The Witch in the Woods: The Transmigration of Hazel-Anne Davis-Chapter 385: The Sweet Taste Of Wishes and Promises

"Not incidents?" Yizhen asked. "Not fevers or bad fish or slipping on a very dramatic staircase? I’m asking for a friend."

Hattie considered. "You are difficult to kill by accident. The world likes you too much. It would take intent. It would take work. I mean, I am essentially turning you into full blooded demons, even the dude in the corner. But yes... if someone manages to find a way to kill one of you, the string doesn’t ask about paperwork. It pulls everything it connects, and you’ll all die."

Xinying breathed out. "Fair."

Yizhen put an arm over his eyes. "Of course she thinks that’s fair."

Mingyu’s thumb tapped once on the table, then stopped. "I am not easy to kill as it is."

"Neither am I," Longzi said, which for him counted as a speech.

Deming glanced at the children’s door. "What about them?"

Hattie’s gaze warmed. "They carry her blood," she said. "They carry more than that. They’ll stop aging around twenty-five. They’ll be stubborn about it. They’ll complain at thirty that they still get asked for proof of age at wine stalls. They’ll look like their mother on good days and like their fathers when she’s angry with them."

"Careful," Yizhen said. "You’re making it sound like fun."

"I am fun," Hattie said. She cut a look back to Xinying. "Do you want it?"

"Yes," Xinying said, and the word was easy.

Deming raised a practical finger. "Clause about injuries that would have killed a mortal but don’t kill us now. We still bleed?"

Hattie slapped her knee. "That’s my favorite question you ask, paperboy. Yes, you still bleed. You still break bones. You still get headaches. You still cut your fingers on fruit knives if you’re showing off." She rolled her eyes at Yizhen. "Immortal is not invincible. You heal fast. You live long. You don’t rot like fruit. That’s all. Besides, Hazel-Anne can heal anyone she wants. It’s up to her if you are on that list or not."

"Do our tempers get worse?" Yizhen asked. "Asking for the room."

"Yours does," Hattie said sweetly. "Everyone else improves."

Longzi looked at the sleeping door. "What if they don’t want it when they’re grown?"

"They will," Hattie said. "And if they say they don’t, they’re lying, and you will know it, and they will know that you know."

She considered. "If one truly doesn’t—if a child grown asks to be mortal—you can come find me and we will talk. I will not trick your sons and daughters." She cut her eyes back to Xinying. "I do not trick you. But you know how demon lineage works. This isn’t me granting wishes. This is who they are, just like you are who you are."

Xinying nodded once. "I know."

Hattie softened at that. She reached forward and tucked a loose strand of hair behind Xinying’s ear like an aunt straightening a bride. "Good. Then wish it."

Mingyu interrupted, folding his hands in front of him. "Xinying."

She looked at him. He held her eyes with a steadiness that had toppled kings and then learned to be careful for her. "Do it," he said, calm as a judgment. "We built a world. I would like time to enjoy it with you."

Deming dipped his head. "It reduces the administrative burden of planning for a hundred years in ten-year increments."

Yizhen stared at the ceiling like he was bargaining with it. "I demand to look twenty-two forever or I’m going to be unbearable."

"You already are," Longzi said.

Yaozu finally spoke. "Stay," he told her, simple as a hand on a knife.

She smiled at him without trying to hide it. "Always."

She turned back to Hattie. "I want my husbands to live as long as I do," she said, clear. "I want none of us to age past the faces we have when we decide we like them."

"Fine print?" Hattie prompted.

"If one of us is killed, we all die," Xinying said. "We’ll be careful. We already are."

Hattie’s grin went bright enough to be dangerous. "Done."

Nothing exploded.

No wind raced through the room knocking pears from bowls.

No trumpet blared.

Shadow lifted his head, ears pricked, then put his chin back down with a sigh that sounded like about time.

The lamps burned the same. The air felt different the way a room feels different after someone forgives you and you didn’t know you were waiting for it.

Yizhen sat up. "That’s it?"

"That’s it," Hattie said. "I don’t do confetti. It’s a bitch to get out of my hair."

Deming’s mouth tugged. "Thank you," he said, earnest in a way that made him look absurdly young.

Mingyu inclined his head in that formal way that meant gratitude and I will owe you if you make me and don’t make me. Hattie winked at him. "You owe me nothing except humor, boyo. Make her laugh."

He looked at Xinying like that was the easiest order anyone had ever given him.

Longzi’s voice came quiet. "If they come for us, they will learn."

"They can try," Hattie said mildly, and for a blink the room remembered that this small, sharp-mouthed woman had teeth that ate rules.

Then the blink passed and she was only Hattie, elbow on her knee, chin in her palm, pleased to sit on a nice rug and be loved by people who didn’t owe her anything.

Yaozu stepped away from the window. He crossed to Xinying and went to one knee without drama, only to be on eye level with her as if he refused to speak from above her or behind her.

He set his palm over her belly, not because he expected a miracle and not because he didn’t; because that was where his hand fit when thinking about forever.

She covered his hand with both of hers and leaned into him until her forehead found his. Hattie watched them with a small, private smile that said yes, that’s the right place for that hand.

"Anything else?" Hattie asked, bright again.

"I have a list," Yizhen said immediately.

"No," Deming said reflexively.

Hattie laughed. "I like you people. I’ll visit. Try not to die. It’s inconvenient."

"We’ll schedule it if we must," Deming said.

"Don’t," she said, and reached into the air like into a pocket. She pulled out a sugar candy and put it on the table next to Mingyu’s thumb. "For when she yells at you."

"She never yells," Mingyu lied.

"She does," Yizhen and Longzi said together, tone fond.

Hattie rose in one easy motion. "Be happy," she said. "I didn’t drag you across a story for anything less."

Xinying stood too, because some people deserved that courtesy and Hattie had always been one. "Thank you."

"Don’t thank me," Hattie said. "You did the hard part yourself."

"What hard part?" Yizhen asked, genuinely confused.

"Choosing," Hattie said, and the word hung for a moment before it settled into the fabric of the room and made itself at home.

A soft whimper came from the children’s room, the first small ripple of a dream turning over. Shadow’s tail thumped once.

Yaozu was already moving. Xinying beat him by a breath. They reached the doorway together and looked in: four little bodies, one quilt kicked, one arm thrown across a sibling’s face, one curl stuck to a forehead, one foot that had escaped a sock.

Nothing wrong. Everything perfect.

Yaozu bent and tucked the quilt back with a hand gentle as sleep. The whimper turned into a sigh, then into the steady rhythm of a world uninterested in waking.

When they turned back, Hattie was gone. No door. No sound. Just a faint scent of citrus like she’d stolen a fruit on the way out.

"Of course," Yizhen said, flopping backward with both hands over his heart. "No dramatic exit. I’m offended."

"You can jump off the balcony if you need drama," Longzi offered.

"Tempting," Yizhen said. "Catch me?"

"No."

Deming rolled up the last scroll and set it aside. "We’ll need to write a private addendum," he told Mingyu quietly. "For the family. Who knows, who doesn’t. Which physicians to trust."

Mingyu nodded. "Tomorrow," he said. He looked at Xinying, then at their tiny, sleeping kingdom. "Tonight we stay here."

Xinying sank back to the rug. Yaozu sat behind her and drew her against his chest without asking. His chin fit over her crown like it had always belonged there. She let her weight down.

"Do you feel different?" Yizhen asked the ceiling.

"Yes," Longzi said.

"No," Deming said.

"A little," Mingyu said. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

Xinying listened to the space under their words, to Shadow’s steady breath, to the small night sounds a calm palace makes when it understands it is safe. She felt nothing grand. No lightning in her bones. Just ease. Just the sense that a thread had been tied where it had always wanted tying.

"Yizhen?" she called out, without looking back.

"Yes, Princess?" he replied.

"How was meeting the actual King Of Hell?"

She smiled and let her eyes close for the first time that night, not because she was tired, but because she could trust the room to go on without her watching it.

From the children’s room, a giggle snuck out of a dream and into the hall. Shadow’s tail thumped agreement with the universe.

The night didn’t end. It didn’t need to. It folded around them and held.