Three days of descending the southern face of the Impassable Mountain Range felt like marching through the jaws of a frozen hell.
As if enraged that four people had dared slip out of its grasp alive, the mountain threw everything it had against their backs. Howling gales tore down the rocky chutes, driving thick curtains of snow sideways across the cliffs and burying every landmark under waist-deep drifts.
For a weakened non-combat witch like Diana Argus, the trek was an ordeal that pushed her body to the absolute edge of collapse. Even with the extra pork rations William pulled from his invisible storage every evening and the warm wool cloak he had draped over her ragged shawl, the fallen noblewoman spent the last forty-eight hours stumbling half-blind between William and Nightingale, her breath rattling in her chest.
Only Lightning seemed capable of shaking off the misery of the descent. Blessed with the boundless stamina of youth and an ability tailored for the open sky, the short-haired blonde girl floated effortlessly a foot above the worst snowdrifts, darting ahead whenever the wind died down to scout the safest ravines for the group.
William, meanwhile, walked at the front of the line like an unstoppable snowplow.
Thanks to his Stamina 10 and Strength 16, breaking a trail through four feet of packed powder for ten hours straight barely slowed his stride. Physically, he was a fortress. Mentally, however, every single mile between the mountain peak and the valley floor felt like a battlefield inside his skull.
Whenever the wind quieted down for a few seconds, his mind inevitably drifted back to that dark underground hall—to the sight of Wendy standing alone beside the smoking brazier while sixty panicked witches screamed in the dark.
Then, late into the freezing twilight of the third evening, the endless wall of white ahead of them finally broke.
Down at the bottom of the last wooded ridge, cutting through the blue-black gloom of the winter dusk, a long row of warm, flickering orange lights gleamed across the valley.
They were the watchtower braziers and wall torches of Border Town.
— "Look down there!" — Lightning shouted, pointing a mittened hand toward the valley as she hovered five feet off the ground, her voice cracking with pure joy. — "Walls! Real stone walls and chimneys! We actually made it out of the mountains!"
As the four of them cleared the final stretch of pine trees and stepped onto the packed, shoveled road leading up the hill toward the castle's outer gatehouse, the biting mountain gale seemed to lose half its teeth.
For Diana and Lightning—who had spent months sleeping on damp rock and wading through knee-deep snow—the simple sensation of solid, paved cobblestones crunching beneath their leather boots felt like stepping back into civilization after a lifetime in the grave.
Twenty paces from the iron-bound gates of the castle, Nightingale slowed her stride.
Old habits died hard for an assassin who had spent five years being hunted by town guards. Before the sentries under the stone archway could spot her face, she pulled her white hood forward, gave William's elbow a silent tap, and slipped smoothly into the monochrome ripple of the Mist World, vanishing from sight.
A second later, heavy boots shifted under the torchlight of the gatehouse.
Clack-clink!
Two iron-tipped spears crossed in front of the archway, blocking the road.
— "Halt right there! State your business and identify yourselves!" — a sentry's gruff voice barked out through the falling snow.
William didn't reach for his weapon. Stepping smoothly in front of the two shivering women behind him, he raised both gloved hands into the warm circle of the wall torches and reached up to push the ice-crusted wool hood back from his face.
— "Easy, boys. It's me—William," — he said, his voice hoarse and raw from three days of breathing sub-zero wind.
Behind the crossed spear shafts, the two guards on night watch—Bjorn and Hakon, two former hunters from the first enlistment batch—squinted hard into the gloom. The instant the torchlight hit the dark stubble and sharp jawline of their commander, both men gasped and yanked their spears upright, snapping their heels together in a frantic salute.
— "Good gods above, Commander William!" — Bjorn blurted out, his eyes widening as he took in the thick layer of frost caked across William's shoulders and the dark circles under his eyes. — "We thought the blizzard had buried you up on the peaks! You look like you just wrestled a mountain ice bear with your bare hands!"
— "Feels like I wrestled two of them, Bjorn," — William muttered dryly, lowering his hands.
Beside Bjorn, however, Hakon's trained eyes shifted past their commander's broad shoulders and locked onto the two small, huddled figures standing in his shadow.
Both women were dressed in mud-stained, tattered rags that looked as though they had been dragged through a thorn bush, their faces pale and pinched from the cold.
— "Begging your pardon, Commander..." — Hakon asked, a natural edge of sentry caution returning to his voice as he gripped his spear shaft. — "Who are these two women with you? Did you find survivors from a snowed-in logging camp?"
Behind William's back, Diana stiffened instantly, pulling her torn shawl tighter around her face while Lightning dropped her boots flat onto the ground to hide her floating.
William didn't hesitate for a fraction of a second. Prince Roland's long-term goal was to integrate witches openly into Border Town's society, and starting off with lies at the front gate would only breed rumors in the barracks.
— "They aren't loggers, Hakon. They're witches," — William stated flatly, his voice steady and clear.
Gasp.
Bjorn sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth, his fingers tightening involuntarily around the wood of his spear, while Hakon took half a step backward as his eyes went wide.
Even after three weeks of discipline under William and Iron Axe, twenty years of Church sermons didn't wash out of a commoner's blood overnight. To ordinary men raised in Graycastle, hearing the word witch at night was like hearing that a live demon had just walked up to the door.
— "W-witches, sir...?" — Bjorn whispered, darting a nervous glance down the dark road toward the town as if expecting a squad of Church inquisitors to jump out of the bushes at the mere sound of the word.
William took half a step forward, letting his tall frame cast a shadow over both guards as his dark eyes narrowed into a cold, commanding glare.
— "That's right. His Highness Prince Roland personally sent me up into the mountains to escort them here," — William said, his voice dropping an octave until it carried the full weight of the First Army's Commander-in-Chief. — "From this moment on, both of these ladies are guests of the castle under the Prince's direct protection. Do either of you have an issue with His Highness's orders?"
Faced with the man who had beaten five quarry bullies into the mud in seven seconds and crushed hybrid monsters outside the wall, every trace of superstitious hesitation in Hakon's spine evaporated on the spot.
Hakon swallowed hard against a dry throat and shook his head rapidly.
— "No, sir! Not a single objection, Commander!" — Hakon said, stepping briskly to the side and pulling the heavy iron gate wide open. — "If His Highness invited them, then it's none of our business to question it! Go right on inside out of the cold, sir!"
Giving the two guards a brief nod, William turned his head slightly and motioned for Lightning and Diana to follow him across the courtyard.
Five minutes later, up on the second floor of the castle keep, Assistant Minister Barov was hunched over his counting table by candlelight, double-checking the winter barley tallies, when a young hall footman came sprinting up the stone stairs and burst into the outer clerk's room panting for breath.
Listening to the servant's stammered report, Barov frowned, set his quill down in the brass inkwell, and smoothed the front of his embroidered wool robes.
Walking briskly down the corridor to the Prince's study at the end of the hall, the old minister knocked twice, pushed the oak door open, and offered a hurried bow.
— "Your Highness! Pardon the interruption," — Barov announced, catching his breath. — "Commander William has just walked through the main castle doors from that... little mountain excursion of his."
Behind the massive mahogany desk, Roland Wimbledon snapped his head up so fast his charcoal pencil rolled right across his artillery blueprint. The dark circles of fatigue under the young prince's eyes vanished behind a bright, genuine smile of relief.
— "He's back already?! That's wonderful news, Barov!" — Roland said, planting both palms on the desk as he leaned forward eagerly. — "Tell me—did he come back alone?"
Barov's mouth twisted slightly, as if he had just bitten into an unripe lemon.
— "No, Your Highness. He is waiting downstairs in the great hall right now, and he brought two women dressed in freezing rags along with him," — Barov said, lowering his voice with bureaucratic distaste. — "According to the gate sentries, Commander William openly declared that these women are... witches whom Your Highness requested."
Roland leaped straight out of his leather chair, his face lighting up with pure triumph.
— "He actually found the Association's camp!" — Roland exclaimed, walking quickly around the edge of his desk. — "Barov, go straight down to the kitchens and wake the head cook! I want a full banquet laid out in the dining hall within twenty minutes—roast pork, hot vegetable soup, fresh garlic bread from the evening ovens, and a pitcher of good spiced ale! Our new guests have just crossed the Impassable Mountain Range in a blizzard, and I want them welcomed with every courtesy of this house!"
Barov stared at the prince, his bushy gray eyebrows shooting up toward his hairline as his deeply ingrained noble prejudice warred with his penny-pinching accountant's soul.
— "A... a royal banquet, Your Highness? At this hour of the night?" — Barov sputtered, wringing his hands together. — "And for... for them? Two runaway witches who look like they crawled out of a ditch?"
— "You heard me clearly the first time, Minister," — Roland said, his warm smile cooling just enough to remind the old man who wore the crown in this room. — "Have the maids heat bathwater and prepare two guest rooms on the second floor as well. And once you've given the kitchen their orders, walk out to the backyard workshop and let Lord Arthur and Anna know that William and Nightingale are back."
Recognizing the immovable iron in the prince's tone, Barov swallowed his protests and bowed his head.
— "As Your Highness commands. I shall see to it at once."
Several minutes later, wrapping his cloak tightly around his neck to brave the snowy path across the inner yard, Barov walked up to the heavy timber doors of the new machinery shed and rapped his knuckles smartly against the oak.
Inside the insulated stone building, the air was as warm as a summer afternoon, smelling strongly of coal smoke and hot lard oil.
Near the center workbench, Anna had both hands raised over a small cast-iron valve block, using a concentrated ribbon of pale-green fire to heat-treat the interior threads, while Arthur stood two paces away with a leather-bound notebook open in his palm, jotting down cooling times by lantern light.
As the door creaked open a crack, Barov cleared his throat politely from the threshold—careful not to step too close to the eighteen-year-old girl wielding emerald fire.
— "Pardon the intrusion, Lord Arthur, Miss Anna," — Barov called out.
Anna immediately closed her fingers, cutting off the green flame without leaving a single wisp of smoke in the air, while Arthur looked up from his notes and raised an eyebrow.
— "Something urgent, Minister Barov?" — Arthur asked smoothly.
— "His Highness asked me to inform both of you that Commander William and Miss Nightingale have just returned from the northern peaks," — Barov reported stiffly. — "They are currently in the main dining hall, and they brought two additional witches down from the mountain with them."
Arthur's dark eyes sharpened with immediate interest, snapping his leather notebook shut in one hand, while beside the workbench, Anna's serious face broke into a rare, bright smile of pure relief at hearing that Nightingale and the Commander were safe.
— "Thank you, Minister," — Arthur said, already moving toward the door as he reached for his clean outer tunic. — "Tell His Highness we'll be right there."
Twenty minutes later, the castle's main dining hall looked like a different universe compared to the howling white nightmare of the mountain peaks.
Two massive stone fireplaces roared at either end of the room, throwing waves of dry, comforting heat across the flagstones and banishing the winter chill from the air. Down the center of the long polished oak table, silver platters and earthenware bowls steamed with freshly carved roast pork, thick slices of white bread rubbed with roasted garlic and butter, and a rich, peppery vegetable stew swimming with diced meat.
Seven people sat around the upper half of the table: Roland at the head, Arthur and Anna on his right, and William, Nightingale—who had finally dropped her Mist veil once the servants left—Lightning, and Diana Argus lined up on his left.
Lightning didn't care about royal table manners for even half a second.
The moment Roland told them to eat, the young blonde aviator practically dove face-first into her wooden bowl. With her bright blue eyes shining like polished coins under the chandeliers, she dunked half a loaf of warm garlic bread straight into the thick meat broth, shoved a huge bite into her mouth, and let out a muffled, high-pitched groan of pure bliss as she kicked her boots happily beneath the chair.
Right beside her, however, Diana Argus hadn't touched her spoon.
The twenty-four-year-old former noblewoman sat as stiff as a wooden board on the edge of the cushioned chair, her tattered clothes looking painfully out of place against the fine linen tablecloth.
Her honey-colored eyes darted nervously from the heavy oak double doors to the calm, unreadable face of the dark-haired strategist across the table, and finally to the young prince at the head of the hall. Beneath the table, Diana's frost-chapped fingers were twisted so tightly into the fabric of her skirt that her knuckles had turned completely white.
Why are they feeding us meat and white bread like highborn guests? Diana's mind raced, years of trauma and Cara's horror stories whispering cold panic into her ear. In King's City, when a lord captures an important prisoner, he gives them a hot meal to lower their guard before handing them over to the Church inquisitors in chains! What if this whole room is a trap?!
Before the rising panic in her chest could make her hyperventilate, a warm, gentle hand reached over and rested lightly on top of her trembling shoulder.
Diana flinched slightly and turned her head.
Sitting right beside her with her white hood pushed back over her wavy blond hair, Nightingale looked into Diana's frightened eyes and offered her a soft, reassuring smile that carried zero doubt.
— "Eat while the soup is hot, Diana," — Nightingale murmured quietly, giving the woman's shoulder a comforting squeeze. — "There are no priests behind those doors, and nobody put anything in the food except salt and pepper. You're home now."
Across the table, eighteen-year-old Anna looked up from her own bowl and gave Diana a small, polite nod of encouragement as well.
Looking at two fellow witches sitting completely relaxed at a royal table without a trace of fear, the tight knot of terror inside Diana's chest finally snapped.
Letting out a long, shaky breath she felt she had been holding since leaving the cave, Diana picked up her silver spoon with trembling fingers, dipped it into the steaming broth, and raised it to her lips.
The moment the rich, savory warmth of the soup hit her tongue and slid down into her empty stomach, a single hot tear of pure relief slipped over her eyelashes and rolled down her hollow cheek.
Waiting politely until the newcomers had finished their first bowls and taken the edge off their hunger, Roland set his goblet down and leaned back against his carved chair, his gray eyes turning serious as he looked at William and Nightingale.
— "First of all, welcome back to Border Town," — Roland began, his voice calm and steady in the quiet hall. — "Seeing you return through this blizzard in one piece is a massive relief. However, one look at your faces tells me things at the Association's camp didn't go quite as smoothly as we hoped. Nightingale... tell us what happened up on that mountain."
Nightingale set her napkin down beside her plate and straightened her back. Since William had stayed outside in the gorge during the council around the campfire, she was the only one who could give the full account from the inside.
— "When we reached the cavern three days ago, William waited outside in the cliff fissure so his presence wouldn't frighten the younger girls," — Nightingale started, her voice clear yet heavy as she looked at Roland and Arthur. — "I slipped inside alone and spoke to Wendy first, then addressed the entire camp after supper."
She didn't leave out a single detail.
She told them about finding Smoke at the entrance wearing two white mourning bands for Airy and Abby—the seventeen-year-old twins who had died in agony from the Demonic Bite just four days before she arrived. She explained how she had laid out Prince Roland's offer of employment, showed them the charcoal blueprint of the steam engine, and announced that Anna had passed through her eighteenth birthday without a drop of blood or pain simply by exhausting her magic every day.
— "Many of the younger sisters wanted to believe me, especially the girls close to turning eighteen," — Nightingale continued, her jaw tightening. — "Before anyone could examine the blueprint closely, however, Mentor Cara came out of the inner cave. She had lost her mind to hatred, Your Highness. She called your offer a mortal trap, claimed that girls who die on their eighteenth birthday are simply 'unworthy' of the Holy Mountain, and when I refused to take back my words and turned to leave... she ambushed me from behind with a conjured viper."
Across the table, Anna gasped softly, her hand flying to her mouth, while Roland's eyebrows pulled together in a dark scowl.
— "Her venom paralyzed my vocal cords before I could call out to William," — Nightingale said, her voice wavering slightly for a fraction of a second at the memory of her helplessness. — "When I woke up, Cara had tied me to a wooden support pillar in the center of the hall and hung a stolen God's Stone of Retaliation around my neck to seal my magic."
— "She used a Church medallion on one of her own witches?" — Roland repeated, genuine disgust hardening his voice.
— "She did," — Nightingale confirmed grimly. — "She threw your steam engine drawing straight into the brazier, pulled a white-hot iron poker out of the coals, and held it three inches from my face, giving me a choice between confessing that Border Town was a lie or being impaled on the spot. Wendy stepped in front of the iron to stop her and asked the camp if anyone wanted to leave with me, though everyone was too terrified of Cara to speak up. When Cecilia and a few others begged Cara to spare my life, Cara flew into a screaming rage and raised the hot iron to strike—and that was when William heard her from the gorge."
Nightingale turned her head, her blue eyes softening with deep gratitude as she looked at the tall man sitting silently beside her.
— "He didn't hesitate for a single heartbeat," — Nightingale said quietly. — "He came through that tunnel faster than anyone in the hall could blink, knocked Cara across the room with one blow of his shoulder, shattered the God's Stone of Retaliation into dust with his bare hand, and gave me the opening to pull both of us out through the Mist. Right after we cleared the gorge, Lightning and Lady Diana ran out of the tunnel to join us."
Sitting to Roland's right, Arthur listened to every word in complete silence, his fingers resting lightly against his chin as his Intelligence 14 mind cross-referenced this new reality against the original storyline stored in his head.
When he had first walked into the dining hall ten minutes ago and seen two unfamiliar witches sitting at the table, his eyes had immediately recognized the short blonde girl stuffing her face with garlic bread. The cropped golden hair, the leather aviator cap, and the hyperactive energy matched the manhua illustrations of Lightning down to the last button.
At first glance, Arthur had assumed the older, refined woman sitting next to Lightning had to be Wendy—even though he remembered thinking it was bizarre that she didn't have Wendy's signature long auburn hair and gentle, motherly features, and even stranger that Nightingale had just said Cara was the one William hit instead of Wendy getting bitten by a snake.
Then, noticing Arthur's analytical stare resting on the two newcomers, William finally wiped his mouth with a linen napkin, set it down beside his half-eaten plate, and cleared his throat.
— "Your Highness, Art... I haven't properly introduced our two new arrivals yet," — William said, his voice noticeably lacking its usual cocky swagger as he gestured politely toward the two women. — "This young lady who can outfly any hawk in the mountains is Lightning. And the lady beside her is Lady Diana Argus, formerly of Baron Argus's house."
Arthur blinked once.
For a full two seconds, the high-speed mental gears inside the strategist's head came to a dead, screeching halt.
Diana Argus? Arthur repeated silently behind his calm, polite smile. Who in the seven hells is Diana Argus?!
He had read the original webnovel from chapter one to the very end, and he had reread the early Border Town arcs three times before getting sucked through that television screen. He knew every single witch who joined the Witch Union in Border Town—Wendy, Scroll, Leaf, Lightning, Maggie, Lotus, Sylvie, Evelyn, Candle, Echo, Mystery Moon... He even remembered the names of minor witches from the mountain camp like Stone, Red Pepper, and Smoke.
There had never been a noblewoman named Diana Argus anywhere in the book.
She was a complete unknown—a background human being who had undoubtedly died nameless in the snow during the original story, now sitting alive and breathing at Roland's table because William had kicked a hole straight through the plot!
Before Arthur could ask what Diana's magic did, however, his sharp eyes shifted from the former noblewoman back to his best friend across the table.
While Roland and Anna were expressing their shock over Cara's madness and welcoming Diana and Lightning to the castle, William hadn't looked up once.
The Commander of the First Army—the guy who normally would have been leaning back in his chair bragging at top volume about how he one-shotted a cult leader and crushed a magical rock like a walnut—was staring blankly at a cold piece of roast pork on his wooden plate, his broad shoulders hunched and a heavy, unmistakable shadow of guilt weighing down his jaw.
It took Arthur less than three seconds to read his friend's mind like an open spreadsheet.
He thinks he screwed up, Arthur realized, his eyebrows twitching slightly. Because Wendy stayed behind in the cave and he brought back an unknown extra instead of the Association's second-in-command, Will thinks his charging into that hall ruined the timeline and doomed Wendy and the rest of the witches!
At the head of the table, seeing that Diana was practically nodding off into her soup bowl from sheer exhaustion and that William looked like a man carrying a boulder on his back, Roland clapped both hands lightly against the oak table.
— "Well! Tonight's story is troubling, no doubt about it, yet the only thing that matters right now is that the four of you made it through that storm alive," — Roland said warmly, rising to his feet. — "We can leave the tour of the town and the employment contracts for tomorrow morning. Right now, the maids have already filled the copper tubs with hot water and laid out clean wool blankets in the second-floor guest rooms. Go wash the mountain frost off your bones and get a full night's sleep."
At the words hot water and clean blankets, Lightning nearly launched herself three feet into the air out of her chair, cheering aloud, while Diana stood up and offered the prince a deeply grateful, elegant curtsy.
As Anna and Nightingale led the two exhausted newcomers out through the side door toward the eastern guest wing and Roland headed upstairs to update his notes, the great dining hall quickly emptied out.
Arthur didn't head straight for the stairs.
Walking slowly out into the wide, torch-lit stone corridor outside the hall, the strategist stopped beside one of the massive granite support pillars, leaned his shoulder against the cold stone, and crossed his arms over his chest, waiting.
Thirty seconds later, slow, heavy footsteps dragged across the flagstones of the dining hall.
William walked out through the double doors alone, his head hanging low. Spotting Arthur waiting for him in the quiet shadow of the pillar, William stopped three paces away, glancing down the empty hallway to make sure no guards were within earshot before looking at his friend.
Under the flickering orange light of the wall brackets, William's face looked paler than the snow outside.
— "Art... do you have a minute to talk in private?" — William asked, his voice dropping to a low, rough whisper that sounded completely stripped of its usual bravado. — "I need to tell you what really happened outside that cave. I... I think I royally screwed everything up."
Arthur pushed himself smoothly off the stone pillar and took two steps forward, looking straight into his best friend's bloodshot, guilt-ridden eyes.
William braced his shoulders, clearly expecting the ruthless strategist to tear into him—to remind him of their argument in the third-floor corridor and lecture him on how his hot-headed impatience had just cost Border Town its most important witch recruitment wave.
Instead, Arthur reached out, clapped a warm, steady hand squarely onto William's heavy shoulder, and gave it a firm, brotherly squeeze.
— "Go to bed, Will," — Arthur said, his voice completely calm, quiet, and devoid of a single trace of blame. — "You look like a walking corpse right now. Go get some sleep."
William blinked hard, thrown completely off balance by the reaction.
— "Wait—did you hear what Nightingale just said in there, Art?!" — William protested, grabbing Arthur's wrist with a frantic grip. — "Wendy isn't here! When I was waiting outside in the gorge, I lost my nerve when I heard Cara scream and I charged in like an idiot! Because I attacked Cara too early and yanked Veronica out before they finished arguing, Wendy stayed behind in that maniac's cave! If Cara takes it out on her tomorrow, or if the whole camp marches into the northern blizzards and dies because I scared them off—"
— "William, shut up for two seconds and listen to me," — Arthur interrupted softly, keeping his hand firmly on his friend's shoulder as he met his gaze without blinking. — "You didn't ruin a damn thing. In fact, you pulled off the best possible outcome we could have asked for tonight. You brought Nightingale home alive, you brought us aerial reconnaissance with Lightning, and you pulled an extra life out of the fire who wasn't even supposed to survive this winter. Stop torturing yourself over ghosts and go get eight hours of sleep. We'll talk strategy tomorrow afternoon once your brain isn't frozen solid."
For five full seconds, William simply stared at him, his mouth slightly open.
He had spent seventy-two hours bracing himself for Arthur's cold analytical fury—or at least a biting "I told you so". Hearing the smartest guy he knew tell him with absolute, unshakeable certainty that nothing was ruined knocked the last ounce of nervous adrenaline right out of William's legs.
Too exhausted to argue against that calm conviction, William let out a long, shaky breath, gave a heavy nod, and turned to drag his aching boots up the staircase toward his bedroom.
Standing alone in the quiet, torch-lit corridor, Arthur watched his friend's broad back disappear around the landing above, a small, genuine smile curving the corners of his mouth.
Arthur hadn't just said those words to make William feel better.
Every single word had been the cold, hard truth.
Because William had always read stories for the action scenes while Arthur read them for the plot mechanics, William had completely forgotten a crucial detail about how the Witch Cooperation Association's split actually happened in the original novel!
Will thinks Wendy would have come with Nightingale if he had just waited outside another five minutes, Arthur thought, shaking his head with a quiet chuckle as he turned to walk toward his own quarters. What he forgot is that in the original book, Wendy didn't believe Nightingale's story about Border Town either!
In the original timeline, when Nightingale returned to the cave alone and Cara tried to execute her at the stake, Wendy had stepped in to defend her—just as she had done three nights ago. Even then, however, Wendy had flatly refused to abandon the camp or follow Nightingale to the Prince.
The only reason Wendy had fled the cave with Nightingale in the original story was that during the struggle at the stake, Cara had gone berserk and ordered her deadly poison vipers to bite Wendy directly in the arm! With Wendy dying on the floor from lethal snake venom and Cara abandoning the wounded, Nightingale had been forced to carry a half-dead, agonizingly poisoned Wendy on her back through the blizzard just to beg Nana Pine to save her life!
Because William had smashed through that tunnel like a human cannonball the exact second Cara started screaming, Cara had been knocked flat on her back before she could turn her snakes on Wendy!
Think about what you actually changed, Will, Arthur mused, his eyes gleaming in the dim hallway light. Because you jumped in when you did, Wendy didn't get poisoned half to death, Nightingale didn't have to crawl through the snow carrying a dying woman, we got Lightning weeks ahead of schedule, and you saved a noblewoman named Diana Argus who originally died in that cave!
As for Wendy and the remaining witches still stuck on the mountain under Cara's thumb?
Arthur wasn't worried about them in the slightest. Now that Wendy had seen Cara try to murder Nightingale with a red-hot iron AND seen Cara get swatted like a fly by Border Town's commander, the seed of doubt was already planted deep inside that cave. And before the worst of the winter demons hit their camp, Arthur already had a much more decisive plan forming in the back of his mind to bring the rest of the Association home.
Turning the brass handle of his bedroom door, the strategist stepped inside with a light heart, more certain than ever that even when his hot-blooded partner went off script, the two of them were rewriting the fate of this world for the better.