‘That mirror…’ Ciri mumbled, twisting a heel in the wet gravel. ‘I’m sorry about that. I lost my temper. And that’s that.’

‘Ah.’

‘They disrespect me. Those elf-women. When I talk to them they pretend they can’t understand. And when they do talk to me, they speak incomprehensibly on purpose. They humiliate me.’

‘You speak our tongue fluently,’ he explained calmly. ‘But it’s still a foreign language to you. Besides, you use hen llinge, and they use ellylon. The differences are slight, but do nonetheless exist.’

‘I understand you. Every word.’

‘When I talk to you I use hen llinge. The language of the elves from your world.’

‘And you?’ She turned around. ‘What world are you from? I’m not a child. It’s enough to look up at night. There isn’t a single constellation I know. This world isn’t mine. It isn’t my place. I entered it by accident. And I want to leave. To get away.’

She bent over, picked up a stone and made a movement as though meaning to throw it absent-mindedly into the lake, towards the moorhens. She abandoned her plans under his gaze.

‘Before I’ve ridden a furlong,’ she said, not hiding her resentment, ‘I’m at the lake. And I can see the tower. Regardless of which direction I ride, when I turn around there’s always the lake and the tower. Always. There’s no way of getting away from it. So it’s a prison. Worse than a dungeon, than an oubliette, than a chamber with a barred window. Do you know why? Because it’s more humiliating. Ellylon or not, it angers me when I’m sneered at and shown disrespect. Yes, yes, there’s no sense making faces. You’ve also slighted me, you also mock me. And you’re surprised that I’m furious?’

‘As a matter of fact I am.’ He opened his eyes wide. ‘Inordinately.’

She sighed and shrugged.

‘I entered the tower long ago,’ she said, trying to stay calm. ‘I happened upon another world. You were waiting for me, sitting and playing the pipes. You were even astonished at how long I’d delayed my arrival. You called me by my name, and only afterwards began that “Lady of the Lake” nonsense. Then you vanished without a word of explanation. Leaving me in prison. Call it what you like. I call it spiteful and malicious contempt.’

‘Zireael, it’s only been eight days.’

‘Ah,’ she scowled. ‘You mean I’m lucky? Because it might have been eight weeks? Or eight months? Or eight…’

She fell silent.

‘You’ve strayed far from Lara Dorren,’ he said softly. ‘You’ve lost your inheritance, you’ve lost the bond with your blood. No wonder the women don’t understand you, nor you them. You don’t just talk differently, you think differently. With quite different frames of reference. What is eight days or eight weeks? Time means nothing.’