"Wasn't it?" she says, wretched. "I ought to have known better, prepared for it. Avallac'h would have known, hell, even Geralt –"

But that name slices into her heart like a knife and her mouth shuts on it as she shakes her head. When she looks at Lan Wangji again, her green eyes are as fierce as a defensive cat's.

"If you wish it, I will submit to another trance," she says, determined. "You'd be better prepared, able to ask questions. Maybe you could learn something useful."