II

...

By the slight look of horror on Olfina's face, Henri surmised he didn't look good. "That bad, eh? I do apologize for my appearance. Damned difficult to get a good bath going in the cargo hold of a ship," he said, his voice sounding hoarse to his ear. "May I enter?"

"Please do," Olfina said, motioning for him to take a seat at the table, "Though you could have taken a bath after you docked."

"No time, cher," Henri said, gratefully taking the provided seat, "I came straight from the ship. We did have an appointment, after all."

Olfina made a face like she'd just sucked on a lemon as she sat in the chair across from his. "Where is that blood from, anyway? I couldn't make out details in the megascope, but it didn't look that bad."

Henri chuckled, "Well, it was quite bad enough then with just the werewolf blood. There's a reason the ship arrived late. An Craite pirates. There weren't a lot of them, but it did take some time to repair the sails."

There was a long, awkward pause. Olfina was staring at a spot in the middle of the table, her lips drawn into a thin line. It confused Henri. She never acted like this before and if she had, he would have noticed it. "Olfina, the pirates were trying to kill us. There was no other choice in the matter. I even tried to negotiate, but-"

"It isn't about that, you oaf, it's just..." Olfina shifted in her seat uncomfortably, "I'm sorry you haven't found her, yet."

Henri found there were a lot of different meanings to be pulled from that statement. Olfina had never pitied him before. Matter of fact, she'd blamed Annalise and called her a coward for leaving without saying goodbye. She'd been angry for him, but never sad. "Er... Olfina, the last time I was here, you told me to kill her when I found her. Why the sudden concern?"

"I've done some thinking while you were away. I don't think you've said a bad word about her while you've been my patient. I suppose I've decided to give her the benefit of the doubt."

"Ah, how gracious of you, Olfina. It only took you five years. Gods, woman, remind me not to cross you!" Henri joked.

Olfina rolled her eyes and stood, "I need to prepare the tea. You just... sit over there and stink quietly for a bit. Your sarcasm is almost as draining as the sea salt, blood, and sweat."

"Long morning, eh? Believe me, I understand." Henri said, settling into his chair.

"You have no idea, Henri," Olfina grumbled, rifling through the jars of herbs next to the stove.

"Who was it, this time? A sailor? Captain? Married man?"

Olfina gave him a frigid look over her shoulder.

"Alright, alright! Just curious, you know? Ami รก ami." Henri said.

Olfina stopped preparing the tea, sighed, and said, almost too quiet for Henri to hear, "He was a bard."

Henri's laugh started as a small snort, where he'd hoped it would stop. But to his horror, it continued. He kept laughing even as it grew hard to breath and his sides began to hurt.

Olfina's face grew red in embarrassment. "I was drunk, damn it! Had I had my faculties, I would've never made such a mistake."

Henri continued to laugh, doubling over in his seat. Olfina turned back around and began aggressively rummaging through her herbs. "Men are pigs! Pigs! And you're no different! I see all of your dreams, Henri, not just the strange magical ones."

Still quivering in silent chuckles, Henri wiped a tear away from his eye before raising both hands in surrender. "Paix, mon ami, paix! I didn't know it was that bad."

"I was too drunk to remember it, thank all the gods." Olfina said, measuring what to Henri smelled like hemlock and depositing it into a mortar.

Henri, who had finally stopped laughing, reclined into his chair. Even that simple motion threatened to lull him into sleep too early. He'd done it before. One time, he blacked out in the middle of a fight with a Striga. Had he not woken up in time, he would have been drained of blood and left to rot in that noblewoman's wine cellar. It was only a matter of time, now. If he didn't find Annalise soon, one of them would slip up, miscalculate an important swing, mispronounce a word in a spell. Then, the other would be lost forever, doomed to be hunted down and killed those they called their brothers in arms. At that point, death would be a mercy.

His headache, which had haunted him like a revenant since his short nap on the ship, throbbed back to life. He rubbed his temples, knowing it wouldn't help. It was a cruelty, the Bond. Some might argue its necessity, but simple telepathy spells would have sufficed. The Djinn had apparently escaped with the destruction of most of Kaer Seren, its spite killing as many witchers as the mages did. Thankfully, he and Annalise weren't wintering there when it was attacked, the old princess allowing them to stay in Dyadra on her coin. By his estimation, they were rolling around in their overstuffed bed while their only real home burned.

Olfina continued to talk, but Henri only listened with half an ear, nodding occasionally and chuckling lightly as she regaled him with more tales of her nocturnal exploits. It was becoming more common for that horrible voice in his head to remind him just how much he had lost. The voice sounded different in his mind every time. Sometimes it was people he knew and loved intimately. Other times, they were voices he thought he'd forgotten. They were always wrong somehow; a pitch too high, a bit too gravelly, rhotacism when it wasn't there before. It was formless, dark, ethereal. It hated him. If he didn't know better, he would've thought he'd been afflicted by a hym.

Olfina set a cup down in front of Henri. It smelled revolting and always did. Some horrific mixture meant to knock him out so they could sojourn within his subconscious mind. When Olfina sat down across from him, she looked concerned. "Henri, are you alright? You haven't been talking for a few minutes now." Her voice was soft, delicate, like someone soothing a spooked horse.

"No," Henri said, warming his hands with the cup and staring at its contents, "I'm not."

"Do you want to talk about it before you go under?"

"No."

Olfina searched his eyes for something. Eyes that scared children and dogs. Eyes that glowed in the torchlight. Eyes that saw too much for one man to see. Olfina didn't seem to find what she was looking for. She frowned and motioned toward his cup, "Fine. Now drink and get upstairs. I have preparations to make."

Henri nodded in gratitude. They didn't need to get into this right now. Deciphering Henri's mental state was something they could do together when he had about five years set aside for it. For now, however, it was time to test Henri's theory. His only lead.