff of her presence in the study!
The magic of this world..., Roland thought, staring at the hooded witch on his bed with a mixture of dread and fascination, is a hundred times more terrifying than any engineering manual could ever prepare me for.