"What is Demon Fire?"

The lock on Shinutcha’s door wouldn’t release fast enough. Every second he wasted was another she could use to escape. He didn’t understand what she was doing to break out from the ropes, it must have taken hours otherwise she would have escaped overnight. There, he finally undid the lock and slid the door ajar just as Shinutcha punched a hole through the screen on the far side of the room. She glanced back terrified before trying to claw at the sides of the paper. Arata wouldn’t let her go that easily.

He charged forward and took her to the ground in his arms. No, just his one arm, and the realisation sent a spike of pain driven directly into his shoulder. The lost limb was still on fire, undousable, corrupting skin before his eyes. He held the phantom arm close to his chest, his other hand went to his shoulder, and he crumpled to the side. Shinutcha slipped from his grasp.

“No…” He groaned in between the swings of the mallet throughout his missing arm, “You can’t… you can't leave.” His words came out through gritted teeth. “They’ll kill you.”

Shinutcha turned anyway, the freedom that Arata took from her now so close. But instead of clawing at the paper, she gave one last glance at Arata, paused, and clawed at the wall instead. With her long nails, she pulled a spike of wood peeling off nearest to her. So she will kill me first then escape, that’s understandable. It's what I deserve for not checking how she escaped the first time, Arata thought with a detachment born only from the agony he was in, What else should I have expected from a witch?

Shinutcha ignored him and his visions of his own death. She ran to the rope and found an unknotted section, spinning the wood on it with determination. Arata squirmed around to face her and tried to understand what she was doing, until he saw the darkening patch through the rope. That was her plan all along. She would burn him and the house to cover her escape, making it appear like Arata was just the next target of the arsons. Maybe she would even call the collaborator here too, at least then Arata could see him. Finally a flame started, the orange fell to a low indigo and Shinutcha approached, holding the ring of burning rope towards him.

“Get it… get away!” He wouldn't go down without a fight. Arata swung his leg out to Shinutcha but she hung back, dodging easily, then darted forward. She wasn’t aiming for his neck, or his chest, but the shoulder where all of this pain originated. He felt her place the rope over where his lost arm would be, then there was nothing. The numbness dampened all feeling, it was like he was born without a left arm.

Shinutcha retraced her steps, staring back mute. Why? The angle was awkward and he struggled to see his shoulder, but was sure the fire somehow wasn’t spreading to his coat. Shinutcha was controlling the flames, dimming them just enough they wouldn’t catch. Why? She took another step back, her lips thinning as she must have been asking herself the same question. Arata’s breath slowed and he pushed himself upright then to his feet.

Why is she doing this? She can just escape. Her coal eyes flicked to the doorway and back to Arata. That was what she wanted. Knotting the rope over his shoulder, warm like a fireplace, he found Chiyo’s doll again and brought it to her. Immediately her expression lit up. To her, this could have been better than escape. She rushed forward and took it with no hesitation, holding the wood tight against her face. It was similar to before but with a sinking in Arata’s heart, it wasn’t the same.

The feeling had been crawling up for some time now but it finally broke through. This wasn’t Chiyo. There was no magic that turned her into a witch. She was… she wasn't there. He watched Shinutcha press the doll to her jaw and a thought came to his mind. At the old hunters house full of flowers alight with demon fire, he caught a splinter on his finger. That was the reason he hadn’t suspected enchantment to begin with: he shouldn't have been able to feel pain and yet he unmistakably did.

“Shinutcha—” She met his eyes as Arata called her name, “—what is demon fire?”

***

After hours of back and forth, it became obvious she didn’t know.

“It’s the gift of Grandmother, from whence we all sprang.” Whatever she meant by that. But an overarching understanding began to emerge, when demon fire burnt different things, the witch circle created different effects.

“Wood stays the pain that hurts you. And rope as well. Flowers do make men believe thy words and burning peat hides thee from sight's gaze. Naught else I know that burns, not me.”

At last a question had its answer. The peat ash he found at the hunter’s house came from Turushno masking his escape, that’s how he was able to move around unseen. If he could follow the trail of peat ash, that would lead him to the witch’s lair. Another thought crossed his mind.

“Why do those who collude with witches burst into fire when they die? Why the witches’ curse?”

Shinutcha didn’t give a response, her face showed she had no idea.

Do witches burn something inside of the colluders and it’s only released when they die? Will I explode like Tsukishiba when I’m cut down? There had to be a connection he was missing. Fat would be the most flammable part of the human body and if it was all hidden behind skin, would there be any visible change if it all turned to charcoal. No. After weeks in the jail, Tsukishiba was emaciated at her execution, there wouldn’t have been enough fat there to create that fire.

The light outside already was growing dim and he hadn’t eaten for the entire day. Wiping a hand across his face, he brought out some more rope. This time he looked for what Shinutcha had been cutting the rope on and found his answer on the chair itself. Without him noticing, she had sharpened an edge of the back support into a blade to saw through the rope. It would have to go.

Arata unsheathed Crowsbane, Shinutcha jumped back to the corner of the room, and with two slashes he left the chair as a simple wooden plank on the tatami. Looking at the plank of wood on the ground, it gave him an idea.

“If I tie your hands and feet now, I promise to untie you once I have fixed the screen.” Arata crouched in front of Shinutcha, still in the corner. “Is that a deal?” She nodded in agreement.

Half an hour later, Arata had found enough spare wood from across the house to nail slats across the screens, preventing any further escape. He untied Shinutcha and locked the door behind him, confident she wouldn’t escape even as he prepared food in the far corner of the house. Coming back afterwards, he was correct.

She was curled up in the corner of the room furthest from the door, holding the doll at arms-length between her and the painting. She cut off her mumbling as Arata opened the door, snatching the door back to her chest, and he took a seat in the opposite corner. Over dinner, he had thought of a new approach.

“Tell me who cuts off the top of people’s heads for you and I’ll let you keep the doll all night.”

Shinutcha looked at the doll and back to Arata, uncertainty playing across her lips. Whatever promise she had made to Turushno, her grandmother, or any other wish, this was what could challenge it. The offer was too good to refuse. “He is a man and he is bald.”

Arata leant forward in earnest. “Did he have a noticeable smell?”

There was a pause then Shinutcha wrinkled her nose in remembrance. “Yes, but I know not what it was.”

A monk. And so another dot was joined together. One of the monks that led Koseki away from the House of Red Blossoms that night had later cut the scalp from his head in his own teahouse. Arata saw a way in: if he could find which monks were unaccounted for just before the arson, he would have the colluder.

The evening crushed into night and the patters of rain abated. Arata’s questions dried up with the weather as he got non-answer after non-answer. Although he could piece together a story, it was a disheartening one. Shinutcha, Turushno, and another witch—her sister—had arrived at Giseizawa three months ago from somewhere she still wouldn’t disclose. They met with the colluder but only Turushno and her sister talked, Shinutcha was told to wait outside the room as a lookout. Soon after, her sister was killed by witch hunters, she became separated from Turushno, and followed the old hunter to his house. There she enchanted him and he built her a secret room to live in.

The first time she fought Arata at Koseki’s mansion, she was looking through the fire for her older brother.

If only she stayed where she was, by now they would be together.

He kept watch over her in the corner, Crowsbane laid out in front of him, until he was sure she was asleep. Numerous times he felt himself drift away until phantom voices and bells pulled him back from the brink. Finally, despite his absolution, sleep took hold, and his head slumped forward.

A moment later, Shinutcha’s rose.