‘And if I don’t?’

‘Marquard, our sorcerer, died on Thanedd; we no longer have a mage who could get you under control. But know this–you will be under the permanent observation of Skellige’s finest bowmen. If you so much as move a hand suspiciously, you’ll be shot.’

‘Very well,’ she nodded. ‘Then I give my word.’

‘Splendid. Thank you. Farewell, Yennefer. I shall not be escorting you tomorrow.’

‘Crach.’

He turned on his heel.

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t have the slightest intention of boarding a ship to Novigrad. I don’t have the time to prove my innocence to Dijkstra. I can’t risk discovering they’ve already fabricated proof of my guilt. I can’t risk dying of a sudden cerebral haemorrhage or committing suicide in my cell in some spectacular way soon after my arrest. I can’t waste time or take such a risk. Nor may I explain to you why it is so risky for me. I shan’t sail to Novigrad.’

He gazed long at her.

‘You won’t sail,’ he restated. ‘What permits you to think like that? Is it that we once shared love’s delights? Don’t count on that, Yennefer. Let bygones be bygones.’

‘I know, and I’m not counting on it. I shan’t sail to Novigrad, yarl, because I must go and help someone I vowed never to leave alone and helpless. And you, Crach an Craite, Yarl of Skellige, will help me in my undertaking. Because you took a similar vow. Ten years ago. Right here on the wharf, where we stand. To the same person. To Ciri, the granddaughter of Calanthe. The lion cub of Cintra. I, Yennefer of Vengerberg, regard Ciri as my daughter. Which is why I demand on her behalf that you keep your vow. Keep it, Crach an Craite, Yarl of Skellige.’

‘Really?’ Crach an Craite made sure once again. ‘You won’t even try them? None of these dainties?’

‘Really.’

The yarl did not insist, but took a lobster from the dish, laid it on a board and split it lengthwise with a powerful–though extremely accurate–blow with a cleaver. After sprinkling it liberally with lemon juice and garlic sauce, he began eating the flesh straight from the shell. With his fingers.

Yennefer ate in a dignified manner, using a silver knife and fork–but it was a mutton chop with spinach, specially prepared for her by the astonished and probably slightly offended cook. Because the sorceress didn’t want oysters, or mussels, or salmon marinated in its own juice, or gurnard and cockle soup, or stewed monkfish tail, or roast swordfish, or fried moray eel, or octopus, or crab, or lobster, or sea urchin. Or–especially–fresh seaweed. She associated everything that even faintly smelled of the sea with Fringilla Vigo and Philippa Eilhart, with the insanely dangerous teleportation, the fall into the sea, the sea water she had swallowed, and the net which had been thrown over her–to which, incidentally, had been stuck seaweed and algae identical to that on the dish. Seaweed and algae, smashed against her head and shoulders along with the excruciatingly painful blows from a pine oar.