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

The east corridor was warmer, but warmth meant nothing to me until I had Lin Wei in my own hands.

Brazier smoke coiled low, servants running faster than they had in their lives, the soft slippered feet slapping stone in their hurry to make themselves useful.

Yaozu cleared the path with the set of his shoulders, Shadow pacing ahead of him like death on four legs. Mingyu didn't speak, didn't need to. He walked a step behind me, his silence harder than iron, and no one in the palace mistook it for weakness.

Sun Yizhen—no, Yan Luo tonight—still carried my son pressed to his chest.

Lin Wei hadn't let go of the man since they pulled him out of a coffin meant to move grain or corpses, as if the child had decided this man was the only thing standing between him and the road that had tried to eat him alive.

His little hands had found the fold of Yizhen's robe and fastened themselves there like hooks driven through silk, and it hurt my heart that he was still that scared, even in his own house.

I should have minded more that he clung to another. A mother should have. But I didn't. What mattered was that Lin Wei was alive, breathing, still clinging to something. I would not take that from him.

The chamber door slid open before we reached it, braziers inside already glowing orange.

Servants scattered to the edges like crows, arms heavy with linens, basins of water steaming. A physician knelt in front of the pallet, lacquer box open, hands twitching like a man who wants to explain his value before someone kicks it out of him.

I didn't slow.

"Out," I said.

His head jerked up. "But Your—"

"Out." I didn't raise my voice. I didn't have to.

The word moved through the room like steel scraping a scabbard. The man gathered his box so fast he nearly dropped it. The other servants stared, wide-eyed, until Yaozu jerked his chin at the door. They filed out in silence, their white linens leaving trails of steam behind.

Only my chosen stayed: Mingyu, Yaozu, Shadow, Gaoyu by the door, and Yizhen with Lin Wei still hooked into his chest.

I stepped forward, dipped my hands in the steaming basin without waiting for a cloth, and reached for my son. "Come on, Sweetness," I murmured softly.

Lin Wei whimpered and tightened his grip on Yizhen's robe, silently shaking his head.

For a heartbeat, I thought I might have to fight my own child. But then I exhaled through my nose, steady and even, the way I'd taught him when he was still small enough to believe air could be commanded like soldiers.

"Breathe with me, Wei," I said, pressing my hand to his head. "One… two… three… four."

His shallow breaths stuttered, then lined up with mine. He didn't let go of Yizhen, but he loosened enough for me to slide my hands over him. That was all I needed.

The bruise under the bad dye was yellow at the edges, spreading ugly across his cheekbone. The glue clumped at his scalp, matting hair to skin like a careless butcher patching a pelt. His wrists showed burns where cords had bitten too long.

I could have fetched salt, vinegar, knives. I could have ordered poultices. But this was my son, and I had no patience for half-measures.

I set my palm against his head.

The air shifted.

Mist curled out of my skin, not black this time but white, thin as a sigh and sharp as frost. It licked across the glue, and the hardened patches loosened, peeling back without pulling skin. I traced the bruise with two fingers, and the yellow darkened, then flushed red, then vanished into the warmth of his face. The rope burns faded to pale lines and then nothing at all.

Lin Wei shuddered, a sound catching in his throat, and then his breath evened. His little hands still clung, but not with panic—just the bone-deep grip of a child remembering that safety existed.

I felt eyes on me and lifted my head.

Yizhen stood very still, his body locked in the act of carrying my son.

His eyes had gone wide, just for a heartbeat, enough to betray the calculation he was always so careful to hide. He had seen death often, had dealt it himself. But this—this was not death. This was something else, something he couldn't label with the neat words he used for knives and games of power.

He didn't ask. He didn't open his mouth. He only inclined his head a fraction, as if adjusting to a truth he hadn't expected to meet in daylight.

I gave him nothing in return. No explanation, no defense. My hand never left Wei's head.

"Good," I whispered to the boy. "You're good, WeiWei. You're home."

His eyes, too wide and too dry, slid toward me.

For the first time since he had been taken, he blinked without flinching. His mouth worked once, soundless, then closed. He pressed his cheek into my palm, then back against Yizhen's chest.

That was enough.

I wrung out a cloth, wiped the last traces of paste from his skin, then folded it away as if it were already filth to be burned. The air smelled cleaner, sharper, like iron under rain. Shadow padded forward, laid his head against the pallet, and gave a low rumble.

Lin Wei's little hand twitched, then released Yizhen's robe long enough to touch the dog's ear. Just once. Then back again, clutching silk.

I nodded. Shadow lay down, satisfied.

Mingyu finally moved. He hadn't spoken once since the gate, but now he came forward, setting his hand against the edge of the pallet. His face was stone, but his eyes traced every inch of Wei as if memorizing new scars that would never quite fade.

"He's alive," he said simply.

"He's alive," I agreed. My voice was a blade sheathed, not softened.

I straightened, water dripping from my hands, and turned to Yizhen. "He won't let go."

"No," Yizhen said, voice quiet.

"Then you'll stay," I answered. Not an order, not a request. A statement.

The faintest flicker crossed his face—relief, maybe, or the weight of inevitability—but it was gone before I could pin it. He bowed his head slightly, not in fealty but in recognition of the line just drawn around him.

I looked back down at my son. His breathing had steadied. His fists were still locked, but now they gripped out of need, not terror. The mist faded from my hands, leaving only warmth.

I brushed the damp hair from his forehead and let my thumb rest against skin that was finally clean.

"You're safe," I told him again, for both our sakes. "You're safe, WeiWei. And no one will ever take you from me again."

He didn't answer. He didn't need to. His breath was enough.

The chamber settled.

Yaozu leaned against the doorframe, counting futures. Gaoyu shifted his weight, already thinking of the prisoners. Mingyu kept his silence, the kind that holds walls upright. Shadow exhaled through his nose and lowered his head.

And Yizhen still stood there, Wei clutched to him, eyes a little too wide for once, carrying the truth he had seen but would never speak.

I did not offer him words.

Some things are better left understood.