‘Go!’
She squeezed Yennefer’s amulet in her fist and murmured the activation spell. It started working in an instant, and there was no time to lose. The constables, who had been forcing their way through the crowd towards her, stopped, confused.
‘What the bloody hell?’ said one of them in astonishment, looking, it would have seemed, straight at Ciri. ‘Where is she? I just saw her . . .’
‘There, over there!’ yelled another, pointing the wrong way.
Ciri turned around and walked away, still a little dazed and weakened by the rush of adrenaline and the activation of the amulet. The amulet was working perfectly; no one could see her and no one was paying any attention to her. Absolutely no one. As a consequence she was jostled, stamped on and kicked innumerable times before she finally extricated herself from the crowd. By some miracle she escaped being crushed by a chest thrown from a cart. She almost had an eye poked out by a pitchfork. Spells, it turned out, had their good and bad sides, and as many advantages as disadvantages.
The amulet’s effects did not last long. Ciri was not powerful enough to control it or extend the time the spell was active. Fortunately, the spell wore off at the right moment, just as she left the crowd and saw Fabio waiting for her in the alley.
‘Oh my,’ said the boy. ‘Oh my goodness, Ciri. You’re here. I was worried . . .’
‘You needn’t have been. Come on, quickly. Noon has passed. I’ve got to get back.’
‘You were pretty handy with that monster.’ The boy looked at her in admiration. ‘You moved like lightning! Where did you learn to do that?’
‘What? The squire killed the wyvern.’
‘That’s not true. I saw—’
‘You didn’t see anything! Please, Fabio, not a word to anyone. Anyone. And particularly not to Madam Yennefer. Oh, I’d be in for it if she found out . . .’
She fell silent.
‘Those people were right.’ She pointed behind her, towards the market square. ‘I provoked the wyvern . . . It was all my fault . . .’
‘No, it wasn’t,’ retorted Fabio firmly. ‘That cage was rotten and bodged together. It could have broken any second: in an hour, tomorrow, the next day . . . It’s better that it happened now, because you saved—’
‘The squire did!’ yelled Ciri. ‘The squire! Will you finally get that into your head? I’m telling you, if you grass me up, I’ll turn you into a . . . a . . . well something horrible! I know spells! I’ll turn you into—’
‘Stop,’ someone called out behind them. ‘That’s quite enough of that!’
One of the women walking behind them had dark, smoothly combed hair, shining eyes and thin lips. She had a short mauve camaka cape trimmed with dormouse fur thrown over her shoulders.
‘Why aren’t you in school, novice?’ she asked in a cold, resonant voice, eyeing Ciri with a penetrating gaze.
‘Wait, Tissaia,’ said the other woman, who was younger, tall and fair-haired, and wore a green dress with a plunging neckline. ‘I don’t know her. I don’t think she’s—’
‘Yes, she is,’ interrupted the dark-haired woman. ‘I’m certain she’s one of your girls, Rita. You can’t know them all. She’s one of the ones who sneaked out of Loxia during the confusion when we were moving dormitories. And she’ll admit as much in a moment. Well, novice, I’m waiting.’
‘What?’ frowned Ciri.
The woman pursed her thin lips and straightened her cuffs.
‘Who did you steal that amulet of concealment from? Or did someone give it to you?’
‘What?’
‘Don’t test my patience. Name, class, and the name of your preceptress. Quickly!’
‘What?’
‘Are you acting dumb, novice? Your name! What is your name?’
Ciri clenched her teeth together and her eyes flared with a green glow.
‘Anna Ingeborga Klopstock,’ she muttered brazenly.
The woman raised a hand and Ciri immediately realised the full extent of her error. Only once had Yennefer, wearied by Ciri’s endless complaining, showed her how a paralysing spell worked. The sensation had been extremely unpleasant. It was the same this time, too.
Fabio yelled weakly and lunged towards her, but the fair-haired woman seized him by the collar and held him fast. The boy struggled but the woman’s grip was like iron. Ciri couldn’t budge an inch either. She felt as though she were slowly becoming rooted to the spot. The dark-haired woman leaned over her and fixed her with her shining eyes.
‘I do not approve of corporal punishment,’ she said icily, straightening her cuffs once more. ‘But I’ll do my best to have you flogged, novice. Not for disobedience, nor for theft, nor for truancy. Not because you are wearing non-regulation clothing. Not for being in the company of a boy and not even for talking to him about matters you are forbidden to speak of. You will be flogged for not recognising an arch-mistress.’