The Witch in the Woods: The Transmigration of Hazel-Anne Davis

"Continue," one of the ministers urged Bai Yuyan without taking his eyes off me. "We want to hear what you have to say."

Yuyan dipped her head like a lily in a polite wind. "As I was saying," she purred, "Baiguang is in mourning. Our capital suffered—" she didn't say who made it suffer, wasn't that civilized "—a terrible losses. I come—" and here she let her voice tremble just enough "—not to beg, but to…understand. To offer what remains of the royal house to reconciliation."

The word clicked neatly into place next to the others she'd set out: civilized, peace, mourning, reconciliation. A trail of sugar leading to a cage.

"Funny," I said, and my voice carried to the back wall without trying. "Normally when I step on a cockroach, it doesn't usually stand up and offer me reconciliation."

Silence is its own kind of applause.

Yuyan's eyes widened half a fraction—theater, not surprise. "Princess Zhao," she said, surprised at finding me in my own house. "How fortunate. We were just discussing the proper rites for ending a war."

"See, that's where I am a bit confused," I purred, walking forward until I was standing beside Mingyu. He reached out and wrapped his arm around my back, pulling me in closer to his chair.

"The war started when you claimed that my husband tortured you," I continued, noting that out of the corner of my eye, Li Xuejian straightening a bit. "The war started when you told YOUR husband that MINE wanted you and you gallantly refused his advances. Tell me, Yuyan, who was flirting when my husband at every banquet? Who suggested the hunt to be able to take advantage and kill everyone else in the line of succession? Who was it that helped kidnap me, who helped someone to torture me, all in the name of getting MY husband?"

A hush came over the room as I reminded each and every minister exactly why we had been fighting for so long.

Apparently, they had forgotten.

"I didn't start this war," I continued, leaning even closer to Mingyu. I let him take some of my weight, some of my burden.

And then man didn't even flinch.

"But I sure as fuck ended it."

"Ah." She smiled the way a snake might smile if it had lips. "And yet here we all still are."

Shadow's growl stayed in his chest where only I could feel it. I straightened from where I was, but Mingyu didn't let go. If anything, he held me tighter. The nearest guards shifted back like the carpet had caught fire.

Mingyu's gaze came to me and steadied. The look said a lot of things; an not one of them was "don't." I breathed in once, out once, catalogued how badly I wanted a bed, and how much less I wanted to leave this to men who liked the idea of being civilized more than they liked the idea of being alive.

"Bai Yuyan arrived at our border with an entourage," a minister offered, brave behind propriety. "As refugees."

"Refugees don't travel with physicians and scribes," Deming said, dry enough to suck the humidity out of a river.

"They also don't take the front of the line," Sun Longzi added, looking at Yuyan's unscuffed boots. "Or ride mules."

She bowed just enough to be offensive. "It is true I come with what I could save. Names. Ledgers. Connections. Baiguang will need rebuilding. Someone must know where to begin."

"And you think that someone is you," I said.

"No, I don't," she assured me. "I think that someone is Li Xuejian. My husband." She stressed the word 'my' like I had, and I couldn't help but shake my head.

Were all modern people this frustrating to deal with?

She never lived in the Devil's Playground, and it showed.

For the first time since I entered here, I noticed that she wasn't even looking at Mingyu anymore. She was studying me the way scholars study beetles under glass—turning me gently with a pin, curious about the angles.

"If you'd like the chance at a new life," I purred, raising my hand, "we can always start in the kitchen."

A few ministers forgot they were furniture and inhaled.

Yuyan's smile didn't slip. "It would be an honor," she said sweetly. "But I didn't come to be fed, Your Highness. I came to keep people from starving. Ours. Yours. It is simple math—"

"That your family lost the right to do when they put soldiers in my valleys," I shrugged like it wasn't that big of a deal. But it was.

It was a very big deal.

She lifted her hands, palms delicate, empty. "Which is why I'm here instead of them."

Her gaze flicked toward the dais as if she had said something selfless. Mingyu did not move. His stillness made other men fidget. He'd learned that trick young and never stopped using it.

"Here's my math," I purred. "You were upset over the fact that your husband was here without you. You decided to play the virtuous wife instead of the jealous one, and left before I even managed to arrive at the Capital. He," I tipped my chin at the scribe who had been pretending to be air, "Is here to show that you were being 'gallant' instead of petty when you ran after your husband. Your guards kept your hands clean. Your physician kept your face pretty. You arrived in gray because you didn't want any trouble on the roads. You didn't expect to see the refugees, your plan was completely different than what your reality was."

I paused for a moment. "But I have to give you some commendation on being able to pivot as fast as you did. It is really impressive. How many refugees didn't make it to safety because you forced your way inside of our borders?"

"If you say it in that tone, even kindness sounds like a crime," she murmured.

"Then stop committing it."

Her lashes lowered. It should have looked humble. It looked calculating. "Is this where you send me to a cell?" she asked lightly. "I would not blame you."

"Not a cell." I was too tired to enjoy this. "A guest compound. Far from the kitchens and right beside your loving husband. I wonder if he will still love you, knowing that you are the reason the entire royal family of Baiguang died."

From the corner of my eye, I saw Li Xuejian stiffen. But he hadn't said a word yet, hadn't step out from the shadows to support his own wife.

Interesting.

"Peelers' Court," one of the ministers said before he caught himself, pulling me out of my thoughts.

"Perfect," I said. "They'll teach you how to strip root vegetables without nicking the tuber."

Yuyan's mouth actually twitched. Not fear. Annoyance that I'd put her in a place she couldn't pretend was beneath her because pretending would admit the wound. She took a breath so shallow it didn't move her ribs.

"I didn't come to fight with you," she said, softer now. "Truly. We are both women who—"

"No."

She blinked. "No…?"

"We are not both anything."

A smaller silence. Sharp around the edges. It cut in the throat.

"My people are dead, Princess Zhao," she said finally, choice made; angle shifted. "Whatever you think of me, remember them."

"I remember all of them." I let my gaze slide off her shoulder and settle like a knife on the ministers who'd been so eager to negotiate with men who used villagers for kindling. "And I remember exactly who put them between us."

Mingyu stood then. His arm still firmly around my body as he pulled me into his side. My hand fell on his chest to keep steady, and I couldn't help but notice the smirk on his face when I didn't bother to remove it.

"Bai Yuyan," he said, voice level, carrying. "You will take rest in the guest compound assigned. Your attendants will be registered. Your ledgers will be reviewed. Your people will be fed."

She bowed, beautiful. "Thank you, Your Highness."

"And you will not appear in this hall again without summons," he finished.

A heartbeat. Then another. She straightened and smiled at him the way a cat smiles at a bowl it plans to knock off a table later. "Of course."

"Escort the Lady," Deming said.

Two guards stepped forward, careful hands, careful eyes. Yuyan turned to me one last time, the not-quite-curtsy of equals in her bones even if it didn't belong there.

"Princess," she said, sweet as spoiled fruit. "I am glad to have this conversation with you."

"And I am sorry to even be having it with you," I told her, and let the smile show teeth, "Then again, I guess cockroaches always manage to find some way to live."

The moment she left, the hall exhaled like someone had been holding its head under water. Men looked at their knees again. Brushes remembered how to move. The incense kept burning because it had never cared.

I didn't move until the echo of her steps had washed down the stairs and gone thin.

Mingyu's eyes found me. "You're hurt," he said quietly. It wasn't a question, not really. I realized then that my left hand, the one still on his chest, had a smear of blood across the knuckles where I had scraped it on some ice. The wound had healed, but I hadn't cleaned off the blood.

"I'm tired," I replied with a shrug.

"Those are the same thing," he said. "Come on, let's get you to bed."