Some time later, standing atop the tower, Angoulême's mood was calm. Eagle Eye Vision stretched freely through the open space.
As though she had become a hawk herself, she looked down from the sky over the whole of Kaer Morhen. To the girl, it felt as if she knew everything, as if every inch of the old keep lay exposed before her.
But that was only an illusion. She and the captain had tested it before. From high ground, the maximum range for spotting enemies was around one hundred and twenty yards. Beyond that, there was no luminous marker. Buildings could block her field of view as well. Still, compared with the thirty-yard range she had on level ground, it was already an astonishing leap, and asking for more would have been greedy.
She finished her search quickly. Then, with perfect swagger, Angoulême spread her arms and dropped headfirst from the top of the tower.
Lambert, who had just been chatting with Geralt, was instantly horrified by the sight. They had agreed she would scout from above, so why had she finished scouting and then jumped off a tower?
He rushed forward to catch her, only to be caught off guard himself. In midair, the girl casually kicked off the wall for leverage. By the time she landed, her speed had slowed enough that she could easily have touched down lightly on her own. But because he was there, Angoulême ended up falling straight into his arms.
A perfect bridal carry.
Angoulême shot him a sideways look. "Lambert, has your filthy mouth evolved into wandering hands now? Are you trying to take advantage of me?"
Lambert blinked and made a face at her. "First, you'd need to have something worth taking advantage of, Miss Flat-Backed Short Stuff."
Dropping back to the ground, Angoulême whipped out her steel sword. "I've changed my mind. You're going to die, and it's going to be today."
Lambert raised both hands high, grinning like a man who had just won the lottery. "All right, all right, I apologize. Lady Angoulême, please forgive a man who just barely escaped death and can't help using dramatic language to settle his nerves."
Angoulême ignored him. When Victor had nothing better to do, he was exactly the same type, sharp-edged and impossible. She knew perfectly well that the more seriously she took Lambert, the more he would enjoy himself.
So she simply explained, "Next time, don't bother. It's my special ability. If I fall from a height and there's something to push off from, I can land silently."
Then she ignored the slightly balding witcher altogether and hooked her arm through the white-haired witcher's. "Come on, Uncle. No bandits around here. Let's hurry up and check the next section."
Geralt allowed himself to be dragged along in silence, though in truth he was a little dazed. This newly arrived girl jumped off towers without warning, and when she called him Uncle, the ease in her voice made it obvious they were close. Could she really be family?
And that boy with the four knife scars, when their eyes met earlier, Geralt knew he had not imagined that look. It had been exactly the same as the others, warm, nostalgic, joyful, full of old memories, with brilliant starlight flickering in those blue eyes.
But according to what the other witchers had said before, Victor had never actually met him. The link between them was Ciri. One was her adoptive father, the other her younger brother. So was Victor simply the sentimental sort?
If he counted as someone important, should Geralt perhaps have given him some kind of gift when they met? But an amnesiac witcher did not seem to have much to give.
The attack had officially ended the moment the Professor fired that bolt.
And the current division of labor was simple. Angoulême, Lambert, and Geralt were working together. The three of them belonged to the sweep team, and their duty was to clear Kaer Morhen.
Although the leaders of the attackers had retreated, most of the bandits had been killed or scattered, and the remnants would soon flee or die in the forest, there was still a chance that a few thugs had hidden themselves in the keep. So a full search was still necessary.
The treatment team, meanwhile, was headed by Victor as lead healer, with Vesemir assisting and Eskel standing guard. They were in the alchemy laboratory trying to save the apprentice Leo. Triss, who had suffered only light injuries, had already taken a potion and was resting nearby for the moment.
As for how Leo was being treated, the method itself was simple, set the bones, stop the bleeding, administer medicine. The reason witchers could not save a normal man from grave injuries was mainly that they lacked any potion capable of stabilizing such wounds. Swallow was too toxic for ordinary humans, and its side effects could even damage the brain.
But with Victor present, the situation was completely different. As one of the most important healing potions, Swallow quite naturally had the highest number of miraculous variants inside his herbal satchel.
The treatment process in summary was this, use a concentrated version of Swallow to stabilize Leo's life, perform proper reduction while Master Vesemir, with his centuries of experience both cutting people open and being cut open himself, assisted him, then widen the bolt wound slightly and disinfect it with alcohol.
To quote Doctor Shani's teaching, "Sew the red to the red, the yellow to the yellow, and the white to the white. Stitch it that way and you can't go wrong."
Whether that was truly foolproof was hard to say, but after everything Leo was still alive, breathing heavily but strongly, which proved the surgery had been very successful. Eskel, who also had extensive experience in being cut open, left his post to check on the apprentice and found himself quite satisfied with Victor's work.
"Well done. He's going to live. You've grown a lot."
"You mean my height?"
"That's the least important part. You're still shorter than me anyway." Eskel pulled Victor into a hug. "Welcome back, brother. You couldn't have come at a better time."
"It would've been even better if you'd gotten here sooner." Master Vesemir stepped out from behind the curtain, brushing off his hands. "Triss is in stable condition."
After letting go of his senior, Victor looked at the now-empty alchemy laboratory and sighed. "That's true. If I'd arrived earlier, then maybe..."
"What happened? Were the losses bad?" Eskel asked.
Ever since last year, the laboratory had been Victor's territory. And the agreement to improve the Trial of the Grasses had been a secret between the master and the boy. So now even Vesemir could not fully judge the scale of the loss, much less Eskel, who had never known the true situation.
Closing his eyes, the boy rubbed at the stubble on his chin and thought back. "What they took, mainly, was the secret of the Trial of the Grasses, some of my speculative theories, and the full set of support tools. As for the other potion research, I took it all with me when I left last year."
Victor's explanation was a small mercy in the middle of disaster, but nobody present could feel relieved. The Professor and that mysterious mage had led a band of thugs here and stolen the formula for the Grass Draught. It was hardly as if they meant to use it to save the world.
"I don't believe they plan to do anything good with that formula." Eskel narrowed his eyes, and the old scar across his face reddened.
Victor nodded in agreement. "We have to take the witchers' secrets back."
"But before that, we have wounded to treat and bodies to clear away." Vesemir summed it up dryly. "Those damned robbers broke into the keep, smashed things, looted the place, and even ruined my favorite chair."
Victor knew he meant the recliner by the hall fireplace.
"Oh, dear Vesemir, don't grieve for it. I'll make you a better one soon."
That was not just empty comfort. Victor really did mean to refurbish the place. Those scum had vented their violence and rage all through the keep, smashing furniture and spilling blood everywhere, ruining the whole look of it.
By the time night fell, aside from the two wounded, the four witchers and the Phantom Troupe were gathered in the great hall enjoying roast meat, familiar roast bear leg, familiar Viziman Champion. The bear meat smelled wonderful, and the mood of the meal was excellent.
The sense of comradeship forged through the hardships of the day was natural and entirely genuine.
Take Angoulême, for example. Before today she had only met Lambert. Geralt had lost his memory, and Vesemir and Eskel had been complete strangers. But just from the memory of cutting down men together while choking inside Farmer's Fart, the three witchers from the courtyard would remember her for the rest of their lives. The conditions had been so brutal that even witchers had ended up with red, stinging eyes from the fumes.
The girl was a natural at banquets to begin with. She could get familiar with dwarves or elves in no time at all. At a witcher gathering, she teamed up with Lambert for comic chaos and heated up the atmosphere just as easily.
Victor clinked cups with Geralt and drank.
As the cups kept crossing and the mood ripened, the witchers' feast turned out to be no different from a Skelliger one. The main theme was drunken men boasting about themselves, with the usual unavoidable arguments mixed in. Fortunately, it did not end in a fistfight. Instead, they started playing charades.
With that classic game helping things along, the mood naturally grew even more cheerful. Especially when Vesemir acted out a ghoul, the whole hall roared with laughter. His body language and low growl were so vivid that everyone guessed it at once.
The fun went on deep into the night. Once Victor felt pleasantly drunk enough, he excused himself early with a smiling remark about needing to look after the wounded, and returned to the alchemy room, which was now also serving as a temporary infirmary.
His fingertips brushed the wooden plaque on the door, Victor's Alchemy Workshop, written in bold, elegant strokes, and he pushed the door open.
Before the feast had begun, the boy had made good use of the time, taking the full set of alchemical equipment out of his herbal satchel and setting it all back up. So now the laboratory was fully furnished again, with the great cauldron at the center ready to be put to work at any moment.
One especially important point was this, after the sweep team finished clearing the keep and confirmed that no bandits remained, Triss had already had Geralt carry her back to her own room to rest.
So any late-night infirmary fantasies or after-hours castle nonsense were completely off the table. A potential "Geralt, absolutely not" situation, on the other hand, still felt promising.
At ease in the familiar, comforting environment, the boy stretched lazily, letting his thoughts run wild.
Then came a light knock at the door. Someone else had apparently left the feast early too. Victor went over and opened it.
"Ah, Geralt." He had only just been entertaining himself with nonsense, so the sudden sight of Geralt outside made the name slip out of him before he could stop it. The white-haired witcher naturally looked baffled.
There was no point trying to explain a simple slip of the tongue. Victor invited Geralt inside. The witcher had come to check on the apprentice. Perhaps because Leo had been shot right in front of him, the White Wolf felt a responsibility toward the wounded boy that he could not set aside.
"Thank you, Victor." After confirming that Leo's breathing was steady, Geralt offered his thanks sincerely. He knew that if the boy had not arrived in time, Leo would definitely have died on the spot.
Victor smiled and motioned him to sit at the table, then handed the White Wolf a cup of hot tea. "No need. That was what I was supposed to do. And you can call me Vic."
Watching the boy's calm expression, the white-haired witcher took a small sip and, after some thought, finally asked, "Vic, sorry, but I want to ask you something. Did you know me before? The way you look at me doesn't feel like the way a stranger would. It feels as if you know everything about me."
Victor blinked. "Angoulême and Ciri have both talked about you to me more than once. And Dandelion told me plenty about your life too. Honestly, I almost feel as if I were you, as if I had lived countless legendary adventures through your identity."
Everything the boy said was the truth. A witcher like the White Wolf, with all his experience and his habit of living among lies and deceit, had spent a century honing the ability to judge falsehood. So in situations where there was no need to lie, the simplest approach was to tell the truth.
Feeling that sincerity, Geralt only grew more confused. He could only shake his head and sigh. "I don't even remember what happened to me. Vesemir mentioned many names, Ciri, Yennefer, people they say are important, but I have no memory of them at all. And some things don't sound like something I would do. Some things don't sound like something I would say."
As he listened to that uncertainty, the boy reminded himself that the man before him was the White Wolf, Geralt of Rivia, but at the same time he was not the White Wolf from Victor's own mind. At least, Victor could not simply force his own image of Geralt onto this man, or it would surely lead to serious mistakes.
Victor smiled and replied, "People are creatures built out of accumulation. Without memory, love and hate are both false. Some actions, some words, are inevitably the result of what came before. Without those memories to refer back to, of course you can't understand why you would make those choices.
"When your memory comes back, all of it will answer itself."
Geralt lifted the teacup and drained it in one go, then gave a wry smile. "Thank you for sharing that. And for the tea. I learned a great deal."
With that, he stepped away from the table, rose, and went to the door.
"Don't worry too much. Let it happen naturally. I have a certain unstable kind of future sight, and I vaguely saw what you look like after getting your memory back."
"I hope so."
Some time after Geralt left, Victor was busy listening while he worked, stirring with one hand and holding materials in the other. The subject on the table was the Frightener from earlier that day, already chopped apart into manageable sections. And the results so far were enough to make him delighted. The thing was treasure from top to bottom, packed with Void traits he had never had access to before.
He was still full of satisfaction when another knock came at the door. This time, Victor already had a good guess who it was, and when he opened it, he was right.
It was Vesemir.
The old man was pleasantly tipsy, but fully lucid.
"Would I be disturbing you?"
"Of course not."
Victor put down his work, invited the old master to the table, settled him in the seat the White Wolf had just occupied, swapped out the cup, and served him hot tea.
Since there had just been another guest, and a little sensing had already given him a clue, the witcher master asked directly, "Did Geralt talk with you all right?"
Victor was long used to the almost telepathic way witchers spoke, and answered without the slightest surprise. "Very well. Though he's not quite like I imagined."
Vesemir nodded and fell silent for a moment.
"Today, it was thanks to you. Twice."
Victor rubbed at his nose. "Please, forget all about that as fast as possible.
"Speaking of which, I didn't get the chance to ask earlier, where did Leo come from? His body's already been adjusted extremely well. That must have taken years."
The old witcher master chuckled. "The boy originally belonged to the School of the Cat. We happened to meet in Kovir after his master died in a kikimore nest. I saw that he had a firm heart and good potential, so I brought him back here to train."
Victor found that unexpectedly amusing, because by sheer coincidence Leo's background was exactly the same as the fake story Victor himself had made up back in Vizima, a Cat School witcher apprentice whose master had died, right down to the detail of dying in a kikimore nest.
"I see. Come to think of it, I still haven't properly reported to you on the progress of the improved Trial of the Grasses, "
The witcher master raised a hand to stop him.
"Tomorrow. Tell me tomorrow. Tonight, let's all get some real sleep."
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