He removed the xenogloss from his bosom.

‘Master? Do you hear me? It’s Rience…’

The device was silent. Rience didn’t even feel like swearing.

Vilgefortz remains silent. Skellen and Bonhart made a pact with him. Only in a day or two, when we catch up with the girl, it may turn out that there is no pact. And then I might have my throat cut. Or ride in fetters to Nilfgaard, as proof of and as ransom against Tawny Owl’s loyalty…

Sod it!

Vilgefortz remains silent. He isn’t giving us any advice. He’s not giving us directions. He isn’t dispelling our doubts with his calm, logical voice, which touches the depths of your soul. He’s silent.

The xenogloss has broken down. Perhaps because of the cold? Or maybe…

Maybe Skellen was right? Perhaps Vilgefortz really has turned his attention to something else and doesn’t care about us or our fate?

By all the devils, I never thought it would turn out like this. Had I, I wouldn’t have been so enthusiastic about this mission… I would have gone and killed the Witcher instead of Schirrú… Damn it! I’m freezing out here and Schirrú is probably nice and warm…

To think that I insisted on going after Ciri, and Schirrú after the Witcher. I asked for it myself… Back at the beginning of September when Yennefer fell into our hands.

The world, a moment ago still an unreal, soft and muddily sticky blackness, abruptly took on hard surfaces and contours. It became brighter. And materialised.

Yennefer opened her eyes, rocked by convulsive shivers. She lay on the stones, among dead bodies and tarred planks, littered with the remains of the rigging of the longship Alkyone. She could see feet all around her. Feet in heavy boots. One of the boots had just kicked her, to bring her around.

‘Get up, witch!’

Another kick, sending pain shooting right into the roots of her teeth. She saw a face bending over her. ‘Get up, I said! On your feet! Recognise me?’

She blinked. Yes, she did. It was the man she had burned, when he was fleeing from her using a teleporter. Rience.

‘We’ll square accounts,’ he promised her. ‘We’ll square accounts for everything, you slut. I’ll teach you what pain is. I’ll teach you what pain is with these fingers and these hands.’

She tensed up, clenched and spread her fingers, ready to cast a spell. And immediately curled up in a ball, choking, wheezing and trembling. Rience guffawed.

‘Nothing doing, eh?’ she heard. ‘You haven’t even got a scrap of power! You’re no match for Vilgefortz when it comes to sorcery! He’s squeezed the very last drop out of you, like whey from curds. You can’t even—’