They heard the high-pitched, desperate screams of a woman in great pain.

‘Geralt, no,’ groaned Dandelion. ‘Don’t do anything, I beg you… Don’t get involved…’

The Witcher turned his face towards him, and Dandelion didn’t recognise it.

‘Get involved?’ he repeated. ‘Intervene? Rescue somebody? Risk my neck for some noble principles or ideas? Oh, no, Dandelion. Not any longer.’

One night, a restless night lit up by distant flashes of lightning, a dream woke the Witcher again. He wasn’t certain this time, either, if he hadn’t gone straight from one nightmare to another.

Once again, a pulsating brightness that frightened the horses rose above the remains of the campfire. Once again, there was a great castle, black colonnades, and a table with women sitting around it in the brightness.

Two of the women weren’t sitting but standing. One in black and white and the other in black and grey.

It was Yennefer and Ciri.

The Witcher groaned in his sleep.

Yennefer was right to quite categorically advise Ciri against wearing male clothing. Dressed like a boy, Ciri would have felt foolish, here, now, in the hall among these elegant women sparkling with jewellery. She was pleased she’d agreed to dress in a combination of black and grey. It flattered her when she felt approving looks on her puffed, paned sleeves and high waist, on the velvet ribbon bearing the small rose-shaped diamond brooch.

‘Please come closer.’

Ciri shuddered a little. Not just at the sound of that voice. Yennefer, it turned out, had been right in one more thing–she had advised against a plunging neckline. Ciri, however, had insisted and now had the impression the draught was literally raging over her chest, and her whole front, almost to her navel, was covered in gooseflesh.

‘Come closer,’ repeated the dark-haired, dark-eyed woman whom Ciri knew and remembered from the Isle of Thanedd. And although Yennefer had told her whom she would meet in Montecalvo, had described them all and taught her all of their names, Ciri at once began to entitle her ‘Madam Owl’ in her thoughts.

‘Welcome to the Montecalvo Lodge,’ said Madam Owl. ‘Miss Ciri.’

Ciri bowed as Yennefer had instructed, politely, but more in the male fashion, without a ladylike curtsey, without a modest and submissive lowering of her eyes. She responded with a smile to Triss Merigold’s sincere and pleasant smile, and with a somewhat lower nod of the head to Margarita Laux-Antille’s friendly look. She endured the remaining eight pairs of eyes, although they pierced like gimlets. Stabbed like spear blades.

‘Please be seated,’ beckoned Madam Owl with a truly regal gesture. ‘No, not you, Yennefer! Just her. You, Yennefer, are not an invited guest, but a felon, summoned to be judged and punished. You will stand until the Lodge decides on your fate.’

Protocol was over for Ciri in a flash.