The witch who eventually appears is impossibly beautiful, just like people say. It's why you should never trust women who look like that. Only, they're saying Yennefer's the same kind of thing, so maybe that isn't true for her.

The stranger's face lights up with recognition. "Yennefer! Oh, Yennefer. You're so…" Twisted. Crooked. Wrong. She knows. "You're so small."

And the witch clutches at her suddenly. It's disconcerting and Yennefer wishes she'd stop touching her but it doesn't seem likely saying that will change anything, so she just says, "You knew me?"

The woman mercifully pulls back at the question and nods. One hand stays on Yennefer's left shoulder. "I'm Triss Merigold. We're friends."

If she recognized Yennefer, then...but that didn't prove they were real friends, did it? Jaskier said she'd scared the others, and, and if they were just her friends because she could hurt them, then if they learned she couldn't anymore, that she didn't even know how to do magic…

She looks at Geralt. He'd been fussing with the horse, doing whatever it is people have to do to keep horses from dying under them, but he's stopped that now to watch Triss and he, he's not happy about her being there, Geralt was the one who told the woman to come here but maybe Yennefer's got it all wrong and witchers and mages don't like each other at all.

It's a small relief. She doesn't know what a witch does to you but if Geralt doesn't like Triss then maybe he won't let Triss do it just to deny her something she wants.

Yennefer takes a breath and forces herself to say, "If we were really friends, then, d-do you know the reason I'm, did I tell you who my real father was, w-why I'm, why my spine's twisted."

"Oh, Yennefer," the woman says again. "Is that what you thought? Children are just born like that sometimes, it didn't happen because you've got elven blood." And before Yennefer can think anything of that, the woman continues, "Everybody knows," and the air freezes in Yennefer's lungs.

"The Brotherhood of Sorcerers knows, she means," Geralt says.

Jaskier squawks, "Wait, that's it? That's what you were hedging around, Geralt? Why didn't you just say so? I thought it was, you know, something like that she was half lamia or siren or something!"

Triss seems thrown by that, glancing at Jaskier for a moment like he's the one who's some strange and impossible thing, then shakes her head and looks back to Yennefer again. "You see, what happened was you were supposed to go to court at Aedirn once you ascended. But right before the ceremony they decided to send you to an assignment somewhere else instead. One of the other sorcerers, he wanted his niece there, so at the last minute he suggested that they could use Aedirn's mage to make inroads on Cintra, as if, and everyone knows Cintra's just awful, so of course they should pick someone with the right pedigree..." she says with a cheer that turns Yennefer's stomach. "So you know." Triss waves the hand not still on Yennefer's crooked shoulder like Yennefer's supposed to know what that means. "Politics."

"Oh fuck me," Jaskier says.

"They told you they had to change the assignments because you were a quarter elf and you were furious! You pretended you were really sad, so sad you couldn't even go to the ceremony, and while none of them suspected anything, you snuck down for the enchantment and showed up at the party and you charmed the king you wanted into picking you instead," Triss finishes breathlessly.

"I what."

"You were amazing!" Triss insists. "No one was ever that brave, you're supposed to just go where the Brotherhood tells you to go but you decided what you wanted and you got it for yourself! And nobody was supposed to talk about it at all but everybody did. You're the reason I stood up to them about going to Temeria."

She'd gone back home eventually, then. They hadn't wanted her to, but somehow she had anyway.

Yennefer looks at Geralt again. He still looks angry but no one else seems to care he's angry, and Yennefer doesn't know what that means. He says, "Can you tell what happened to her?"

"I didn't see the whole thing through," Triss says. "I heard she moved fire, but - did you have any burns, Yennefer?"

She shakes her head. "N-nothing."

"Other injuries? Bleeding?"

"No."

"Hm," Triss says, biting at her lip. "You did...you did a lot more than I thought was possible. Mages have come apart entirely from less. And now whatever this is... I've never seen anything like it. I'm not sure how to undo it myself. And I don't know if it would be safe to, if maybe you did this to yourself on purpose."

"You think… I did?" Yennefer manages. "I, why would, I crippled myself again? Made myself helpless?"

"Better than dying," Triss claims with a strange confidence. "If you did this to avoid being consumed, breaking it would put you back where you started. Maybe you're supposed to recover first."

Geralt shakes his head. "If that was her plan, she overshot. It sounds like she's from the moment before she connected with Chaos. She made a portal then, didn't she?"

Triss nods to herself. "She is terribly good at portals," Triss says. "Puts the rest of us to shame. So that would make sense." Then Triss doesn't know for sure either. Did whoever Yennefer becomes think what happened was more of a secret than her blood? Or, she isn't the one who told Triss that either, did she?

Yennefer supposes she's in no position to argue about what qualifies someone as a friend.

"But you don't need to worry, once we're back at Aretuza it'll be fine. If it's that you used too much magic, we have stores there."

"She's not going to Aretuza."

"Excuse me?" Triss says. The hand tightens on Yennefer's shoulder.

Geralt repeats, "She's not going. And she's not getting near your pool."

"I'm not going to - to throw her in! What do you take me for? She's an ascended sorceress. And a hero," Triss says.

"She was."

"She is, she's still Yennefer. She's one of us."

"She left."

"She came back!" Triss shouts. "I'm not going to let you just take her, not when she just finally came back. You don't have any right to decide -"

"Would she even want this fixed?" Geralt says.

"Would she - look at her!" Yennefer flinches. "She can't remember anything, she can't protect herself, she needs help."

"She was chasing a way to undo things," Geralt says. "What if she wouldn't want someone to reverse this?"

"Of course she would want to reverse losing sixty years of her life!" Triss is furious now, and she hasn't let go of Yennefer, and they're arguing because of Yennefer. "You - you don't understand her in the least, do you? Yennefer's just the sort of person who'll do something just because everyone else says it's impossible. Because she wants to prove she's better than the rest of the Brotherhood, that she can do something they can't. It's not like she really cares that much we're made sterile, you know full well that's hardly an impediment. It's a challenge, that's all, she'd never accept hurting herself to accomplish it."

"Uh," Jaskier says. "Um. How much do you know about the djinn thing?"

"That it did not make him suddenly aware of her every thought!" Triss says. "If he was, he'd realize how ridiculous he's being. Yennefer's just, she's passionate. That doesn't mean she'd ever want this."

Geralt retorts, "You don't know that -"

"Oh, because you know her so well? Or is this about what you want?"

"- and you don't know if you can reverse it, do you?" Geralt continues. "What happens then? You lock her up with the rest of Aretuza's new students?"

"It's not like that. And leaving her with you, are you going to try to tell me that's what she wants instead? Did you really expect me to come here only to agree to abandon her to some lonely mountain keep with your child surprise?"

"This isn't about what I want."

"She's not yours."

"That doesn't mean she belongs to you."

"When I mentioned I'd met you, she didn't have anything nice to say, you know. She said witchers would only disappoint people, told me to be wary of all of you."

Is he mad at Triss or mad at Yennefer for that, if he's more mad at Yennefer than Triss will he let Triss do whatever she wants to Yennefer?

And Triss continues confidently, like she can't see any of the fury now written across the witcher's face, "Yennefer's going to Aretuza with me. She'll be safe there, and we can figure out what went wrong and undo it and get her back."

"I. I want to go home," she tells them.

Triss turns to Yennefer again, suddenly pretending she's not mad like Yennefer's going to forget what just happened. "Aretuza is your home," Triss says. "Yennefer, you don't remember, but -"

"It's been how many years since she was there?" Geralt growls.

"I told you, she came back."

"I want to go home," Yennefer repeats. It's stupid stupid stupid they're not going to listen to her but it's all she wants. "I want my family."

Triss looks appalled. "Yennefer, you don't, they were awful."

Yennefer shakes her head.

"They were awful people who sold you to us."

"People who bought her," Geralt snaps.

"Saved her! They wanted her gone, they sold her for almost nothing, who knows what'd have happened if she'd stayed with them any longer!"

They didn't, Yennefer tries to say. The words lodge like rocks in her throat and she thinks she might choke before she ever manages to speak again. She looks at Geralt, and he's so angry, and she doesn't know if it's at her or at Triss and he doesn't say it's not true but they didn't, she knows they didn't.

Geralt retorts, "Unlike Aretuza."

"Guys?" Jaskier calls. "I don't think, you shouldn't -"

"Such a pleasant place it is," Gestalt says over him.

"- maybe this isn't the best time to -"

Triss ignores Jaskier to shout at Geralt, "Yes! It was! With a room and a bed instead of being kept with the pigs like she was some animal! With people who cared if she lived or died! It's - not everyone ascends, yes, some of them, some of them… But none of us even know about that until after well it's all been done, it's nothing anyone has to be scared of by the time you find out and Yennefer was Tissaia's favorite from the start, everyone knows that, she never had anything to worry about, she was happy there!"

Her parents didn't sell her. They wouldn't.

"She tried to kill herself there!"

"No, that was before -"

Geralt shakes his head, growls, "Look at her wrists if you won't believe me."

"They didn't!" tears loose from her throat. "You're lying they didn't sell me to you they wouldn't do that!"

"Yennefer…" Triss says.

"M-my mother warned me about witches, she would never have said that if she was just, if she was going to - "

"They did."

"Triss, I really don't think this is a good idea!" Jaskier shouts.

Yennefer demands, "How much then? If it's true then how much do I cost?"

But Triss doesn't even hesitate. "Less than one of your father's pigs."

She wants her mother.

"Tissaia said she asked him how much one was and then she asked how much for you and that's what he said."

She wants her mother.

"And then she offered even less and he still agreed."

She wants her mother.

"Because they were horrible, horrible people and you don't owe them anything, you never did."

She wants her mother she wants her mother she wants her mother she wants -

It's bright.

It's bright because the trees are gone.

She's on the side of a road by a fence.

She doesn't recognize anything.