The Witch in the Woods: The Transmigration of Hazel-Anne Davis-Chapter 368: The Jackal’s Last Run

"Now," Yizhen directed, already in motion.

Deming yanked the Jackal forward by the collar and wrist of his robes.

Longzi cleared the threshold first, shoulder to the jamb, his eyes cutting the corridor. Yaozu slid into the rear angle, forearm still owning the hinge of bone that made the Jackal’s hand polite.

Shadow padded beside the procession like a dark tide.

Mingyu lingered one breath at the bedside. Xinying’s fingers caught his wrist before he could try and climb back in. "Go," she said softly, "I’m fine. I know you need to see this finished with your own two eyes."

He bent down, brushing her temple once with his mouth, and gave the smallest nod. "Lock the outer screen," he instructed Yaozu without raising his voice.

Yaozu flicked two fingers; Longzi pushed the panel with a heel, quiet as a thought. The latch found its home with a soft click. Mingyu straightened his back and fell in behind Deming.

They moved as one. Carpets swallowed footfalls. A night-lamp along the wall skimmed steel and cheekbone; then the light was behind them and the corridor narrowed.

The Jackal twisted at the hip and earned a short correction. Deming bounced him off a pillar with enough force to tell the skull of the other man who owned the hour. Yaozu’s grip did not shift; only the angle changed, converting momentum into compliance.

"You keep counting exits," Yizhen observed, pacing backward ahead of them and watching the Jackal’s eyes. "You’re running out of numbers."

"I only need one," the Jackal returned through his teeth.

"Not on this floor," Longzi muttered, already turning a corner.

A sleepy eunuch glanced up from a stool outside a linen closet and saw nothing except four shadows carrying a fifth. He blinked, stared at his hands, and decided not to learn any new stories before dawn. Closing his eyes, he went to sleep.

Mingyu lifted a hand without breaking stride. A guard posted at the end of the gallery pivoted and peeled off down a side hall to reroute the next patrol.

Deming shoved the Jackal down the stairs hard enough to make his knees think about repentance.

Shadow moved last, then first, then last again, always where a throat would need teeth.

"You built a storm," the Jackal goaded, breath scraping. "I brought a match."

"You brought damp wood," Yaozu returned with a sneer.

The next landing opened to a service passage tiled in cheap brick.

A scullery boy froze at the far end, bucket in hand. Yizhen flashed two fingers at him, the kind of command street children understood in any dialect. The boy vanished into a doorway with the bucket still in the air.

"East," Mingyu clipped.

"Vault," Deming confirmed.

"Locks are ready," Yaozu added.

"Gates?" Mingyu prompted.

Yizhen smiled into the dark. "Shut. The streets are, too."

They met the first problem at the bend before the east ward.

Two Northern Winds lookouts stepped from an alcove they never should have found and moved with that animal confidence men get when they’ve bribed the wrong servant.

Longzi didn’t bother drawing steel. He closed the first throat with his forearm and put the body down in a heap that never had time to kick back.

Deming guided the second into the wall and kept going while the man figured out that air was a privilege. Yaozu never loosened his hold on the primary problem.

"They’re in your hallways," the Jackal taunted, catching the move and filing it as hope. "And you left the Empress by herself. Do you still think that is a good idea?"

"They were," Yizhen corrected, stepping over an outstretched hand like a puddle. "And you never need to worry about the Empress. She has her own brand of justice that you should be thankful that you aren’t experiencing."

They cut east.

The palace changed timbre—stone cool, wall-thick, the air carrying the breathless quiet of places that hold secrets. A recessed door waited at the end of a plain corridor. No guards. No lamps. Only a keyhole that looked like an eye if you knew what to watch for.

Mingyu produced the key from his sleeve. "Open," he ordered.

Yaozu freed one hand long enough to relieve him of that duty.

The lock turned without objection. Deming shoveled the Jackal inside, Longzi slotted in behind him, and Yizhen lifted a lamp from a niche and fed it a wick while closing the outer panel to a whisper.

The vault was a room and a throat.

Stone swallowed the last of the palace’s breath. Rings set into the floor waited with old patience. Chains lay coiled like docile snakes. A plain table squatted under the wall with a bowl, a cloth, and a ledger that did not concern money.

Deming dumped the Jackal to his knees. Longzi set a boot between shoulder blades. Yaozu fixed the first chain with two clean motions, then the second. The iron answered with a sound the room recognized.

"You run an empire like a butcher’s shop," the Jackal mocked, flexing to test the lead on the cuffs. "Clean hooks. Fresh water. No customers leave unhappy."

"Customers here don’t leave," Deming grunted, adding a link.

Yizhen brought the lamp closer, light skimming the Jackal’s face. "You could have kept trading coin and rumors," he mused. "But then you chose an empress. Bold. Stupid."

"Stupidity only counts if you lose," the Jackal returned.

"You’re losing," Longzi reminded him, cheerful as a morning drill.

The door sighed, the outer bolt settling. Mingyu leaned a hip to the table and inspected the stolen knife. It glinted once and went meek in his palm.

"You want to brag," he noted. "You want me to listen. Pretend I’m interested in your petty words."

The Jackal licked a cut in the corner of his mouth and smiled with blood in his teeth. "Let’s skip the petty words. Let’s try futures."

"No," Mingyu replied. "We are dealing with past."

Yizhen tightened the chain at the ankle until metal kissed bone.

"Pasts plural," he corrected. "Lin Wei. Then the underworld prince. Tonight the Empress. You operate like a man who thinks your math never runs out of numbers."

"It doesn’t," the Jackal countered. "You only stop counting when the ledger catches fire."

The lamp’s flame leaned as if eavesdropping.

Shadow planted himself by the door and watched without blinking. Deming checked the shackles with the uninterested efficiency of a soldier who had cuffed men on three continents. Yaozu waited with the calm of a man who heard hinges the way others heard music.

Mingyu placed the Jackal’s knife on the ledger and turned it once with his index finger. "Names," he prompted, tone empty of promise. "Handlers. Doors. Coin. I want to know which bricks believed they could survive the house falling."

"You already closed my gates," the Jackal observed. "This is for pageantry."

"This is not for you," Yizhen returned. "This is for the men who thought you were more important than you actually are."

The Jackal studied Mingyu’s face for any crack he could prise open. "You hid in rooms while I walked in snow. She doesn’t belong to the sort of man who reads ledgers at two in the morning."

Mingyu’s attention didn’t move. "She belongs to herself. Everything else is a perimeter."

"You marry perimeters, Emperor?" the Jackal needled.

"I marry only one," Mingyu answered.