“Here, in Rinde. At Errdil’s. The elf’s.”

She looked at him carefully.

“At Errdil’s?” she repeated, contorting her lips in a smile. “I know where that is. And I gather his cousin Chireadan is there too?”

“That’s right. But what—?”

“Nothing,” she interrupted, raised her arms and closed her eyes.

The medallion around the witcher’s neck pulsed, tugged at the chain.

On the damp bath-chamber wall shone the luminous outline of a door which framed a swirling phosphorescent milky nothingness. The witcher cursed. He didn’t like magical portals, or traveling by them.

“Do we have to…” He cleared his throat. “It’s not far—”

“I can’t walk the streets of this town,” she cut him short. “They’re not too crazy about me here. They might insult me and throw stones—or do something worse. Several people are effectively ruining my reputation here, thinking they can get away with it. Don’t worry, my portals are safe.”

Geralt had once watched as only half a traveler using a safe portal flew through. The other half was never found. He knew of several cases where people had entered a portal and never been seen again.

The sorceress adjusted her hair again and pinned a pearl-embossed purse to her belt. The purse looked too small to hold anything other than a handful of coppers and a lipstick, but Geralt knew it was no ordinary purse.

“Hold me. Tighter. I’m not made of china. On our way!”

The medallion vibrated, something flashed and Geralt suddenly found himself in black nothingness, in penetrating cold. He couldn’t see, hear or feel anything. Cold was all that his senses could register.

He wanted to curse, but didn’t have time.

V

“It’s an hour since she went in.” Chireadan turned over the hourglass standing on the table. “I’m starting to get worried. Was Dandilion’s throat really so bad? Don’t you think we ought to go and have a look?”

“She made it quite clear that she didn’t want us to.” Geralt finished his mug of herb tea, grimacing dreadfully. He valued and liked the settled elves for their intelligence, calm reserve and sense of humor, but he couldn’t understand or share their taste in food or drink. “I don’t intend to disturb her, Chireadan. Magic requires time. It can take all day and night, as long as Dandilion gets better.”

“Oh well, you’re right.”

A sound of hammering came from the room next door. Errdil, as it turned out, lived in a deserted inn which he had bought intending to renovate and then open with his wife, a quiet, taciturn elf. Vratimir, who had taken to their company after a night spent with the elves in the guardroom, volunteered to help with the repairs. He got down to renovating the wood paneling, working alongside the married couple, as soon as the confusion created by the witcher and Yennefer leaping through the wall in the flash of a portal had subsided.

“I didn’t think you’d find it so easy, if I’m to be honest,” Chireadan went on. “Yennefer isn’t the most spontaneous of people when it comes to help. Others’ troubles don’t particularly bother her, and don’t disturb her sleep. In a word, I’ve never heard of her helping anyone if there wasn’t something in it for her. I wonder what’s in it for her to help you and Dandilion.”