There is something, Yennefer decides, about knowing there are no good choices left to you. There have probably never been any good choices but at least here she knows there's nothing else she could do so she doesn't have to worry she picked wrong. What happens next isn't her fault, or at least isn't more her fault than usual.

Keeping the horse means the witcher is sure to chase her because he'll want the horse back. But if she leaves the horse, chasing her will be that much easier, so he's sure to chase her, and she'll still have stolen from him so he's sure to chase her, so she might as well keep the horse.

Everything narrows down to this: she can make herself trouble. She dropped almost everything the horse had, so he doesn't need to chase her, not actually. It probably won't help, taking nothing but the clothes she wore didn't let her get away from Jaskier, but it means he doesn't need to. Now either she stays ahead long enough he stops wanting to bother with her or she doesn't and at least she made things difficult.

It's not the witcher who finds her as night comes to an end, though.

She yelps, scuttles backward - as if that works, as if that ever worked, as if there's anything she can do to protect herself.

"I uh," Jaskier says. He's angry again. "Right, sorry. Uh. We need to talk."

"Please let me go," she begs.

"We really need to talk."

"Please just let me go."

"Yenna - nefer," he says, stumbling on her name. That's bad. But he's still using a name. "You, er, you remember I said I knew someone else called Yennefer? A sorceress Yennefer?"

"Yes," she says. She does not have an opinion on that. She has spent the days working very hard at not having an opinion on that, on not thinking at all about the things it can mean when a man wants a woman dead.

It didn't do any good. Nothing she did was any good. Nothing saved her from ending up here.

"Well, uh, that. Is, um. Well. I said some things I probably, I definitely should not have. Which I am very sorry about saying. Incredibly sorry."

She's going to die.

"I just think before we continue I should make it clear I said those things without thinking, and it's really not how I actually feel, okay?"

She doesn't say anything. Pretending to agree with him won't do her any good by this point.

"I mean, yes, alright, kind of, but I didn't mean anything by it, you understand? It was venting. Nothing I said was ever going to change Geralt's mind, or just, matter, generally, so I didn't really think about it. I don't really think about anything I'm saying most of the time..." He trails off, then sighs. "That sorceress. She's, uh, her name's Yennefer of Vengerberg."

It can always get worse.

"You think I'm her," Yennefer says numbly. "The woman you want to kill."

"No! I mean, yes, about you being her, but I don't want to kill you, obviously I don't want to kill you, I've been doing my best to keep you alive -"

"Because you didn't think I was her. Now you do."

"I don't kill people," Jaskier claims. "I shouldn't have said all that stuff and I didn't really mean it and it was really wrong of me, and also I don't kill anybody."

She shudders. "He's the one who does."

"I told you, he isn't like that."

Maybe it's better if it's the witcher. Witchers know how to kill things. He could make it quick. "That's what you wanted, for him to do it. Now he will."

"No one is killing you," Jaskier insists.

She wonders suddenly if the witcher hasn't told him what she is. "Then let me go. You're not scared of him" - Yennefer doesn't care if that's a mistake, doesn't care what the witcher might do to him - "so don't tell him. You - you don't want anything to do with her, and you don't want her to have anything to do with him, I promise if you let me go you won't ever see me again."

"Well, yes," Jaskier says, "because you'll actually end up dead if you do that."

No one will help without knowing why and no one will help if they know and she's stupid as everyone says to keep asking as if it'd ever be different.

"You even dumped his saddlebags with the food and the money and all his expensive weapons you could've sold off for more money. You are astoundingly bad at staying alive."

So the witcher did have enough he wouldn't notice a small one missing.

Or maybe he doesn't care. Or maybe he didn't say. Maybe he thinks...maybe he expects her to put up a fight.

Maybe he likes it better that way.

Jaskier continues, "How many dead children in forests do you need to hear about before you notice a common theme?"

"Your songs aren't real," Yennefer says. Her eyes burn. "I wish they were. I wish there were murdering elves butchering children and I wish they'd kill me instead!" At least they'd have a good reason. If there were any elves they'd kill her for being human.

Jaskier just sighs. "I'm starting to think I should've realized you're the same person before now by the amount of headache."

"I'm not her."

"Geralt would know. That's, apparently he made some sort of deal with the other sorceresses, you remember I said they didn't know where Yennefer went? So there's, Geralt, there's this whole destiny thing, and I guess you told the other sorceresses, or, um, Geralt did, I don't know, he didn't explain that part on the w- uh, my point is Triss, I told you about Triss right?" He waits as if he wants a response.

"The sapphic one in your song."

He looks like he doesn't like the answer. "Do, er, do you know what that word means?"

She shakes her head. Something to do with scared, probably, since it'd had to do with the other Yennefer. If she wasn't supposed to hear the song why'd he keep singing it?

"Whew," he says. "Right, yeah, so, yeah that one, but also that doesn't mean anything and you should just forget about it. So, so Triss, she wanted to find you but she found Geralt and she was hoping fate would make him trip over you, so they, well, let's say traded responsibilities, and, that worked out it seems! So, uh, yeah. I know that's probably a lot to take in but...yeah. And, just in my defense while I had heard talk sorceress magically, uh, prettied themselves up, you changed more than, than the obvious." He gestures at her. "You, um, changed a lot, it turns out."

"I didn't," Yennefer says helplessly. "Because I'm not her." And she starts to cry because she realizes, "If he thinks I'm her then he thinks I tricked him. That - that he -"

How much worse would it be, if he thought he'd been tricked into sex with a thing like her? What would he do to her?

"Oh! That's - okay, let's just take a minute here," Jaskier says, voice rising. "Where'd - from his things, right, well, I really think money would have been a much better choice than a knife, that knife you're got there on the right, your right my left definitely a knife right there in your right hand."

It's going to hurt but whatever an angry witcher will do is going to hurt more.

Jaskier lunges toward her and then someone else's hand clamps around her fingers cold and unbreakable as iron. She screams and thrashes and then he isn't holding her and she isn't holding the knife and there's only a trickle of wetness down her throat not deep enough by half she should have done it earlier she should have known there was never any chance of her escaping.

Even her father's never looked so angry as the witcher does now.

She curls up on the ground. Jaskier curses. The witcher is quiet, which is even worse.

"Well!" Jaskier says, sounding breathless. "Don't think anyone could've predicted Yennefer'd ever do that."

"Jaskier, you saw her naked," the witcher growls. "If you'd been able to tear your eyes from her tits -"

"I did! To look, respectfully, at her face which is why I realized I needed to get the hell out of there, thank you! I have not dared look anywhere else since lest I miss the split second warning that is all I would get before she turned me into a pillar of salt!"

"Jaskier!"

"Sorry! Sorry, I know, sorry, shutting up. Shutting up now."

Then they're both silent.

The witcher says, "Yen."

"I'm not whoever you think I am," she repeats. The unfairness of it chokes her. She sits up and stares at them and if there's nothing she can do to stop this from happening then it doesn't matter what she does do so she shouts, "I'm not her! If she was me, if I was ever a sorceress, I hate you and I'd have killed you both whenever she met you and then you couldn't kill me now because you'd be dead already!"

"Yenna!" Jaskier yells at her. "That's a horrible thing to say!"

"Why! Why is it right when you kill people, why do you get to!" she wails.

"No one is killing anyone why is everything always about death with you!" Jaskier shouts back.

And then she's just waiting, because the knife is gone and she's slower than either of them and she's not going to get another chance at the horse. Not that it would do her any good, would it? He's a witcher. She's so stupid. She deserves this for being so stupid.

"Elves butchering children," the witcher says at last with a sigh. "Really, Jaskier, that one?"

"I am well aware of your opinion on the song, which I remind you I didn't even write, but I was trying to get her to stop running off. Not everyone has a scenthound stuffed into their skull. She didn't care a wit about any other monsters but she's so scared of elves she thinks my lute might bite her and sometimes you have to make compromises! It didn't even work anyway!"

"Can't imagine why."

"Yes, yes, apparently she'd love to be turned into cutlets, how was I supposed to know that?"

"And you thought to impress her by saying I kill elves for fun," the witcher says.

"No," Jasker says.

"You're a witcher. You kill things for money. Coin to bards for singing, coin to witchers for killing," she spits. It doesn't matter anymore, whether she keeps quiet or not.

"This is what I meant, Jaskier," the witcher growls.

"It's a great song and you do kill things for money which is a valuable service and people should appreciate it more. Anyway, she didn't believe that one either."

"Of course she didn't."

"Yes! So if it turns out she knew there was no devil-led elf army for you to fight then what's the harm singing about one!"

The witcher makes an angry sound. Yennefer can't understand how the man just stands there like he's not afraid at all but maybe he hasn't got to be afraid, maybe he knows he's not the one that anger will turn on.

The witcher looks at her again. He sighs. He crouches down in front of her so they're closer to eye level.

It doesn't make anything better.

"You don't have to be upset, because the woman wasn't me," she pleads. "You didn't get tricked." She just wants this to be over. If the best she gets is dying quick then she'll take it, she'll stop asking for more.

He shakes his head. It's spooky, because he doesn't look angry anymore. That's the worst thing, when they're angry and you can't even tell. "I know you, Yen. You changed what you looked like, not who you are," he tells her.

"Oh," Yennefer says. So he won't kill her at all. "You knew already."

"Yes."

"That's why Jaskier said it was because you liked fucking a monster."

She wonders how long it'll be until she has another chance at a knife. She wonders how much it'll hurt first.

"You're not a monster," the witcher says. "Yennefer, I…" And then he's quiet for a bit. "I wish you'd told me more. That I could tell you something to convince you now. I don't even know when this is for you. This is before Aretuza, isn't it? What happened? What was the last thing?"

"I was in the barn," she tells him.

"Did something happen there?" the witcher insists, like somehow he knows already.

Another thing to hate him for, if it's true. If he already knows and he just wants to make her say it.

She confesses, "I did something I shouldn't have. And I wanted to get away." She'd thought she didn't remember whatever they'd done to her. And she'd thought, stupid as anything, that was as bad as it could be.

The witcher smiles a little at this and she hates him more. "You're good at portals," he says. "You got away."

She hugs her knees. She doesn't know if she quite believes it, but she doesn't quite know what's worse then, that it's the truth or that someone would pick that as the lie. "What a useless power. I should have stayed. They wouldn't have killed me." If it was magic, then maybe she deserves all this for being dumb enough to want that, like everywhere else she could be wasn't worse. Maybe that's why it could happen to her.

She should have stayed put. And - and even if they'd killed her by accident, they'd have been sorry about it probably, and at least her family would know she was dead, instead of her just disappearing. Now she'll end up dead and rotting on the ground in the middle of nowhere, like Jaskier kept saying, and no one will remember she was ever alive at all.

If she's sorry enough, if she's learned her lesson, will it undo whatever she did, send her back -

Of Vengerburg, he said.

"Useless," she says again. "Where could I ever go? I can't do anything right, can I? Not even magic. I can't even go home now. B-because you know. You'd just find me."

"Yennefer...it's not when you think it is. The pogrom you remember was before Jaskier was born and I'm not a hero of it. That song of his was a pile of lies written to impress humans half a century later, ones who'd forgot there'd ever been their Great Cleansing. The lute was a gift. One they may have regretted giving him, but which they did freely give him."

She doesn't know why he's bothering to say stuff like that. If he knows her then he should know that even if she was that stupid, she can't tell him anything. She doesn't know anywhere but her own home, doesn't know anybody but humans.

"Yen…" He settles down on the ground. "You won't remember her either, but I can contact a sorceress friend of yours. Let her know I found you. She could help. Would you want that? Someone else? Would you believe her?"

Witches take girls. But if she became one, if they didn't kill her, then... If the sorceress is looking for her, and really sent him to only find her… Witchers have to do what mages tell them, or she thinks they do. Maybe… "Does she know already. A-about me."

The witcher hesitates. Of course not. Of course nothing would go right. "I...believe so, but I don't know for sure," he admits. "I don't think you were keeping it a secret from people, but you and I...we didn't talk about a lot of things." Jaskier makes a weird sound, like there's something funny about that. "But she wouldn't think anything of it, I can promise you that."

"Ha," Yennefer tells him.

"I know. Hard to believe. But I'm not human at all," the witcher points out, "and she didn't care about that. Didn't even understand how it mattered."

"Being a witcher is different. That's - they wanted you. You're useful."

"Less than you'd think," he says, smiling. "Especially these days. No, witchers and mages don't work together much. We disagree. We can disagree, Yennefer. Or else I wouldn't be able to ask if you want to see Triss, would I? I'd already be doing what she told me."

She considers that. She looks to Jaskier, who does not look happy about this at all, and that makes her feel a little better. And maybe he lied when he talked about Triss too. "You promise she doesn't care."

"Yes."

"What happens if you're wrong."

"Well," the witcher says, "then she and I will disagree. Who do you suppose wins a fight, between a witcher and a mage?"