Delphine Inland

The tessellated pavement of the main street has signs painted on the ground. It is pictograms, such as arrows and symbols, in yellow for structures and light gray to indicate routes. Crafted to be easily recognizable even by the illiterate, that is, a large part of the population of Ialtia.

If only there weren't all these people covering the road.

Delphine notices how ineffective that signaling method is. The presence of many busy people in the daily comings and goings makes it hard to identify the symbols or streets of interest.

The sun is beating down, and most citizens wear grey, white, or brown shirts, often sleeveless, with capri trousers or skirts above the knee. Many bow as she passes.

Only a few workers carrying out their duties, a mailman, the guards, and some merchants, do not bow and have more specific clothing less suitable for combating the heat.

Glancing over her shoulder, Delphine involuntarily alarms the gendarmes following her.

Commander Grullo, very tall compared to Delphine, steps forward.

“Is something troubling you, Your Holiness?”

Delphine looks up and notices the man's sweaty forehead and pregnant collar.

“I think I'm lost.” She is embarrassed by admitting it. She cannot reveal that she is not the 'real' Delphine. But a dimensional substitute for her. “Could you lead the way?”

The four gendarmes, muscular and taller than average, exchange perplexed looks but say nothing. How could they? Delphine knows well that none of them are allowed to express themselves freely.

Grullo makes a little bow, causing the jeweled sheaths of the two swords he carries at his side to clash together.

“Of course, Your Holiness. I imagine. The heat and the presence of all these rabble may have confused you.”

“Hmm, yeah, yeah…”

“If I may make a note, Your Holiness.”

“Say it.”

“At the station, we could have used a motorized carriage. After all, they exist for your convenience.”

How stupid, I hadn't thought of that.

“Um, yes, Grullo, the fact is that I wanted to take a walk.”

“Out of your garden, Your Holiness?”

“After all, isn't the city of Ampra part of my duchy?” Delphine giggles nervously, hiding her mouth behind her fan. She interrupts abruptly, realizing that no gendarme is laughing.

“Forgive us, Your Holiness. We understand that you did not intend to claim the property granted by the State as your reserve. Forgive us if we missed the humor on a legal issue, not our duty.”

Delphine frowns.

She glazes at the big man with the white pigtail, feeling foolish. Then, suddenly, the lighting.

Oh, that's right. The cities are administered but not owned by the Witches. It's all state property.

Somewhere in the novel, there was an infodump on the topic.

I must have used speed reading to skip those parts…

Once clarified, Delphine closes the fan and signals Grullo to lead the way. The gendarme nods and moves forward, and the crossing resumes.

The city is a mass of two/to three-floor buildings compacted together without a real urban plan. There are no long, straight streets, and it is all a whirlwind of strange corners, asymmetrical intersections, and more or less small squares.

In the background, the chimneys of the industrial suburbs stand out. Clouded by the immense distance, the silhouette of the mountains reigns.

In any case, the city smells like sewer. The traveled road is clean, but Delphine knows that a large part of the city still has open sewers, especially in the working-estates neighborhoods.

People talk and talk about things that Delphine cannot fully grasp. Thinking back to the novel narrator's voice, she notes how different the lived reality is from a told story. As on earth, there are also bars and shops of all kinds.

Who knows how Archdevil is going? He ran straight away this morning. On the train, he did nothing but stare at me catatonic and move. He cannot sit calmly, apparently.

Grullo stops, distracting Delphine from her thoughts.

An elderly beggar approached him. She has a dirty bandage on her eye. She holds out a tin can. The commander of the gendarmes stares at her in an unmistakably annoyed manner.

Delphine wonders whether or not she should intervene. She does not want to witness some form of social abuse.

Although come to think of it, my very existence is currently the source of such injustice.

Grullo takes a small purse out of a pocket of his trousers. He takes out a tiny shiny coin and drops it into the tin.

The beggar thanks, bows, and disperses into the crowd.

The group sets off again.

Ten cents to the beggar, each citizen has 1 lira in annual taxes. Even the beggar has to earn it.

Delphine thinks back to that passage. Perhaps it was not really like that in the novel.

In any case, Grullo's behavior was not coincidental.

Promising to investigate the matter, Delphine decides not to ask anything so as not to arouse the suspicion of her guards.

The court is an imposing structure whose facade overlooks a square beyond the covered place of the central citadel.

Delphine finds it similar to a neo-Gothic cathedral, with a single clock tower instead of a bell tower. Upon entering, the sensation amplified. There are statues, frescoes, stained-glass windows, and other works of blatantly religious taste.

The religion of witches that rule the masses under the cult of the Imperial Parliament.

Delphine finds this ironic. It is a sort of revenge in another world. If earth witches had ever been a reality, perhaps the earth would have ended up in their hands, too. Did not the people of the time fear a conspiracy of witches? But maybe it was just politics.

Delphine is not sure what to think. At university, she studied economics. She has no solid historical knowledge and feels that perhaps she is letting herself be guided by clichés.

Impressive, anyway.

After climbing some steps, where the apse should be, there is a wall with pointed windows and a door.

Grullo knocks and announces the Third Witch.

“Your Holiness, come in.”

Inside the room, a man in elegant clothing, with a suit with a peak collar and tied hair, is stroking his handlebar mustache. He bows as soon as Delphine frames him and holds a broadsheet newspaper in his hand with a headline in floral serif fonts.

Journal of Ampra

Nereo puts the newspaper back on the table.

“Greetings, Your Holiness.”

“Greetings, Nereo,” Delphine remembers his name, voluntarily omitting the title Praetor-Marquis. He is a good lawyer, one of the few who will remain close to Delphine during the early stages of her madness.

Too bad he will abandon me in my time of need.

“Your Holiness, to what do we owe this unannounced visit?”

“I need the Witch Judge of Ampra.”

Nereo looks down at the newspaper.

“Perhaps Your Holiness did not know. But the Witch Judge has been summoned to help at the Eggrio court. They arrested some seditious people. They occupied the local press, as well as some officials of—”

“Of the burning of the mills. Sixteen out of eighteen were burned. Understandable they called for help.”

Nereo nods while the gendarmes reveal shocked faces. No one read the day's newspaper, nor Delphine did they see do so.

Delphine opens her fan to hide a smile. Having an answer book is helpful and fun too.

“So, you already know.”

“Yes, I'm aware. It's a shame the Witch isn't here. It's a rather urgent matter.”

“If you came in person, Your Holiness, I do not doubt it. Please report to me so I can put it in the record.”

Delphine shakes her head.

“I'm sorry, Nereo. Is this a subject that must remain secret? I think so. Tell her that she's an honored guest in the palace. When she gets back, of course.”

The Third Witch starts to leave, and a gendarme hurries to open the door for her.

Delphine turns around, looking bored, unable to decide how to exploit Nereo. He is a capable but unreliable man.

Maybe I can already change the course of events.

I need Clea. She will be the one to destabilize the President's power.

However, I can sell some information to Nereo and lead him to be my debtor.

“Your Holiness, is there anything else I can do?”

“Nereo, I'll give you some news. The riot will not end with the mills burned. Eggrio will fall into revolutionary hands in the next two days.”

Grullo steps forward to say something. His face betrays his surprise. The Praetor-Marquis is no different. His mouth opens beneath the brown mustache.

“Don't make those faces. They will attack the university. The Witch Priscilla is inept. She will be captured, like a hostage. Indeed, if the timing is right, perhaps it is already happening. So, Nereo, I have to correct what I said. To the palace, invite the next Witch Judge of Ampra. I doubt we will see the current one again.”

“Your Holiness, you… how do you do it? How can you say these things?”

“I am the Third Witch of the Empire, aren't I?”

Nereo nods while the gendarmes, who know Delphine's powers better, remain perplexed.

The bureaucrat has the scared, anxious look of someone worried about someone he loves.

Delphine understands that he would like to ask for more, but she has no intention of leaving him more than crumbs. Knowing that he will cheat on her, it is better to leave him in her place right away. Manipulate it just enough.

“I will send you the first available Witch Judge, then. Your Holiness, in any case, you will have to be patient for a few days. If it is true that the Witch Judge is in danger—”

“Thank you, yes, yes, I will wait a few days.”

Delphine leaves the room. She hears the door close behind her and the gendarmes' following footsteps.

It is not that she did not expect it. Delphine knew, thanks to her novel, that the social situation would soon heat up. The Eggrio rebellions are the beginning of a revolution second to none in the history of the Empire.

However, Delphine certainly did not expect a protester to rush to stab her as she left the courthouse. The gesture of a madman. The result of circumstances of her having acted differently from what is written in the book.

The stab of the attacker, a good-looking and well-dressed man in his thirties, is foiled by a move by Grullo. A sudden twist of the arm, the criminal is knocked down.

“For the free nation of Dalorbami! For freedom—HA!”

Delphine's gaze from above, her mouth covered by the fan. She masks fear, the fear of being hit. It is not the fear of the Third Witch at that moment but the trembling of an average person.

“Who sent you!? What did you think you were doing!?”

Grullo yells at the man on the ground while Delphine thinks about her children. She looks at the knife at her feet, a kitchen blade for filleting meat. In the earthly past, she has used them for cooking over and over throughout her life.

A power, a feeling that she recognizes as power, flows through her in this moment. The adrenaline, the crowd all around, and Delphine could not say what that sensation was, that subcutaneous swarming.

She knows that she could kill. All she would have to do is raise her finger, point it, or even say a word, and it would be the end for that healthy attacker. Indeed, the thought was enough.

It feels strange nausea that runs through her, an intoxicating sense of power.

“Grullo.”

“Your Holiness.”

“Let's go away.”

“But Your Holiness, this man—”

“He has already received his sentence. Let him go free.”

And that is how it is. Grullo gets up and brushes the sleeves of his uniform. The crowd murmurs. Delphine is not sure what to think.

It was enough to think about it.

“Your Holiness, have you stopped his heart?”

The speaker is a gendarme bent over the body, two fingers on the neck to feel the pulse.

“Huh?” Delphine looks at him, unsure how to respond. “Yes, yes, the heart…”

But the truth emerges and resurfaces. Moving away, the crowd closes around the abandoned body. Delphine glances further and further away and thinks.

She thinks of that dead heart in seconds. The criminal died of a fulminant disease, a terrible infection. His brain, lungs, and heart stopped simultaneously.

At least he didn't suffer.

Delphine could not tell if it was a relief or a torment. What disturbs her is thinking about her children and the people around her. If she is that powerful, she needs to keep her thoughts of herself at bay. She will have to follow the hitherto ignored etiquette.