“Lytta.”

“What’s bothering you, if I may ask?”

He told her about the theft of the swords.

* * *

There was a flash of lightning. And a moment later, a peal of thunder.

The fountain splashed very softly. The basin smelt of wet stone. The marble girl was petrified, wet and shining, in her dancing position.

“The statue and the fountain,” Coral hurried to explain, “aren’t there to satisfy my love for pretentious kitsch, nor are they an expression of subservience to snobbish fashions. They serve more concrete ends. The statue portrays me. In miniature. When I was fifteen.”

“Who would have supposed then that you would develop so prettily?”

“It’s a magical artefact powerfully linked to me. While the fountain, or more precisely the water, serves for divination. You know, I think, what divination is?”

“Vaguely.”

“The theft of your weapons took place around ten days ago. Oneiromancy is the best and most certain way of interpreting and analysing past events, even very distant ones, but the rare talent of dream-reading, which I don’t possess, is necessary for that. Sortilege, or cleromancy, won’t really help us; likewise, pyromancy and aeromancy, which are more effective in the case of foretelling people’s fates, on condition that one has something belonging to those people… hair, fingernails, a fragment of clothing or something similar. They can’t be used with objects—in our case, swords.

“And so all that remains to us is divination.” Lytta brushed a red lock from her forehead. “That, as you probably know, lets one see and predict future events. The elements will assist us, for a truly stormy season has set in. We shall combine divination with ceraunoscopy. Come closer. Grasp my hand and don’t release it. Lean over and look into the water, but don’t touch it under any circumstances. Concentrate. Think about your swords! Think hard about them!”

He heard her chanting a spell. The water in the basin reacted, foaming and rippling more powerfully with every sentence of the formula being uttered. Large bubbles began to rise from the bottom.

The water became smooth and cloudy. And then completely clear.

Dark, violet eyes look out from the depths. Raven-black locks fall onto shoulders in cascades, gleam, reflect light like a peacock’s feathers, writhing and rippling with every movement…

“The swords,” Coral reminded him, quietly and scathingly. “You were supposed to be thinking about the swords.”

The water swirled, the black-haired, violet-eyed woman disappeared in the vortex. Geralt sighed softly.

“Think about the swords,” hissed Lytta. “Not her!”

She chanted a spell in another flash of lightning. The statue in the fountain lit up milkily, and the water again calmed and became transparent. And then he saw.

His sword. Hands touching it. Rings on fingers.

… made from a meteorite. The superb balance, the weight of the blade precisely equal to the weight of the hilt…

The other sword. Silver. The same hands.