She shakes her head, negating not what he is saying, but what it implies. "He didn't make it through the portal," she tells him. "We fled...there was a flash of light. I didn't see what happened to him."

Coming back to herself, she offers him a tight smile, drawing the threadbare cloak of manners about her. It's an old, old instinct, one that comes much more from the court of Cintra than the cold halls of Kaer Morhen.

"What's your name, cultivator?"