BE THE THING THAT BURIES ME

It’s why he rarely stays when he takes a lover. Being awake when you don’t wish to be is bad enough, but tossing and turning in a strange bed and keeping someone else awake is worse. Especially when they’re someone who barely knows you, and has little patience for a lover keeping them from their rest. Better if he leaves once they’re both done. His lovers are more likely to remember him fondly that way, and he is much less likely to be bored. Jaskier is even worse at being bored than he is at sleeping.

He’s better when he travels with Geralt. Travelling with Geralt means spending more nights under the stars instead of by rushlight, and that seems to make his body remember better what sleep is, and how much it likes it. And Geralt goes to bed early, even when they stay in towns and villages, which encourages Jaskier to do the sensible thing. And when they share a bed, and Jaskier is manfully trying not to fidget (... too much), Geralt will grumble, ‘Sleep,’ and throw an arm and leg over Jaskier, pinning him to the bed. The first time it happened, Jaskier thought he was going to die from suppressed fidgeting. But after that first time, his body seemed to take it as a signal that it was time to finally let him sleep. Now when he feels the weight of Geralt’s arm or leg over him, he finds himself melting into sleep within minutes. It’s a relief.

He hasn’t travelled with Geralt for a while now.

Not travelling with Geralt means sleep is as difficult to find as it always is when he’s alone. So he doesn’t realise he’s cursed at first. He’s just having a bad run of nights. That isn’t unprecedented, although it’s been some time since it was last this bad. He isn’t sure whether he’s had a run quite like this since the last year of his studies at Oxenfurt Academy. Regardless, he knows that although it’s not pleasant, it will end eventually. It always does.

He just—Can’t sleep.

Well. He sleeps, but it takes him so long to fall asleep – even longer than usual. More than once he’s seen the first blushings of dawn peeping into the window of his room before his body finally lets him rest. And when he does sleep before dawn, he often finds himself waking every hour, and once he drags himself upright in the morning, it’s as though he hasn’t slept at all. He’s started sleeping through when he’d usually wake, too – he’s thrown out of three inns in a row for oversleeping past the time he ought to leave.

Even then, it’s just a couple of weeks of poor sleep, that becomes three weeks, that becomes a month. Then two. He doesn’t really think about how long it’s been, because it’s hard to think when he’s this tired. He’s aware that it’s been a long time now, but he’s just kind of ... resigned to it. He can’t think clearly enough to be worried about it. This is just his life now. He’s good at pretending that he isn’t exhausted. He doesn’t have enough spark to be able to write new songs, but that’s all right. He has plenty stored up, and at some stage he’ll sleep again, and then he’ll write. New songs always come much slower when he isn’t travelling with Geralt, anyway. It’s fine. He doesn’t need sleep to be able to put one foot in front of the other to get from place to place, and he’s well practised at pretending to be more enthused than he is when he performs. He makes more mistakes than he usually does, but they’re mostly minor fumblings, and so long as his audience has had enough to drink, it isn’t as though they notice. It doesn’t matter that he’s frustrated by it. He’s getting on fine.

A farmer offers to give him a lift in his hay cart. He’s headed somewhere or other for market, Jaskier thinks, although truthfully he doesn’t ask the farmer a lot of questions. He’s happy enough just to get to rest his legs for a bit.

He jolts awake and it’s hours later, and the sun is riding low in the sky. He’s missed much of the day. He has no idea whether the farmer has taken him where he promised. He doesn’t remember where they were heading. It hadn’t seemed very important. The man could have slit Jaskier’s throat in a field and taken all of his worldly goods – not that he had much – and Jaskier would never have known. He feels deeply shaken. He vows to get more sleep, and for a minute he believes that if he just tries, it will be that easy. That his years of terrible sleep have been some kind of personal failing, due to him not trying hard enough to be good, and now that he’s made this decision, it should be easy to fix it.

‘We’re here,’ says the farmer. ‘I’ll be heading home tomorrow afternoon if you want to head back that way. Just let me know.’

‘Yeah, thanks, good,’ Jaskier says vaguely, and slips off the end of the cart.

He needs to find a room at the inn, and then tonight he won’t slip into anyone’s bed. He’ll be good. He’ll go straight to his own room, and he’ll blow out the rushlight early, and he’ll sleep. He can’t keep doing this.

There are no rooms to be had. Tomorrow is market day, the innkeeper tells him tiredly, which means that they’re completely full up. He could sleep in the hayloft, if he likes.

He doesn’t like, but he thanks her graciously. It will be better than sleeping under a bush. And she’s willing to provide his meal a little cheaper if he plays for her guests tonight. It’s the best kind of deal that he ever gets in a small place like this, and he’s grateful for it. And with market day tomorrow, and her inn full up, he might even find a few more coins than usual in his lute case after he finishes.

He isn’t travelling with Geralt, after all, he thinks, and tries not to notice the pang in his chest at that. He doesn’t need a room to keep his things in, not when he’ll have his lute with him through the evening. So this is fine, actually! It’s fine.

He chats to a couple of merchants in for the market over dinner. One of them is a tinker. He offers to repair Jaskier’s pots at a discount, but Jaskier has to admit that he hasn’t one, at the moment.

‘Whyever not?’ the tinker asks.

‘No horse,’ Jaskier laughs.

‘No—No horse,’ the tinker repeats. ‘How—Why? I thought you said you travelled!’

‘I do,’ Jaskier says. ‘I had a horse, but she was stolen. And I used to travel with someone else who had a horse, so she carried all of our things. But I’m alone again. I ought to buy another, I suppose. Once I have money again. And perhaps I’ll be able to buy a pot from you then.’

The tinker laughs.

The other merchant sitting with them is bringing furs down from the frozen north, where Geralt grew up. (Jaskier squashes that thought as soon as he has it.)

‘Aren’t you worried?’ Jaskier asks. ‘Having your cart out of sight while you eat in here?’

‘My boy is wit’ it,’ says the furrier, laughing. His accent is thick, as though the act of speaking could turn air to honey in his mouth, much like the other Kaedwenians Jaskier has known. (Very different to Geralt’s accent, although Geralt often had an echo of that thickness for the first week of spring.) ‘Big boy, fists like hams. He will keep safe. When I am done, I send him in for supper. He likes music. He will like seeink you perform. He has little pipe of his own.’

He mimes playing a tune on a small pipe.

‘Perhaps he could join me for a song,’ Jaskier suggests.

The furrier laughs. ‘He does not bring it with him! He plays sometimes, in winter. Stops us goink mad.’ He taps his forehead, and laughs again.

Jaskier smiles politely. He changes the subject, asks if they think it’s worth him coming along to the market tomorrow, perhaps entertaining the crowds. The furrier – what is his name? Jaskier is usually good at this, but his head feels full of straw – is very enthusiastic about it.

‘Much better than usual, where it is standink around for hours, hopink someone wants your wares,’ he says. ‘Feet get less sore when dere is somethink to watch.’

Once Jaskier’s dinner is done, he tunes his lute and prepares to perform. His fingers feel thick and stupid, and tuning feels like it takes forever. He keeps turning his pegs too far, and then over-correcting. He knows that some of that forever is simply because he’s tired and cranky, and so even a minor inconvenience feels like a world-ending disaster. He shoves down that irritation, and pastes on a smile before getting up to play.

He blanks on the words to the second verse of the first song he plays, which is never a good omen. It’s fine, though; he just skips to the third verse and elides the second verse entirely. Likely no-one even notices. But he notices.

It’s a performance full of stuff-ups. His fingers are like sausages, and he fumbles a few fret changes. He even stumbles over his own feet at one point, although thankfully he doesn’t actually fall over, and his audience seems to think the near-pratfall was deliberate. It’s probably because he’s already so aware of the mistakes he’s already made, but he keeps making them. This finger on the wrong string, the wrong note played in this verse. He hates it, even as he keeps playing, and it’s harder and harder not to show his frustration on his face as he plays.

‘I’ll just take a quick rest,’ he says, grinning at the gathered crowd. It’s earlier than he normally would, but perhaps if he takes a rest he can shake off this malaise. There is a fair collection of coins in his lute case, though, which is cheering. He leaves them there, because people are more likely to add more coins if there’s a healthy amount already there. Besides, it’s easier to scoop them all up at the end of the night, and right now he doesn’t have the energy for anything more than the bare minimum of what he needs to do. He does spot that someone has dropped an entire Gors Velen Noble in, which is generous. They’re difficult to spend outside of Gors Velen, though. He picks it up, and spins it in his fingers for something to do with his hands.

The furrier and the tinker are still at the table when he slings his lute onto his back and slides back onto his spot on the bench.

‘Good work,’ the furrier says, clapping him on the shoulder. ‘I should go, let Iwan come in and eat. But you did good job.’

He passes Jaskier a tankard of ale. Jaskier takes it thankfully and drains it. Singing is surprisingly thirsty work.

The tinker says something, although whether it’s to Jaskier or to the furrier, he isn’t quite sure. He’s so sleepy. He folds his arms on the table and closes his eyes. He knows he won’t fall asleep, not in the middle of a crowded tavern full of people laughing and drinking and shouting together, but at least he could rest his eyes. They feel like they’ve been roughly peeled, and left in the sun to dehydrate for a week of hot summer days, and then shoved straight back in his face. Keeping them open nearly hurts. Besides, if he has his eyes closed, no-one’s going to expect him to respond to them, or to follow the conversation. And he’s tired enough that following what they’re talking about is hard. They might as well both be speaking Elder for the amount of effort Jaskier has to put in just to follow what they’re saying. If he just closes his eyes for the next few minutes, then hopefully that will give him just enough rest that he’ll be able to turn this shambles of a performance into something he can nearly be proud of.

He jolts awake when someone roughly shakes his shoulder.

‘Time for you to get out,’ says the landlady flatly.

Jaskier blinks at her, and then looks around. The tavern is empty. The light is wrong. He somehow fell asleep? It isn’t night time any more, which means that he has to move quick-smart in order to go play at the market. Fuck.

He pulls himself to his feet, and is reassured to feel the weight of his lute still on his back. The lute case is where he left it, on bench across the room.

It’s empty. It’s completely empty. He wants to cry. There had been enough money in there to feed himself for a week, maybe even to stretch to a room in another inn, and now there’s nothing. Someone, or several someones, have helped themselves to whatever coin had been left there for him in payment for his performance.

No matter. He’ll go and play through the market, and he might make a fraction of it back, if he’s lucky. And he still has that single Noble he’d had in his hand when he slept last night. That’s something, at least.

He gathers up his lute case, not bothering to buckle it closed when he’s just going to lay it out at his feet again, and pushes out the tavern door.

The market is over. There is churned up mud where three dozen pairs of feet have walked, and deep cart ruts where merchants set up their stalls and left again. The furrier and a younger man – presumably his son – are leaning against a nearly empty cart, with just a few worn-looking skins in the bottom. They’re talking in low voices, and sharing some bread and wine.

‘Jaskier!’ calls the furrier, when he looks up and spots him. ‘My son very sad to not see you play last night. We try to wake, but we cannot.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he says, shamefaced, picking his way over to their cart. ‘I ... I haven’t been sleeping well recently.’

‘That is pity,’ says the furrier.

His son says nothing. Jaskier shuffles in place. He tries not to look at the bread in their hands. He is suddenly starving, but he has no food, and now no money with which to buy any more. He’d spent most of the last of it on the hayloft that he didn’t get to sleep in. He could hardly go back in to the inn and convince the landlady to feed him. She was already annoyed with him – doubtless because she’d had to deal with the patrons last night who were deprived of the music they’d been promised.

He won’t starve to death. He’ll wait until the sun is a little lower in the sky, and he’ll go scrumping for apples, and whatever he can find in people’s gardens. If he just takes a little, it should be all right. And then he’ll just move on. He’ll have more luck in the next town. And if he heads towards bigger places than this, he might find a tavern or an inn that’s willing to let him stay there for a few weeks, maybe even give him room and board. Even just a room would be nice.

‘We are heading back nort’,’ says the furrier, looking him over. ‘We could take you, if you like. Could leave you in Dorian.’

Jaskier’s chest swells with hope, but then he remembers the woeful state of his purse.

‘I can’t,’ he admits. ‘I can’t pay you. All of the money that people left in my case last night was gone when I woke up.’

The son looks at his father, and shrugs. ‘We had good day,’ says the son. ‘Come with us anyway. You could play when we stop tonight.’

‘That is kind of you,’ Jaskier says, his eyes prickling. ‘If you’re happy to have me.’

The son shrugs again. ‘Is no problem. Vasko and Nikita will not notice extra load.’

He pats the rump of the ass beside him, who makes an affronted noise. Both of the Kaedwenians laugh.

‘Ready to leaf?’ the furrier asks.

‘If you’ll let me put my lute away,’ Jaskier says, kneeling down to do just that.

His stomach rumbles, but the Kaedwenians are leaving now. There’s no time for scrumping, but if he’s lucky, they might give him some of their supper. They’ve been kind enough so far. If not ... he might find something to eat where they stop. And one day without food won’t kill him. He buckles his lute case closed, and swings himself up onto the cart.

The son sits in the back of the cart with him, and the furrier sits up front. There’s a jolt as they get under way, and then it’s just the easy rhythm of the road. He can feel every stone that the wheels run over, but he gets to rest.

The furrier’s son produces an apple, and cuts slices out of it with his knife. He offers one to Jaskier, who tries to hide how grateful he is at the kindness.

‘Father tried to wake you when he left last night,’ the son says. ‘And we tried to wake you when tavern closed for night, send you to bed. But you would not wake.’

‘That’s not usual for me,’ Jaskier says. ‘But I’ve been sleeping badly for months now. I suppose I just needed the rest. Still, not quite as bad as when I travelled with Geralt—’

He stops suddenly, the sting of their separation still so fresh, even after months.

The son waits, then says, ‘Geralt another bard?’

Jaskier is shocked into a laugh, almost forgetting his pain. ‘Ha! No. No, he’s a witcher.’

‘You travel with witcher? You are interesting man to know.’

‘Not any more,’ Jaskier says, as brightly as he can.

‘Sleep badly with witcher, then?’

‘Plague, no, the opposite,’ Jaskier says. ‘No, but once he was sleeping so badly that he decided to see if he could find a genie to grant him a wish.’

‘Djinn is myth,’ says the son.

‘That’s what I said,’ says Jaskier. ‘But it turns out that they are very much real, and also deeply unpleasant. This one destroyed the house of the mage that wanted to capture it.’

‘Sounds like story worth telling,’ says the son.

‘I was under a spell for half of it, so I had to get the details from Geralt after, and he is not a natural storyteller, let me tell you. The whole thing was pretty gruesome, all told. I still feel like I ought to be able to get a good song out of it, though, if I can work out which parts to keep.’

‘Why not just tell story,’ says the son.

‘It doesn’t work,’ says Jaskier, relaxing into the explanation. He’s tried to explain this to Geralt before. but Geralt never wants to hear it. ‘Real life is messy, with confusing little bits that don’t make sense unless you explain half an hour’s worth of back story. Songs need to be done in a dozen or so lines of poetry. There isn’t the space for much in the way of details. If I wrote epic poems I might manage to put in most of the story, but even then there are bits which are unimportant or confusing, and which if you trimmed away the story is easier to tell.’

‘Like whittlink,’ says the son. ‘Cut away parts of wood which do not look like bear.’

‘Yes, exactly,’ Jaskier beams. ‘That’s exactly it! You trim away the unnecessary details until the story is the right shape. Sometimes the same events could be a comedy or a tragedy, depending on how you look at it. The genie was both, in a way.’

‘How so?’ asks the son.

Jaskier hopes that the son and his father actually use each other’s names when they stop. He’s going to find this trip very awkward, otherwise.

‘Well ... the whole thing was a little absurd. I wound up choking half to death on my own throat because of a wish that the genie fulfilled in the worst way possible. Geralt wound up under a mage’s geas because he was trying to undo that wish, and the geas had him doing all kinds of ridiculous things, like spanking a priest in the high street.’

‘Sounds like good way to end up as execution,’ comments the son.

‘Ye-es,’ says Jaskier. ‘Although he was saved by a wish that he didn’t know he had, and accidentally exploded the guard’s head.’

The son laughs uproariously, slapping his knee.

‘Now tell tragedy part,’ he says.

‘Well,’ Jaskier says slowly. ‘the mage we went to for help was cruelly treated as a child, and had her ability to become a mother ripped away from her. She thought that if she could ... capture the genie, and tame it, she could recover that ability.’

‘Poor woman,’ says the son, shaking his head.

‘Mm,’ Jaskier agrees.

He still doesn’t quite forgive Yennefer for being Geralt’s true love, but if he puts his own selfish feelings aside, he can recognise that Yennefer has had a difficult life, even from what little he knows of it. It’s just hard to remember that, because it’s Yennefer. She doesn’t exactly invite pity.

Jaskier chose his path for himself. He never wanted to be his father’s son, and so he has carved out a life where he isn’t. He wonders if he would be equally as fixed on being an heir as Yennefer is on motherhood if he had been disinherited before he decided to become a bard. Or if he’d never met Geralt, never had an adventure. He could see how he might. It’s a realisation born of his recent insomnia, and he wonders if this new fellow feeling will survive his next meeting with Yen, or if they’ll be sniping at each other as soon as they meet again, all sympathy forgotten.

(Less productive things to come from his insomnia include hours spent awake, going back over every moment he spent with Geralt, wondering if there were things he could have done differently, to make it all have turned out in the end. Things that Jaskier could have done to keep his friend.)

‘Did she catch djinn?’ asks the son.

He passes Jaskier the wine bottle, and Jaskier takes it with a nod. There’s only about a cup’s worth left, but it’s enough to wet his whistle.

‘No,’ says Jaskier. ‘Geralt thought—Geralt says that if she had, it would have torn her apart. He tried to stop her. Used his last wish to stop her from catching the genie, somehow. I don’t know how, I’m afraid. Geralt was not very clear, and I was never sure whether he wasn’t sure how he’d done it, or if he was ashamed of how he’d done it.’

‘Probably shame,’ says the son. ‘Men are often not good to women, even though we are stronger, and should be better. Especially powerful women. Make many men angry.’

‘That’s the thing,’ Jaskier says. ‘Geralt is a good man. I’ve never known him to be anything other than courteous and kind, unless whoever it is really doesn’t deserve it. Often he’s still polite when they’re incredibly rude to him. He only tends to get rude when someone is being cruel to someone else, especially someone defenceless. He never does it if they’re being cruel to him. He doesn’t think he’s worth it.’

Jaskier stares out at the road unspooling behind them, and yawns.

‘But he also carries so much shame in his heart. Shame for not being good enough, or fast enough. Or for times when he only had two bad choices, and he chose the one which seemed better, but which turned out worse.’ He thinks about that, and adds, ‘or when he chose the better of two poor choices. It’s as though he feels that if he’d been a better man – well, a better witcher, a better person – he’d conjure up some third option where nobody was hurt. Sometimes I wish for his sake that he could. But how do you undo the mistakes of a dozen other men, that they made a decade before you arrived, in a place you don’t live, among people you don’t know? It’s impossible.’

‘You feel greatly for him,’ the son says, thumping his chest in emphasis. ‘Your friend witcher.’

‘Well ... yes,’ Jaskier admits. ‘I travelled with him a long time. We’re—We were close.’

The son nods, and turns to watch the road for a while.

Then he says, ‘Is witcher last part of tragedy?’

Yes, Jaskier thinks. That moment, looking through the windows of that destroyed house, that was the beginning of the end.

But he isn’t going to admit his awful doomed one-sided love to this young man. Not when he and his father are his literal ride to Dorian. He might be sympathetic, but it’s far too risky. And in Dorian, Jaskier might actually make enough to see him through the next month or so. If he’s really lucky, he might be able to make enough that he can put some aside towards a new horse. It would be the sensible thing to do, if he plans on continuing to travel the roads as he always has.

‘He survived,’ Jaskier says instead. ‘And he saved the mage. And she seemed to forgive him for it.’

He also isn’t going to admit to watching them through the windows of that house. He isn’t going to admit the churn of mixed feelings as he stood there, nor the way that Chireadan had to pull him away.

His eyes droop. The sun is low in the sky, but not quite setting. Apparently one solid day of rest is not enough to make up for weeks of poor sleep. He shouldn’t really be surprised at that, but he wishes that he could have some of that weight of exhaustion lift. Perhaps he’d feel less sleepy if he weren’t on a cart, he thinks. The gentle motion of the wheels, the swaying of the cart, the drum-like rhythm of the asses’ hooves on the hard-packed dirt road. It all conspires to make him drowsy, and the smell of the furs and the unwashed man beside him, and the horse-like smell of the asses means that if he closes his eyes, he could almost be beside Geralt again.

‘It is only perhaps hour until we stop,’ says the son.

‘Good,’ murmurs Jaskier.

He drifts. He sleeps.

*

‘We are here,’ says a rough Kaedwenian voice.

Jaskier blinks his eyes open, and has to hold up an arm to shield himself from the sun. It’s nearly shining directly in his eyes, and it’s blinding. He sits up and waits for his eyes to adjust, and then looks around.

‘Where are we?’ he asks.

He’d thought they were going to stop for the evening in a wood, or something. This is ... not that. There’s cobblestones beneath the cart.

‘Dorian,’ says the furrier.

‘Wait, what?’ says Jaskier. ‘It can’t be. Dorian was several days’ drive—’

‘Yes,’ says the furrier shortly. ‘And we are here.’

Jaskier wants to protest, to argue. It’s absurdity itself to suggest that they could be in Dorian. He would have woken before then. He’s tired, but he’s not so tired that he could lose several days.

Fuck, he needs to piss. And eat something. And he still has no money.

‘You should find mage,’ says the furrier’s son. ‘Not right to sleep that long without waking. Perhaps your friend’s mage with djinn would help.’

‘Right, yeah, thanks,’ Jaskier mutters.

He staggers off the cart, and nearly falls when his legs buckle beneath him. He manages to catch himself on the cart’s edge, and after a few terrifying moments, his legs seem to support him enough to stand. He staggers over to an alley between a couple of buildings, finds a spot where he won’t be immediately obvious to passers by, and unbuttons his breeches.

Considering how desperate he’d felt, he’d expected to let loose a stream that his father’s destrier would be proud of. But instead he produces a thin dark-yellow stream that tapers off all too soon.

Several days, he thinks. Well, fuck.

He buttons himself as hurriedly as he can. His fingers don’t seem to want to work any more than his legs want to carry him. He doesn’t remember being this shaky after he staggered out of Yennefer’s house in Rinde. Although he supposes he’d only been asleep for a day then. This time he’s been asleep for what – three days? Four, perhaps, if he counts sleeping for most of the previous day and missing the market.

A cold hand clenches around his heart. The furriers are right. Poor sleep can’t explain that. He doesn’t like the way that it’s worsened, either – to go from most of one day to three is not a good pattern. Will it get worse from here? Will he fall asleep tonight and wake up in a week? A month? Or not wake up at all?

He leans against the wall of the alley and despairs. For the first time since he was fourteen and crying himself to sleep in his room in Oxenfurt, he wishes that he was home, in his father’s house. He is so incredibly vulnerable here. For all his father’s faults, which are many, and his disagreements with his son, which are near infinite, if Jaskier was still at home, his father would fix this. That was, if there was something to be fixed. If he suddenly fell asleep and could not be wakened, a mage would at least be summoned.

He has no idea what will happen if he falls asleep again, perhaps this time for good. Will they assume that he’s dead? Will they hastily arrange a pauper’s grave, and tip him into it and bury him alive, and sell his lute? It’s a truly terrifying thought. He could disappear here, he realises. No-one will know where the famous bard Jaskier went. No-one would expect ‘He fell asleep one day, and never woke up, so he was buried in a rough hole under no name, like a peasant who died of the plague in a foreign place.’

Would Geralt miss him? He has desperately hoped that the whole business on the mountain had just been a fit of pique, and not Geralt’s true feelings about the last two decades. He likes to imagine that one day Geralt will notice that Jaskier hasn’t been around for a while – someone as long-lived as Geralt might not even realise that so much time has passed – and then he’ll think, I miss Jaskier. I wonder where he’s found himself? Perhaps he’s found himself in trouble. Or adventure. And then he’ll set out, looking all heroic and possibly a little tragic if he remembers how sharp he’d been. Then he’ll tell Jaskier that he’s sorry, and that he’s missed his songs.

Jaskier knows that he’s only fooling himself. But he also knows for a fact that stranger things have happened. He watched some of them with his own two eyes, and wrote astoundingly popular songs about them afterwards. So it’s possible. Perhaps not very likely, but possible. Besides, Geralt is very bad at feelings. While that might mean that he truly was bottling everything up until Jaskier managed to crack that demijohn of resentment wide open, Jaskier hopes that isn’t the case.

Perhaps if he dies here, Geralt will feel sorry for how he treated Jaskier, and go looking for him, and won’t be able to find him. And then, because he’s Geralt, he’ll doubtless blame himself, and miserably brood across the Continent about the fact that he’s lost the best friend he’s ever had.

The thought is a lot less comforting than Jaskier would like it to be.

He needs to find a mage. It’s his only chance now. He doesn’t want to die in Dorian. That isn’t a remotely poetic end. He’d like to die at a hundred and two on stage of the Tretogor Eisteddfod, handing over the grand prize to some starry-eyed infant, but he’d also accept a dramatic death – at the hands of a dragon, perhaps. He doesn’t want to simply fall asleep here, and die unnoticed and unmourned.

At least Dorian ought to be large enough to have a mage somewhere about. He’ll just have to ask. He straightens himself up, tugs his doublet down, lifts his head, and leaves the alley.

The furriers’ cart is still where he left it, much to his surprise.

‘Here,’ says the son, striding over to him, and passing him a bottle of wine and a rough bag. The bag turns out to hold a slightly old loaf of bread, large enough to feed one person, and a couple of apples. ‘We are not stoppink here, but my father worries. You had no food since we left village behind, and you are poor. Nothing to do except sell lute, and then what would you do, eh, bard? So: food. Be well.’

‘Thank you,’ Jaskier says. ‘That is unbelievably kind of both you and your father, um—’

The son smiles, and interprets his hesitation correctly. ‘Iwan,’ he says. ‘And Janssel.’ He gestures in the vague direction of where his father sits with the asses.

‘Thank you, Iwan,’ Jaskier says. ‘I’m Jaskier. I don’t remember if I said. I hope you both have safe travels home.’

Iwan nods, turns on his heel, and heads back to his cart. He pulls himself up onto the bench at the front beside his father, and they move off.

Jaskier looks up at the sky, shading his eyes and squinting. The sun isn’t quite at its zenith, but he has no way of knowing if it’s before noon, or after. Either way, he has plenty of time before he needs to find somewhere to stay. He heads towards Dorian’s marketplace. In his admittedly limited experience, mages like to be the centre of attention. He guesses that means that either their shop is on the market square itself, or it will be nearby. Even if he’s wrong, if there’s a mage in Dorian, someone in the square ought to know where they can be found.

Pleased with his reasoning, he looks around the square. There’s a tavern there on one side, and he thinks longingly of a full bowl of pottage all of his own. It isn’t the kind of tavern that has rooms for rent, though, so he’ll try one of the other inns first. After he finds a mage.

It turns out that he was right: there is a mage who has set up shop on the market square, on the opposite side to the tavern. He doesn’t know what kind of thing he was expecting. He knows Yennefer has a shop in Vengerberg – Geralt told him once – but he’s a little vague on what she sells. Creams and unguents, if he remembers what little Geralt had said.

He has no idea what this mage sells. The window is entirely made of panels of bullseye glass, so Jaskier can’t see any details of the interior of the shop. There is a hanging sign above the door, but all it has is a complicated magical-looking symbol and, picked out in gilt letters, Member of the Brotherhood of Mages. The symbol reminds him uncomfortably of waking in Yennefer’s house during the whole genie fiasco. He’d managed to go years without thinking of it, and now there are two reminders of it in a day.

No, he remembers. Not within a day.

He tries the door to the mage’s shop, but it doesn’t open. He knocks on the door instead.

A young man opens it, perhaps a decade younger than Jaskier himself. It’s so unexpected that Jaskier says nothing at first, merely stares at him. He hadn’t known there were young mages. It stands to reason that there would be, but he had just assumed that they were all old men. Or terrifyingly beautiful women like Yennefer. He isn’t expecting this.

‘Yes?’ asks the mage – or possibly his servant? There’s no particular reason why a mage couldn’t have a servant.

‘I, uh, wanted to see a mage,’ Jaskier says. ‘I think I might be cursed.’

The mage looks him up and down, and it is clear that whatever he sees, he is supremely unimpressed.

‘I could make time from my busy schedule to see you,’ he says – no, he drawls. ‘For a fee.’

‘Ah,’ says Jaskier.

He doesn’t know what sort of fee a mage charges, but he guesses that however much it is, it will be more than he has. Probably more than he could earn in a week, even if he isn’t increasingly worried that he won’t be able to make any kind of money in the next week. Hopefully he’s able to stay awake tonight, and if he’s really lucky, then maybe ...

‘Um, out of interest, how much is your fee?’ asks Jaskier.

The mage names a price. It is ... well, maybe if he’s able to stay awake tonight, and he’s really lucky, and also if Crown Princess Adda happens to stop by the tavern that he’s playing in and leaves an insignificant little sapphire or ruby trinket in his lute case, he could probably afford it.

‘I have ... a Gors Velen Noble,’ he admits.

The mage doesn’t even deign to reply. The door begins to close in Jaskier’s face.

‘Wait!’ he cries, and throws himself into the gap to stop it closing.

The mage opens it partway with a long-suffering sigh.

‘I’ll try to get your fee,’ Jaskier says. ‘I’ll come back if I do. But um. If I don’t, could you leave a message for—for Yennefer of Vengerberg?’

He doesn’t think that Yen will come to his aid, but at least that way someone would know what happened to him. And she’d probably tell Geralt. It’s better than nothing, and it isn’t as though there’s anyone else worth telling.

‘How do you know Yenna?’ the mage asks.

‘Um. We met in Rinde. And then in the Dragon Mountains,’ Jaskier says. ‘She saved my life once.’

The mage looks him over again, and his face says clearly that he doesn’t think Yennefer ought to have bothered.

‘What is your message?’ he asks, sounding incredibly bored.

‘Oh,’ says Jaskier. He hasn’t thought this far. ‘Uh. Tell her that you saw Jaskier in Dorian, I suppose, and that I think I have some kind of sleeping curse, so I don’t know if I’ll see her again. And, I guess, that I’m sorry how everything turned out with Geralt.’

The mage snorts derisively.

Admittedly, Jaskier doesn’t know exactly how things had turned out between Yennefer and Geralt on the mountain. For all Jaskier knows, they might already have made up and be tucked away in some palatial chalet in the Lyrian Mountains, fucking each other’s brains out. But the argument didn’t look like it had been a pleasant one, even from Jaskier’s viewpoint of several yards away up a rocky slope.

‘I’ll tell her if I see her,’ says the mage, already closing the door behind himself.

Well, fuck. That does not sound particularly hopeful. He doesn’t think the mage will bother to pass the message on, and if he does, will he remember any of the salient details? It doesn’t seem likely.

Jaskier leans against the door and considers his options. There is not a long list. The only thing he can think of to do is find somewhere to stay, hopefully somewhere that is eager to have him perform as well. Then he just has to try to save up the – he swallows at the thought – truly unconscionable amount of money that the mage wants, and hope that he can manage to stay awake long enough to get help. He wonders if it is better to try to stay up indefinitely or not. He’s a little afraid to sleep now, but then, he only started to sleep for so long after weeks of insomnia. Perhaps if he goes to bed tonight after his performance, he’ll sleep a normal amount, and wake up in the morning, and he only has to avoid staying awake for too long.

He doesn’t think it will be that easy, though.

First things first: find somewhere to stay—

His stomach reminds him that he has not eaten in several days. Right. Revised plan: find somewhere to sit and eat his food. Then find somewhere to stay. There’s no point in panicking yet. He’s lived through hairier situations.

He carefully does not think about the witcher who ensured he survived those situations, and the fact that said witcher can no longer be relied on to care what happens to him.

*

Geralt is very tired when he and Roach come into some small, forgettable Redanian village. All he wants is to be left alone, and to be allowed to take a room in the inn. If that’s too much to hope for, as it often is, he would settle for simply being left in peace.

A broad young man makes his way towards Geralt across what passes for this village’s market square. Either he has a job for him, or he intends trouble. With the young man’s serious expression, it could be either. Geralt is tired. He hopes it’s neither. Perhaps the young man wishes to talk to someone else, and will pass him by completely.

Geralt knows he’s not that lucky, though, so he’s unsurprised when the young man stops in front of him.

‘You are witcher?’ he asks.

Ah. A contract, then. ‘Yes.’

‘You know witcher called Geralt? I do not know any other name.’

‘Yes,’ Geralt says, surprised. ‘That’s me.’

‘That is lucky,’ says the young man. ‘My father and I met man called Jaskier. Says you were friends.’

He eyes Geralt. Geralt says nothing, and merely waits for the rest of the story.

‘We think he is cursed,’ says the young man. ‘But he is poor, so no money to pay for mage. But he says he has great friend who is witcher, who saves him from djinn with help also of lady mage. We have had lucky trip, and my grandmother says that if you have luck, you must pass along, otherwise luck leaves you. I thought seeing witcher is sign to pass luck along, try to help Jaskier.’

‘Where did you see him?’ Geralt asks. ‘And what kind of curse?’

If anyone was going to get themselves cursed, it would be Jaskier, Geralt thinks. He tries not to think about the heavy stone of guilt he’s carried with him since Jaskier left. Even if he never wants to see Geralt again, that’s no reason not to try to help him.

‘In Dorian,’ says the young man. ‘He sleeps too much. My father thinks it is getting worse.’

Geralt relaxes. ‘Jaskier just sleeps soundly,’ he explains. ‘When he does, that is. He’ll be fine.’

‘He slept in our cart for nearly four days without waking,’ says the young man flatly. ‘We shake him, we splash water in face, nothing. My father says he fall asleep on table night before, no one can wake him all night. He only wake next day after market done.’

‘Fuck,’ Geralt says. That does sound like a curse, and one that’s progressing rapidly. ‘When did you see him in Dorian?’

Dorian is a good three days’ ride from here. Maybe he could get it to two if Roach lets him push her, and if he gives her a good rest at the other end.

‘Four days?’ the young man says. ‘Maybe five. Travelling, days smear together, you know?’

‘Mm,’ Geralt says. It will be at least six days by the time he gets there, he thinks. Maybe eight. The curse will have got much worse. He’s already running over his mental list of the supplies he has on hand and gauging if they will be enough to see him to Dorian. He thinks they should stretch. ‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome,’ says the young man. ‘Luck is in your hands now.’

The young man smiles briefly, and heads towards the tavern.

Luck, Geralt thinks sourly. It had better not come down to luck, or Jaskier is doomed.

🌼

He damn near falls off Roach’s back when he pulls her up in the stable yard. Roach isn’t much happier. Her sides are foaming, and her footing is much less sure than usual, although she isn’t quite stumbling yet. He’s been keeping an ear on her heartbeat, but he knows he’s pushed her close to her limits. Her eyes are drooping, and her lips are twitching. He pats her neck clumsily.

‘Sorry, girl,’ he murmurs. ‘But we can’t let Jaskier come to harm, can we?’

A stable boy is hovering nearby. Geralt beckons him over.

‘She’s been ridden hard,’ he says. ‘Make sure she has plenty of water. And throw a blanket over her when she starts to cool down.’

The boy nods, and hurries to take Roach’s reins. She’s resistant at first, but the boy coos at her, calling her a pretty girl and rubbing her nose, and she seems to realise that her labours are done. Now she gets to drink cool water and nibble on sweet hay.

Geralt stumbles a little himself as he leaves the stable yard. His legs are unused to walking, and his thighs ache from gripping Roach’s sides. Now he just has to find Jaskier. The first step is to ask in inns and taverns, especially the type that are more likely to look kindly on a bard down on his luck. Luckily for him, they’re also the sort that are most likely to put up with a witcher’s business, so he can kill two sirens with one well-placed Aard.

He pushes the door of the Horse’s Head tavern open, and heads towards the bar.

There’s a sour-faced innkeeper there, who takes one sweeping look at Geralt, and snaps, ‘Well? Have you come about the contract on the noticeboard?’

‘What contract?’ he asks.

‘About the man in my cellar,’ says the innkeeper, his wrinkled face shifting into what is clearly his habitual scowl.

‘No,’ Geralt admits, ‘I’m looking for a bard—’

‘Aye, that’s the one,’ the innkeeper says, folding his arms. ‘So will you come see?’

‘I will,’ Geralt says.

The innkeeper lets him behind the bar, and opens a trapdoor. He climbs down a ladder into the cold cellar, and Geralt follows.

‘Here,’ the man says. He lifts a lantern off its hook, and heads to where a figure lies, stretched over the top of several barrels, half wrapped in a linen sheet. It reminds Geralt uncomfortably of a shroud.

The figure would look peaceful, if it wasn’t such an unnatural stillness, and if it wasn’t lying on such a bizarre bed. Jaskier has always seemed to fall asleep in strange places, but Geralt has never seen him like this.

‘Can’t wake him,’ the innkeeper says. ‘It’s been days now. And he’d only paid for the one night. What am I supposed to do, eh? I had the lads bring him down here, but I don’t know if it’s some kind of plague or something, if we ought to slit his throat and burn the body to save the rest of us.’

The innkeeper has kept his distance from Jaskier’s body this whole time, Geralt realises. Geralt steps towards Jaskier slowly, although there is no plague that he knows of that leaves its victims asleep. As he steps closer, he can feel his medallion vibrating. It only gets more vigorous the closer he gets to Jaskier’s body.

‘It’s not a plague,’ Geralt says. ‘It’s a curse.’

He slips his medallion inside his armour so that its clattering is muted, but it means that he can feel its buzzing against his skin in counterpoint to the panicked beat of his heart.

‘What am I supposed to do with a cursed man?’ the innkeeper demands. ‘I need this space for my supplies. I’m not running a hostel.’

‘Do you have a room I can take?’ Geralt asks. The innkeeper’s frown deepens, and he adds, ‘I can pay.’

‘I suppose I might,’ the innkeeper says.

‘Take Jaskier’s—the man’s body up there, and I’ll see what I can do about breaking his curse. He should have a lute, too. Where is it?’

‘I don’t know about any lute,’ the innkeeper says. He’s lying, Geralt would put money on it.

‘It might be the vector of the curse,’ Geralt says, shamelessly. ‘I’ll need it in order to break the hold the curse has on this man. Try not to touch it directly, if you can, and especially don’t damage it or break it. That could cause incalculable damage. I’d rather not see others suffer this same sleeping death.’

The innkeeper looks alarmed. ‘I’ll, uh, see if one of the lads has put it somewhere safe,’ he says.

‘That would be wise,’ Geralt says gravely.

‘Do you need help to bring him up?’

Geralt thinks about it, thinks about a couple of men more used to hurling barrels carrying Jaskier up, and how little thought they might give to Jaskier’s fragility.

‘No need,’ he says. ‘I can take him.’

He wraps the linen sheet around Jaskier more firmly. Then he hefts him over his shoulder, and climbs the ladder back up. The innkeeper directs him to a room, and he carries Jaskier there and lays him out on the bed. Geralt stands there, staring down at the figure on the bed. Jaskier is peaceful, in a way he rarely is when he’s sleeping. It’s worse than that time in Rinde, then Jaskier had merely looked deeply asleep. Now he is so still that Geralt has to listen to be sure that he’s alive.  It isn’t helped by seeing Jaskier half wrapped in a linen sheet on top of the bed’s blankets.

He sits on the edge of the bed, watching Jaskier’s chest softly rise and fall as he thinks. He pulls the linen sheet off, so that at least Jaskier looks less like he’s being laid out for burial. Geralt has no idea what to do next.

‘This isn’t the kind of curse I know how to break, Jask,’ he says conversationally, as though Jaskier might answer him. ‘You couldn’t be turning into a werewolf instead?’

There is no answer from the figure on the bed.

‘At least you’re safe for now,’ Geralt says. ‘And we might get your lute back. I’ll see if there’s a mage in town – that’s a good first start. And then ... I suppose if we’re not lucky, I’ll see if we can find Yen.’

He lets out a long breath.

Jaskier’s face is still and peaceful. Geralt looks down at him and ... he wonders.

There are stories. They’re mostly nonsense, but sometimes they have a glimmer of truth to them. Even Jaskier’s more fanciful songs are usually based on something. The problem is working out which part of a story is true. There’s more than one about being woken with a kiss, so surely it’s worth a shot?

It feels as though his heart is twice its usual size as he leans down. Almost all he can feel is that frantic rhythm. Then he breathes in, and there’s Jaskier’s smell. He hasn’t realised how he’s missed it. He wants to drink it in, to take a vial of it with him when they inevitably part again. His hand tightens on the sheet beside Jaskier’s head as he closes his eyes and fills his lungs with that smell.

He’s afraid that the kiss won’t work, and afraid that it will, but there’s no use in hesitating. He leans closer, and kisses Jaskier.

Just before their lips meet, he feels Jaskier’s breath brush his skin. And then it’s a gentle, soft kiss. Jaskier’s lips are dry. He doesn’t kiss back, but is his breath moving a little faster? Is he waking up?

Geralt draws back and watches him. He waits for Jaskier to move, for his fingers to twitch, for his eyes to blink open.

There’s nothing.

It might just take a little time, Geralt thinks. Curses sometimes do, after all.

But as the moment stretches out, there is no change to Jaskier’s heartbeat, nor his slow breaths. His eyes do not flicker open. His mouth does not part on a gasp.

Geralt tells himself that he isn’t disappointed. He was right, after all. The stories are utter nonsense. If there’s any truth in them at all, it isn’t a truth that will help him.

He sighs, and pushes himself up to his feet.

‘At least you’ll stay here when I tell you,’ he says to Jaskier. ‘I’ll go see the mage. I’ll be back soon.’

He wonders if he should put Jaskier under the blankets. It isn’t a cold day, but it isn’t that warm either. Jaskier’s not moving, and his heart is far too slow for a human. He’ll get cold, Geralt decides.

It’s strange, to lift and move Jaskier and not have him so much as stir. He understands why the young man and his father recognised the curse so readily. Soon enough, Jaskier is tucked in bed.

He stands in the doorway, and looks back at Jaskier’s silent form. Then he closes the door behind him, and heads out into the street.

🌼

It’s just Geralt’s luck that he recognises the obnoxiously understated sign on the market square. It doesn’t give any name, of course, but he remembers it from the last place he saw it – in Aedd Gynvael.

He hopes it’s just a common sign, one that nearly any puffed-up mage might hang, but he knows in his bones that it isn’t.

He knocks on the door. There’s a slightly longer wait than would be usual before the door opens. As though someone wanted to savour the moment that has brought Geralt to this doorstep.

‘Well, well, well,’ says Istredd, wearing the smuggest look Geralt has ever seen adorning a magic user’s face, which is a category with stiff competition. ‘Geralt of Rivia. What could you possibly want from me?’

‘I need your help,’ Geralt says, trying not to grind his teeth.

‘What kind of help could you need?’ Istredd muses, folding his arms and leaning against the doorway.

‘I need to break a curse,’ Geralt says. ‘Will you help, or not?’

Istredd clicks his tongue. ‘This is why witchers are best suited cleaning up after pests. You’re oversized ratcatchers. You should stick with lopping off the heads of dragons and not meddle in the magical affairs that are beyond you.’

‘I’m not meddling,’ Geralt says, smiling so that he shows all of his teeth. ‘I came right to a powerful magic user to see what could be done.’

‘Yes, well,’ Istredd says, realising that he manoeuvred his own way into that one. ‘My time isn’t cheap. I have my research to think of. I can’t just be darting hither and yon on the whims of some errant monster hunter.’

‘That is fairly said,’ Geralt says. ‘I admit that I haven’t much to offer in the way of recompense. I wouldn’t want to bother you with such a trifling matter. Jaskier is stable, and if I hire a cart, I could take him to Vizima. I believe Triss has made something of a study of unusual curses, and I certainly haven’t seen this one before.’

Istredd’s expression sharpens at the mention of Triss and again at the phrase unusual curse, and Geralt knows he has him.

‘Oh, Jaskier, you say?’ Istredd says, with an artificial casualness. ‘There was some fool in motley who came by a few days back. I had thought he was simply here to gawk, but I suppose he must truly have been cursed. He did ask me to pass a message along to Yenna before he left, and I couldn’t leave one of Yenna’s friends without aid.’

You knew, Geralt thinks coldly. You knew he was cursed, and you couldn’t be bothered to help, even when he came to you.

‘That’s very kind of you,’ he says instead.

‘Bring him here,’ Istredd says with a gracious wave of his hand, ‘to my laboratory. We’ll see what can be done. Doubtless with my superior knowledge and understanding of such things, it will be broken in no time at all.’

‘I’ll be back shortly,’ Geralt says. ‘The inn where he lies is not far, and I can carry him here.’

Istredd falters at that, but he covers it quickly. ‘Good. I’ll start my preparations.’

Geralt gives an ironical bow of his head, and leaves.

You hadn’t thought how your refusal would affect the man begging for your aid, had you? Geralt thinks, fuming as he walks back to the inn. You simply dismissed him as beneath you, and never thought of him again. He lets himself scowl, since once he’s before Istredd again, he’ll have to hide how enraged he is – at least until Jaskier’s curse has broken.

On his way, he stops at the nearest noticeboard to the Horse’s Head to pick up the bill that the innkeeper had posted. There’s sadly not much more information than he already had, but since it’s signed Henry Attehil, at least he now knows the name of the inn’s landlord. The man hadn’t thought to introduce himself, and Geralt hadn’t cared to ask.

His expression must still be stormy as he opens the door to the inn. The innkeeper looks up in relief at seeing him enter, but shrinks back when he sees Geralt’s face.

‘Ah, um, witcher,’ he says, looking nervous as he comes out from behind the bar clutching a familiar-looking bundle, wrapped in a blanket. ‘One of my boys found this in ... in a store room.’

‘Good,’ Geralt says, trying to rearrange his features to appear less threatening.

He takes the bundle from the innkeeper, and puts it on a table. He unwraps the blanket to reveal Jaskier’s lute case. He relaxes, but he needs to be sure that the lute itself is intact.

‘Are you sure that’s wise?’ asks the innkeeper, as Geralt unbuckles the case.

‘Witchers are resistant to curses,’ Geralt says. ‘Besides, I won’t touch the instrument itself.’

There is a small chance that the lute really is the means by which Jaskier was cursed. Without being able to ask Jaskier about it, he can’t rule it out. He thinks it’s unlikely, since it’s definitely the same lute that the elves gave Jaskier all those years ago, and Geralt’s medallion hasn’t so much as shivered. If Jaskier was cursed with his own lute, it would most likely require its victim to play it, something which Geralt has no intention of doing. But all the same, it’s safest not to touch it at all.

‘Still intact,’ Geralt reports. ‘That’s good. It means that we’re not likely to find the curse being transferred to anyone else. I’ll take it with me. Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome,’ says the innkeeper. He doesn’t meet Geralt’s eyes as he speaks, and Geralt knows he was right: the man planned to sell Jaskier’s lute and keep the money for himself. ‘So ... do you think that you will be able to break the curse?’

‘I have spoken with Master Istredd, and it sounds hopeful,’ Geralt says, praying that it is. ‘I’ll take the bard to Master Istredd’s, along with the lute.’

‘Good, good,’ says the innkeeper, meaninglessly. ‘Would you like something to eat? On the house.’

‘I would,’ he says, feeling hunger gnawing at his insides. ‘But I promised Master Istredd that I’d bring him soon, so I ought to go there directly. But when I return, I’d be very grateful for some food.’

‘When you return, then,’ says the innkeeper, nodding.

Geralt goes back upstairs, with Jaskier’s lute case slung over his shoulders. It’s much lighter than his back-mounted scabbard, and it’s a very different shape as well. Jaskier lies on his back, as still and unmoving as he was when Geralt left. Geralt is struck again at how wrong it looks. Jaskier sleeps on his side, curled around a pillow, or a bundle of blankets, or even Geralt. He shifts and repositions himself throughout the night, although he doesn’t toss and turn as much as he does when he can’t sleep. Jaskier is someone who needs to move, seemingly as much as he needs to breathe. Having him lie immobile like this is ... wrong.

Geralt pulls back the blankets, wraps Jaskier back up in his linen shroud, and gathers him up in his arms. He still feels heavy and solid and real, which would reassure Geralt more if he hadn’t carried dead bodies before. He has heard mages say that you can feel the difference in the weight of a body from life to death, and that the weight that is lost is that of the soul. Geralt himself has never thought that dead bodies feel very much lighter, so if that’s true, the soul must not weigh very much at all.

Jaskier still feels the roughly same weight as the other times that Geralt has had to carry him. Hopefully that’s a good sign. The innkeeper is good enough to open the door for him once he goes downstairs, and then he’s out into the sunshine of the Dorian streets.

People gawk as he heads towards the square. It’s unsurprising, as he holds an unmoving human body. At least no-one is brave enough to interfere with a witcher.

‘Hoy! Witcher!’

The shout comes as he is a stone’s throw from the marketplace. He turns to see a guard running after him. He waits for the man to catch up, since ignoring him is likely to make Geralt look like a threat.

‘Can I help?’ he asks, trying to radiate polite helpfulness from every pore.

‘What are you doing with that body?’ the guard huffs. ‘We don’t let mutants like you about our city to murder with impunity.’

‘He isn’t dead,’ Geralt says. ‘He’s cursed. See, he yet breathes.’

The guard looks at Jaskier’s unmoving body, and seems unconvinced.

‘That your work, is it?’ the guard demands.

‘No,’ Geralt says. ‘I was hired by Henry Attehil, of the Horse’s Head, when one of his patrons fell asleep and could not be woken.’

‘Come with me, and you can explain that to the captain of the watch,’ says the guard, grabbing Geralt’s upper arm.

Geralt does not let himself be moved. ‘Perhaps you could come with me instead,’ he says. ‘Master Istredd is expecting me shortly, and I said I would bring his patient. I don’t know if you have had much business with mages, but I find that they tend to be impatient, and free in expressing their displeasure.’

The guard wavers.

‘Master Istredd’s workshop is just on the market square,’ Geralt says. ‘It isn’t that far a walk from here, and then you’ll know if I’ve told you the truth.’

‘Fine,’ the guard says. ‘But if Master Istredd knows you not, you’ll come with me.’

‘Of course,’ Geralt says. ‘I could hardly outrun a fine member of the Dorian Watch with a full-grown man in my arms, could I?’

He could, he knows, if he had to. But unless Istredd is more dedicated to revenge than to the intellectual puzzle of Jaskier’s curse, it won’t come to that.

The guard dogs his steps all the way to Istredd’s shop.

‘Perhaps you could knock on his door for me,’ Geralt says. ‘Being that my arms are full.’

The guard steps forward and knocks smartly on the door. They don’t need to wait long; Istredd opens it as though he were waiting for Geralt’s arrival.

‘Well, well, I wouldn’t have expected you to need an escort, Geralt,’ says Istredd, who seems to have regained his good humour. ‘Do you really think the streets of Dorian as dangerous as all that? Do you need your friend’s assistance to carry the patient inside?’

‘No, I can manage,’ Geralt says.

Istredd steps back to allow him to pass.

‘Do you need assistance, my good man?’ Istredd asks of the guard, still waiting for Geralt’s arrest.

‘I—No, your lordship,’ says the guard.

‘Run along then, there’s a good fellow,’ says Istredd, and closes the door in the guard’s face.

‘Where shall I lay Jaskier?’ Geralt asks.

‘On my work table,’ Istredd says, leading the way. ‘The layout here is much the same as it was in Aedd Gynvael, if you recall visiting me there. I find it much easier to arrange it so that my workshops are laid out the same way each time, that way I can devote my intellect to the things that truly matter.’

‘Convenient,’ says Geralt dryly.

He follows Istredd. The inside of the building does appear to be much the same as Istredd’s Aedd Gynvael workshop. Geralt wonders how much magic it takes to rearrange a building the way one might the contents of a chest.

He lies Jaskier on the mage’s work table, and unshoulders the lute.

‘I don’t know if this is part of the curse as well,’ he says. ‘I thought it worth checking.’

Geralt takes the lute out of its case while Istredd fetches a tool from one of the shelves that looks a little like a baby’s rattle, with the same bells around the top. It has runes inscribed on the sides, though, and a pointed crystal at the top. He waves it slowly over the lute, across the top and around the sides. The bells don’t ring, and nothing else seems to happen.

‘Entirely unmagical,’ says Istredd dismissively.

Exactly as Geralt had thought. That’s a relief. He puts the lute back into its case, slings it onto his back, and retreats to lean against a wall. He isn’t leaving Jaskier alone with Istredd, even though he doesn’t think Istredd will take his dislike of Geralt out on his patient. Not while he’s still an interesting puzzle. But Geralt will feel much happier keeping an eye on everything.

Istredd lifts one of Jaskier’s hands, moves it over Jaskier’s face, and lets it drop. Jaskier’s hand hits his forehead and falls aside.

‘Fascinating,’ Istredd comments, and makes a note on a piece of paper.

‘He’s not here to be your entertainment,’ Geralt growls.

‘Did you know that a truly sleeping body behaves differently from one merely feigning sleep?’ Istredd asks. He wraps his fingers around Jaskier’s wrist to feel his pulse.

‘He isn’t pretending to be cursed,’ says Geralt with exasperation.

‘I have my methods, Witcher,’ Istredd says, not even bothering to look at him. ‘Please allow me to follow them. I do not question your sword-swinging technique, do I?’

Geralt tightens his hands into fists at his sides, then releases them. Istredd is doing him a favour, he reminds himself. Although the man is as irritating as a sharp pebble in his boot during a long walk, Geralt has to put that irritation aside, for Jaskier’s sake.

Istredd takes a pin, and presses it to one of Jaskier’s fingers. Jaskier does not rouse, and a bead of blood wells up where the pin had pricked him. Istredd squeezes it into a small bowl, and takes it to the alchemist’s wood stove he has set up on the far wall. Geralt watches, but what Istredd is attempting to do with a tiny amount of Jaskier’s blood is opaque to him, even when he adds a drop or two of some potion.

‘Well?’ Geralt asks, when he feels he has waited long enough.

‘I cannot provide you with an answer just yet,’ Istredd says, stirring his mixture. ‘But I know ways in which he has not been cursed. It would, of course, have been more useful if I could have asked Jaskier about his curse myself. Then this would take less time.’

You had that opportunity, Geralt thinks. You chose not to take it.

‘Is there something that I can do to speed this up?’ Geralt asks.

‘Actually, yes,’ Istredd says. ‘You could fetch me a new egg. One laid yesterday, if possible.’

‘I’m not doing your shopping for you,’ Geralt says, folding his arms. ‘Stock your own pantry.’

‘It isn’t for my pantry,’ Istredd says, sounding annoyed. ‘It is for the curse. The potentiality contained in an egg—’

‘I would have thought you would have all the things you needed to break a curse in this place,’ Geralt says, looking around himself. ‘What with your impressive collection of skulls and things in jars.’

‘Some items for ritual casting must be acquired fresh,’ says Istredd, turning back to his stove, and beginning to fiddle with an alembic.

‘Fine,’ Geralt says. ‘I’ll see what I can do, but the stallholders will have left for the day by now. Is there anything else you need?’

‘Fresh milk would also work,’ Istredd says without turning around. ‘If my hunch proves correct. I ought to have all of the necessary other ingredients I require.’

Geralt rolls his eyes, and leaves.

The market is empty of stallholders when he opens Istredd’s front door. He hasn’t friends he can call on here. He considers going back to the Horse’s Head, but decides he doesn’t want to leave Jaskier alone that long, and nor does he trust Attehil to be truthful. There is a tavern across the square, though, and if they serve food, they’re likely to have an egg, and possibly some milk.

The barmaid agrees that they can, indeed, provide him with an egg for very little coin.

‘Not cooked, mind. I need it raw,’ Geralt says. ‘And ideally it’s best if it was freshly laid. Master Istredd requires it.’

‘Fresh laid this morning,’ she confirms. ‘Alice keeps hens.’

‘Perfect,’ Geralt smiles. ‘I don’t suppose you have any milk?’

‘How much do you need?’ she asks.

‘I think a cupful would be enough,’ he says.

She provides him with a cup’s worth of milk and a tankard to keep it in, as well as an egg of his very own, still in its shell. He promises to bring the tankard back once he’s done with it, and she smiles.

‘What’s it for?’ she asks. ‘If you don’t mind my asking.’

‘A curse breaking,’ Geralt says. ‘Or so I’m told. These ingredients sound a lot like the beginnings of someone’s breakfast to me.’

She giggles. ‘I’ve never helped someone break a curse before. Nor helped prepare a mage’s breakfast neither.’

‘You’ve been very helpful,’ Geralt says. ‘And my friend will no doubt be very thankful if your contribution was key to helping him.’

‘Get along with you,’ says the barmaid, but she’s blushing, and her smile is pleased.

When he returns to Istredd’s workroom, he finds the table where Jaskier had lain is empty. He feels cold.

‘Istredd?’ he calls.

‘Through here,’ comes the reply. ‘Take the door in the right-hand corner.’

On the far side of a bookcase, there is a door he hadn’t noticed. Through it is another workroom, with a large space of bare floor at its centre. Istredd has chalked a large circle with a geometric figure suspended within the circle. Jaskier lies atop the geometric figure, and Istredd is chalking runes around the circle’s edge. 

‘Ah, Geralt,’ he says. ‘Come in. Did you find an egg?’

‘I did,’ Geralt says. ‘What’s all this? What’s that on Jaskier?’

There was a smear of something dark red on Jaskier’s forehead, and on each of his palms. His boots and netherhose had been removed, and the same mixture was on his soles. Istredd had unbuttoned Jaskier’s doublet and shirt sufficiently to daub more of that same suspicious mixture just below the dip between his collarbones.

‘Part of the method for breaking the curse,’ Istredd says cheerfully.

‘That isn’t his blood, is it?’ Geralt says.

‘No, a paste made of—I don’t need to explain it all to you. You aren’t a mage.’

‘I’ve never seen anyone need this amount of fuss and nonsense to break a curse,’ Geralt says.

‘If you want hedge-witch methods, ask a hedge-witch,’ sniffs Istredd. ‘Although I doubt you’d find one with the sheer power required to break a curse of this level and complexity.’

‘My deepest apologies,’ says Geralt insincerely. ‘I am not so versed in magework. Is it very complex, then?’

‘Oh, terribly,’ says Istredd. ‘It’s a variation on quite an old curse. I haven’t seen cast in person, merely written about, since it fell out of favour so long ago. But this variation has some interesting twists. The mage has added details based on some of the more elegant theoretical ideas of one of Radcliffe’s treatises, which I hadn’t seen anyone incorporate into practical spellwork—’ He breaks himself off mid lecture. ‘But you aren’t interested in all of that. If I take my notes to the Brotherhood, however, we might be able to determine who it was that cursed your friend. If he doesn’t know himself, that is.’

‘Is the counter spell nearly ready?’ Geralt asks.

‘Very nearly. Hand me the egg. But don’t step on the lines of the working.’

Geralt picks his way between the chalk lines, and passes Istredd the egg.

‘What do I do with the milk?’ he asks.

‘Oh, that was only to be used if you couldn’t find an egg,’ says Istredd. ‘We shouldn’t need that. Give it here, and I’ll use it tomorrow.’

‘The barmaid at The Pannier would quite like her tankard back,’ Geralt says, as he passes it over.

‘Fine,’ Istredd says with irritation, and places the milk just outside the circle, on one of the runes.

‘Will that be safe there?’ asks Geralt. ‘Won’t it be part of the spell?’

‘It will act as a kind of overflow,’ says Istredd. ‘Like a gargoyle on a temple diverting rainwater. If the levels of power get unbalanced, the milk will prevent things from spilling out past the circle and into the rest of the room.’

‘Is that a danger?’ Geralt asks, raising an eyebrow.

‘Not really,’ Istredd says. ‘A mere precaution.’

He settles back onto his heels beside Jaskier, and begins to chant in Elder. Geralt can pick out the odd word here and there, but something about the chant seems to elude his grasp, and the words slip away, like fish in a stream. The chant builds to a climax, and then Istredd holds up the egg. He cracks it above Jaskier’s head, and then there is a blinding light without light, and a deafening noise without sound. Geralt’s ears are ringing, and there are dark spots floating before his eyes for a minute or so before they clear. There is a disgruntled noise that Geralt could recognise from three rooms away with his eyes closed, and his heart sings.

‘Ugh, fuck, my mouth feels rank,’ says Jaskier.

‘It worked!’ says Istredd. ‘I was exactly right about that modification to the rune matrix. There’ll be a monograph in this, I’ll warrant. You don’t mind if I publish my findings, do you?’

‘Uh, no?’ Jaskier says, blinking at Istredd in confusion.

Then his eyes settle on Geralt.

‘Geralt,’ he says. ‘You’re here!’

Then Jaskier’s smile slips off his face.

‘I’m still dreaming,’ he says dully.

‘I should say not,’ says Istredd, offended. ‘I’m a little more skilled than your village hedge-witch.’ He gives Geralt a dark look.

‘What is that smell?’ Jaskier says. ‘Like something’s rotten. Or burning. Or both.’ 

Geralt notices then that the tankard of fresh milk is no longer sitting just outside the circle. Where it had been, there is a small pile of ash.

‘The Pannier wanted their tankard back,’ he says. ‘I thought you said that it was only a precaution.’

Istredd looks at the little pile of ash. ‘Better the milk than us,’ he says dismissively. ‘And I’m sure they won’t miss a tankard.’

‘Where are my boots?’ Jaskier asks, looking at his feet, and then around the work room. Geralt passes the boots over. Jaskier’s netherhose are tucked in the top of one.

‘Where did the egg go?’ Geralt asks. ‘I thought it would have landed on Jaskier.’

Jaskier looks alarmed, and pats himself down, but there is no raw egg on his person.

‘I told you, it was part of the spell,’ Istredd says. ‘Its essence is subsumed. I would quite like to get my thoughts down while they’re still fresh, if you don’t mind. We might have made history today.’

‘All right,’ Geralt says. He can take a hint, and he isn’t all that keen to spend time in Istredd’s company. ‘Come on, Jaskier. I’ll take you back to the tavern.’

He holds his hand out for Jaskier to take.

‘There may be some after effects of the spell,’ says Istredd. ‘Nothing to worry about. They should pass in a few days.’

‘What kind of after effects?’ asks Jaskier, pausing in putting on his second boot. 

‘You may feel more sleepy for a few days, and require a little extra sleep,’ says Istredd. ‘And you may struggle to sleep until your body remembers when night time is. Either way, it should clear up. Should you let me know how you fared, I’d be most interested.’

‘Great,’ Jaskier mutters, but he takes Geralt’s hand and lets himself be pulled to his feet. ‘Just like usual, then.’

Istredd has completely lost interest in them now that the curse is broken. He hustles them out of his ritual room and closes the door behind the three of them, then settles down to write. Geralt leads Jaskier through the mage’s house and out onto the street. 

Jaskier waits until they’re outside in the market square, and then he says, ‘Interesting friend you have there, Geralt.’

Geralt can’t help but scowl. ‘We’re not friends.’

‘You and he are not friends like you and I aren’t friends?’ Jaskier asks.

Geralt stares at him. ‘What? No. You and I are friends.’ When Jaskier says nothing, Geralt adds, ‘I’m ... sorry if I never said it.’

Jaskier gives a deep sigh. ‘I’d be tempted to make you grovel, but I suppose the fact that you saved me from an uncertain and tragic fate is apology enough.’

‘I truly am sorry,’ Geralt says. ‘For what I said. Before. On the mountain. That was unforgivable.’

‘Well, that’s taken all of the fun out of having the high horse,’ Jaskier says. ‘Tell me about your not-friend the mage instead. It sounds like there might be a story there.’

‘There isn’t,’ Geralt says, because the last thing he needs is Jaskier writing some kind of song about everything that happened in Aedd Gynvael. ‘He’s ... He’s my Valdo Marx.’

‘Eugh, fair enough,’ Jaskier says with an exaggerated shiver. ‘Then why on earth did he help you? He wouldn’t help me.’

‘I knew him already,’ Geralt says. ‘So he was more likely to listen. Then I appealed to his vanity, and tempted him with an intellectual challenge. Oh! Your lute.’

He lifts the strap of the lute case over his head and passes it over. Jaskier holds it, unspeaking, staring at it. 

‘It seemed intact,’ Geralt says. ‘I don’t think it’s been damaged. Even the strings looked fine, although I didn’t pluck them to check. And it isn’t cursed. Istredd confirmed it.’

‘Good,’ Jaskier says vaguely. He’s holding the strap of the case so tightly that his knuckles are white.

‘Jaskier?’ Geralt asks. 

‘I’m fine,’ Jaskier says, shaking his head. ‘I just ... assumed it was gone. Sold. Especially when I woke in a strange place.’

‘I think that innkeeper planned to,’ Geralt says. ‘I told him it was the key to your curse, and that anyone who touched it might come down with the same thing.’

‘Did you? That was rather clever of you.’ Jaskier laughs, but it’s an odd, strangled laugh.

‘Let’s go back to the inn and order you food,’ Geralt says. ‘The innkeeper said he’d give me a meal on the house, and I’ve not eaten since sunrise.’

‘You must be starving,’ Jaskier says. ‘We should get you some food. Why haven’t you eaten?’

‘Wanted to make sure I got here in time,’ Geralt says. ‘Besides, I can’t be as hungry as you. You mustn’t have eaten in days.’

‘My belly does feel as though I could eat an entire cow in one sitting, horns, hooves and all,’ Jaskier says with a twist of his mouth. ‘To the inn, then.’

They head off again. Now that Geralt has thought of it, he feels his own hunger rising. He hopes that the promised meal will be filling and generous.

‘I could write a song about this,’ Jaskier muses. ‘Might change the victim of the curse, though. Perhaps a princess with a jealous stepmother. You’ll have to tell me how it was broken. I think I fancy a true love’s kiss.’

‘Didn’t work,’ Geralt says. They’re nearly at the Horse’s Head, and he can smell something delicious wafting from the kitchen.

‘Oh ho,’ says Jaskier.

‘What?’ says Geralt.

‘Didn’t work? Not doesn’t work?’ 

‘Both,’ says Geralt. ‘Either. Why?’

‘Well, didn’t work suggests that you tried,’ Jaskier grins. ‘Did you kiss me, Geralt?’

Fuck.

‘I—’

Is his face red? It feels hot. As he continues to fail to say anything, Jaskier’s grin drops away, and his  expression shifts. Is that pity in his eyes?

‘Geralt,’ Jaskier says softly. 

‘I thought it was worth trying,’ Geralt says. ‘That’s all.’

‘Do you ...’ Jaskier says, and trails off. 

‘I should see to Roach,’ Geralt says quickly. ‘I rode her hard to get here, and I want to be sure she’s pulled up all right.’

Jaskier follows him into the stable yard. ‘Did you ride into Dorian today, then?’

‘Around midday,’ Geralt confirms. 

He finds Roach’s stall and gives her neck a pat. She snorts in Jaskier’s direction, and deigns to let him stroke her nose. Her heart still sounds as strong as usual, and she seems in reasonable spirits. A little more rest and she’ll have recovered from their desperate flight south. Geralt sighs with relief, and pats her flank. 

‘We should see the innkeeper,’ he tells Jaskier. ‘Whatever they’re cooking smells delicious.’

‘Thank all the gods,’ Jaskier says. ‘I feel like I haven’t eaten for a month.’

Geralt frowns. ‘It hasn’t been that long, has it? That’s not what—’

‘Not what what?’ 

‘Not what the young man said. The one who took you to Dorian. I thought it had only been six days. Maybe seven.’

‘I don’t actually know,’ Jaskier says quietly. ‘When they woke me up in Dorian, I didn't know how long had passed. And I don’t know how long I was asleep this time.’

‘The man I met, the Kaedwenian, he thought he’d left you here about six days ago,’ Geralt says as they headed to the back door of the inn. ‘Perhaps seven at most.’

‘That’s still more than long enough to go without food,’ Jaskier says, giving Geralt a tragic look.

Geralt laughs. ‘It is. Let’s get you fed.’

Henry Attehil, the innkeeper, is easy to find, at least. 

‘Could I have that meal now?’ Geralt asks politely. ‘And I would pay for another too, please.’

‘Of course,’ says Attehil.  

‘The job is complete,’ Geralt says. ‘As you can see. The curse is broken.’

‘Yes,’ Attehil says, his expression closing off. 

‘I believe you promised a reward,’ Geralt says, taking out the notice with the innkeeper’s signature at the bottom and placing it on the bar.

‘Well, yes, but,’ Attehil says, looking around as if someone in the empty bar might save him from having to pay. ‘You didn’t break the curse yourself, did you? Perhaps I should give the reward to Master Istredd.’

‘Master Istredd charges a lot more than what you offered to break the curse,’ says Geralt. ‘Which you are no doubt aware of. Otherwise you would have asked him to do it.’

‘But still, you did not break the curse,’ Attehil blusters. 

‘I assisted Master Istredd,’ says Geralt. ‘And I acquired some of the ingredients for the curse breaking, leaving me out of pocket.’

‘Fine,’ snaps Attehil. ‘But your friend owes me for his accommodation for these last few days.’

‘How many of those did he spend in the cellar?’ Geralt asks. 

Attehil’s lips press together. 

‘Perhaps if we give you a quarter-rate for the nights he spent in the cellar, that’s the cost of another night in a room,’ Geralt says pleasantly. ‘You can take it from the reward money.’

‘And another for tonight,’ says Attehil.

‘No need; he’ll stay with me,’ Geralt says, and then remembers that perhaps Jaskier might not want that. Jaskier doesn’t speak to contradict him, and Geralt can always leave him the bed.

‘Fine,’ says Attehil. 

He angrily counts out Geralt’s reward, deliberately shorting Geralt by a further ten orens. Geralt lets him; after all, he’s never been paid for saving Jaskier’s skin before. 

‘A couple of pints of ale as well, if you please,’ Geralt says, a couple of coins back towards Attehil. 

Attehil takes them with poor grace, and Geralt scoops the rest of the money into his purse. He secures a table for himself and Jaskier in one corner, and sits down on the bench with a sigh. 

‘I can’t believe you got paid for breaking my curse,’ Jaskier says.

‘Me either,’ Geralt says. 

A young woman – possibly Attehil’s get, considering their similar features and the matching scowl across her face – brings them an under-filled pair of tankards. She thumps them down on the table, slopping some of their contents over the sides. They watch her angrily head back to the kitchen.

‘Well, I’m not feeling very welcomed,’ Jaskier comments. 

‘I suspect that they intended to pay the contract with the money they made selling your lute,’ Geralt says. ‘I didn’t know about the contract when I arrived, so they probably thought they might not have to pay me. And the fact that I stopped them selling the lute as well ...’ He shrugs. ‘I’m not surprised they’re miffed.’

‘It’s my lute!’ Jaskier says, outraged. ‘Besides, they put me in the cellar. The cellar! Me!’

‘Not on the ground, if it makes you feel better,’ Geralt says. ‘You were lying stretched out across the top of a few barrels.’

‘That does not,’ Jaskier says with dignity, ‘make me feel better.’

‘At least they didn’t dump you somewhere,’ Geralt says, ‘looking on the bright side.’

Jaskier shivers. ‘Yeah. I suppose that’s lucky.’

Geralt takes a sip of his ale.

‘So tell me about these spell components you fetched for the master mage,’ says Jaskier. ‘Were they terribly difficult or dangerous to get? Very expensive, perhaps? Crushed sapphires and ambergris? Rare herbs from your personal supply?’

‘Terribly difficult to get,’ Geralt deadpans. 

‘What were they?’ Jaskier presses.

‘A freshly laid egg and a cup of milk. I fetched it from a nearby tavern.’

Jaskier stares at him, and then bursts out laughing. 

‘What a noble quest you ran!’ he gasps between gales of laughter. ‘I’m so delighted I had such a hero chasing down all of the terribly rare and precious ingredients that were required.’

The barmaid brings over a couple of bowls, and dumps them on the table with as much grace as she had the tankards. Inside the bowls is pottage – very cheap, but good stick to the ribs food. Geralt has a small loaf of bread with his, and he slips it across to Jaskier.

‘Fuck, I’m ravenous,’ Jaskier says, pulling out his flatware from its pouch on his belt and attacking his food.

Geralt takes another sip of ale, and watches Jaskier over his tankard’s rim. It’s so good to see Jaskier happy and whole, especially after seeing him lying so still. Geralt is hungry too, so he applies himself to his food. There is quiet for a while, other than the sounds of eating. Jaskier wipes his bowl clean with a hunk of bread, and offers the rest of the loaf to Geralt, who takes it gratefully. 

‘I feel like I need at least one more solid meal like that to feel like a proper person again,’ Jaskier comments. ‘And ... we have a room? Not that I’m all that keen on sleep, but ...’

But some time in a quiet place, away from strangers, would be welcome, Geralt guesses.

‘It’s upstairs,’ he says. ‘I don’t know what the innkeeper did with your pack.’

‘Don’t have one,’ Jaskier says. ‘Just my lute.’

‘Where are your spare shirts?’ Geralt asks. ‘Your ... underthings?’

‘In my—’ Jaskier begins, then stops short. ‘Oh. I must have left it behind somewhere. Weeks ago.’

Geralt raises an eyebrow, and Jaskier flushes.

‘I hadn’t been sleeping,’ he says defensively. ‘For a month or two, perhaps. It was hard to think, and my memory just didn’t seem to work properly.’

‘Surprised you didn’t leave your lute behind,’ Geralt comments.

‘I couldn’t leave my lute behind!’ Jaskier says with horror. ‘That’s my lute.’

Geralt hides his smile.

‘I’ll ask them to send up some water for you to wash with,’ Geralt says. ‘And you can borrow one of my shirts.’

‘Thanks,’ Jaskier says.

The barmaid allows that they could probably send up a couple of jugs of water for washing, so Geralt takes Jaskier up to their room.

‘You can take the bed, if you like,’ Geralt says. ‘And I’ll loan you a shirt and some underclothes. We’ll get you some new things tomorrow with the reward.’

‘Thanks,’ Jaskier says, sitting down on the bed. ‘Where will you sleep?’

‘I can sleep on the floor,’ he says, looking away. ‘Whatever you’re comfortable with.’

He feels unsure of their standing, like he did the first weeks they travelled together. He hates it. He doesn’t know if Jaskier forgives him, or if they can go back to the way they were, before he fucked everything up and pushed Jaskier away.

‘Of course I don’t want that, Geralt,’ Jaskier says. ‘Not unless you’d be more comfortable with that.’

‘No,’ he admits. He’s selfish. He wants to share the bed with Jaskier, to be able to press his nose into Jaskier’s hair, maybe throw his arm around him to reassure himself that Jaskier is here, that he’s fine.

‘Share the bed with me, then,’ Jaskier says. ‘No point in giving yourself a crick in the neck for no reason.’

He pauses, and Geralt wonders if he’s going to take that back, or say that perhaps he doesn’t wish to sleep just yet.

‘I always sleep better next to you ,’ Jaskier says, examining his fingernails. ‘I missed you.’

Geralt’s slow heart thumps. ‘Me too,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry for what I said. You didn’t deserve it. I just ... wanted it not to be my fault. And I didn’t want you to be kind to me.’

‘And you weren’t in the mood for jokes,’ Jaskier completes. ‘I guessed that, about the time that you started screaming at me.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he says. The shame that he’d felt after Jaskier left fills him anew.

‘I didn’t hear your conversation with Yen, you know,’ Jaskier says. ‘I was too far away, and the wind was too loud. I didn’t know if she’d just told you that she had to go back to her shop or something.’

‘We’re done,’ he says. ‘She doesn’t want to see me either.’

‘Oh, Geralt,’ Jaskier says. He shuffles to the edge of the bed, and opens his arms for Geralt to step into.

Geralt stands on his knees before him, and lets Jaskier fold him in his arms. Geralt closes his eyes and leans in. He can hear Jaskier’s heartbeat, and smell his unwashed skin. The comfort of that familiarity surrounds him. He rests his head on Jaskier’s shoulder, and a sob escapes his chest. He can fall apart if he wants – Jaskier will hold him together. His eyes burn, as they always do when he wants to cry, ever since the trials. His breathing hitches, and he stops thinking about anything. The misery of losing both Yen and Jaskier all at once wells up like a fountain, and he sobs it out onto Jaskier’s shoulder.

There is a knock at their door.

‘Leave it on the wash stand,’ Jaskier says, not moving from his spot.

Geralt keeps his eyes closed so he doesn’t have to acknowledge the visitor. He knows it’s the barmaid from downstairs: he can smell the oil she uses on her hair, and hear the pattern of her heartbeat. He hears her put down two full ceramic jugs of water on the wooden wash stand, one clinking against the basin there, and then her footsteps go back towards the door.

‘If there’s anything else you want,’ she says, and she sounds hesitant.

‘We’ll come down and ask,’ Jaskier says. ‘Nothing for now, thank you.’

The footsteps leave, and the door closes behind her.

‘Sorry.’ Geralt sniffs. ‘You didn’t even like Yen,’ he says, his words muffled by Jaskier’s doublet.

‘Perhaps, but you did,’ Jaskier says. ‘And I’m sure her loss hurts you. And I’ve never liked seeing you in pain.’

‘A witcher’s life is pain,’ Geralt says, quoting his masters.

‘There are philosophers who say that all men’s lives are pain,’ Jaskier says gently. ‘But I’ve never thought that pain was the most important part of life.’

Geralt draws back so that he can look Jaskier in the face. He has that same serious look he had when he tried to comfort Geralt after Borch’s seeming death.

He loves me, Geralt thinks. Even after everything I did, he loves me. Whether that is a love like the one he has for his brothers, or something deeper and more frightening, he doesn’t know. He isn’t sure it matters. Jaskier is still here, despite everything.

‘I really am sorry,’ Geralt says.

‘I know,’ Jaskier sighs. ‘It’s not ... it’s not all right what you did. But we’re all right. So long as you don’t do it again.’

‘I’ll try,’ he says. ‘It was ... everything was so much. It was overwhelming.’

‘So tell me that,’ Jaskier says. ‘Tell me “I need to be alone for a bit.” And I’ll leave you alone.’

‘I will,’ Geralt whispers.

‘That’s all I ask.’ Jaskier rubs Geralt’s upper arms affectionately. ‘I suppose we should wash.’

‘You especially,’ Geralt teases, glad to be back on safer ground.

‘I was cursed,’ Jaskier says primly. ‘You have to make allowances.’

‘How did you become cursed?’ Geralt asks. ‘You never said.’

‘I don’t rightly know,’ Jaskier admits. ‘But if the insomnia was part of the curse, it must have been a while ago. And not sleeping made my memory very poor. Like trying to read a piece of parchment that has been soaking in a puddle for a day.’

‘That sounds awful,’ Geralt says.

‘It was a bit,’ Jaskier says. ‘Tell me about Roach. Is she all right? You didn’t say.’

‘She’s fine,’ Geralt says. ‘Recovering nicely.’

‘I’ve never seen you work her so hard that you worry about her afterwards,’ Jaskier says.

‘I try not to,’ Geralt says. ‘I don’t want to risk her unnecessarily.’

‘But you did this time.’

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘You sounded like you were in trouble. And the carter said that he’d left you four or five days previous.’

‘You said that the carter left me six or seven days ago.’

‘Yes.’

‘So you rode here in two days? Were you close?’

‘No,’ Geralt says. ‘I was in Redania. Which is why I need to give Roach a rest.’

‘And you tried kissing me,’ Jaskier says. ‘Was that because of the mage or before?’

‘... Before,’ he says.

Jaskier hums, and looks away. ‘I always thought that the stories about a kiss breaking a curse were supposed to be about love.’

‘Yes,’ he whispers.

‘Not just the love of a friend,’ Jaskier says, looking him in the eye. ‘True love. Between sweethearts.’

‘Yes,’ he says again.

He’s afraid, he realises. His heart is pounding a nearly human beat.

‘Geralt,’ Jaskier says softly. ‘May I—?’

His hands cup Geralt’s jaw, and Geralt can’t bear it any more. He jolts forward, kissing Jaskier. There’s a moment of terror when he thinks that he read everything wrong, that Jaskier is going to push him away, but then Jaskier’s mouth opens beneath his. Jaskier’s hands slide down around his shoulders and pull him in closer.

It’s nothing like kissing Jaskier’s sleeping lips. It takes them a moment to overcome their desperation and settle into a proper kiss. Once they do, Geralt can’t help his groan. There’s a heat running down his spine and settling at its base. It’s too much, too fast, but he needs to feel Jaskier’s skin against his. There’s a fire beneath his skin, and it won’t be quenched by anything except consummation. Jaskier is the fuel that feeds that fire, and Geralt thinks that if he can’t touch him, it will destroy him.

Jaskier pulls back, one hand on Geralt’s collarbone.

‘We need to wash,’ Jaskier says. ‘I don’t want to fuck you smelling like the last two weeks of travel. I feel foul.’

Geralt sighs. That’s fair enough. He pushes the fire down, banks the ache for later.

‘And I am sleepy,’ Jaskier says, looking out the window of their room, where night is beginning to fall. ‘Which is a wonder. It feels like I might actually sleep tonight, and wake in the morning feeling rested. I cannot tell you how that feels after nearly three months of this nonsense.’

Geralt noses the side of Jaskier’s neck, and nips his skin just below his ear.

‘We’ll wash and sleep, then,’ he says.

‘Perhaps you can tell the innkeeper we’ll stay another night,’ Jaskier says. ‘Then no-one will be hustling us from our bed. The morning can be our own, and in the afternoon we can perhaps buy me a new shirt or two.’

‘Good idea,’ Geralt says. ‘I can go down now.’

‘Might be wise,’ Jaskier says. ‘I’ll take the first wash, if I may. Then I’ll feel better about everything. May I borrow that shirt you promised?’

‘You may,’ Geralt says. His voice deepens without his permission.

He is trying to keep himself under control, but the thought of Jaskier wearing his things is making that difficult. Jaskier grins at him, as though he knows exactly what Geralt is feeling.

Geralt pulls out one of his clean shirts and a pair of braies for Jaskier, and another set for himself. Jaskier takes the underclothes with a smile, and motions Geralt towards to door.

‘Go on,’ he says. ‘Go tell our gracious host that we’ll be staying another night.’

Geralt does as he’s told. He wants to stay here and watch Jaskier undress, watch each sliver of skin be revealed. But he wouldn’t be able to stop at watching, now that it’s on offer. He’d want to touch. To put his mouth on the back of Jaskier’s neck ...

It’s definitely wise to send Geralt out of the room. Especially since Jaskier is tired, and needs to sleep. If Geralt stays, remembering that they ought to sleep will be harder.

Attehil grudgingly allows them to stay an extra night, although it’s the money that he’s happiest to see.

‘Will your friend be playing tomorrow?’ he asks.

‘Possibly,’ Geralt says. ‘Usually it’s hard to get him to stop. But he’s still recovering from the curse. I’ll let you know tomorrow.’

Attehil nods, and Geralt goes back upstairs. He knocks before trying the door.

‘I’m decent!’ Jaskier calls. ‘Well, I’m dressed, anyway.’

Geralt grins, and slips into the room.

Jaskier is dressed, but he is very much not decent. He’s wearing Geralt’s shirt and braies, and is spread out on the bed like a feast on a noble’s table. The light is fading with the sunset, and Jaskier has lit the rushlight that the inn has left them. The golden light makes him look all the more alluring.

‘Wash up,’ Jaskier says, gesturing imperiously at the wash stand. ‘Or I shan’t let you in the bed.’

Jaskier has tipped his dirty water out the window already. The empty basin waits for Geralt, along with the second jug of cooling water. He pours it into the basin, rinsing out the washcloth and finally scrubbing the road from his face. The washcloth is dingy with grime when he rinses it again, and Geralt grimaces.

He feels Jaskier’s eyes on him as he strips. He tries to be quick, but he’s also aware that he’s filthy and overdue for a wash. Jaskier has already seen him in every state, from freshly washed to covered in mud and blood, but Geralt still wants to impress him. None of this is new to them – they’ve shared a bed before, they’ve seen each other naked, they’ve bathed together in bath houses and streams – and yet it all feels so new, and as fragile as a cobweb.

He dries himself off with the linen towel, and pulls on his own shirt and braies.

‘Perhaps we can head to the bath house tomorrow?’ Jaskier asks. ‘Do you think that the reward money will stretch so far?’

‘It might,’ Geralt says. ‘We’ll see.’

He sits on the edge of the bed, waiting for Jaskier to give him a sign of how to proceed.

‘I’d like to see you clean and relaxed,’ Jaskier says. ‘Maybe get my hands in your hair, and get it all nice and clean too.’

‘Mm,’ Geralt agrees. That does sound nice.

‘May I?’ Jaskier asks, reaching for him.

‘You may,’ Geralt rumbles, and then they’re kissing again.

It’s softer, this time. Sweeter. Comfortable kisses, ones that don’t have urgency beneath them, but a promise of deep intimacy. Geralt would have been afraid of that promise once. Now, it’s all he could ever want. How could he be afraid of such a promise from Jaskier? It’s Jaskier. He’s seen Geralt at his worst, and he’s still here.

‘I could kiss you for a hundred years,’ Jaskier murmurs, resting his forehead against Geralt’s, ‘and still feel like I’d not done it enough.’

‘I wouldn’t mind if you did,’ Geralt murmurs back.

‘I would have such plans for you,’ Jaskier says through a yawn, ‘if I wasn’t so sleepy. I slept for days. Days, Geralt! I shouldn’t have to go to bed yet. It’s unfair.’

‘It is,’ Geralt smiles. ‘But you need the sleep, and I’ll be here when you wake.’

‘You will, won’t you?’ Jaskier smiles.

He pushes the blankets down and crawls beneath them.

‘Coming to bed?’ he asks hopefully.

‘I am,’ Geralt says.

He likes going to bed early, and rising early, too. It’s a habit formed during his training. And tonight he has even more reason to be abed: the morning will bring the chance to touch Jaskier. He blows out the rush light, and slips under the sheets. He pulls Jaskier closer, since he can, and they settle into an embrace. Jaskier tucks his head over Geralt’s shoulder, and once he’s pulled Geralt half on top of him, relaxes with a sigh. One of his legs is hooked around Geralt’s, so that he couldn’t escape if he wanted to.

‘I like seeing you in my shirt,’ Geralt says lowly. ‘You smell of me. You smell of us.’

‘Maybe we should buy you some new shirts then,’ Jaskier says. ‘And I’ll make sure my next doublet pairs well with black.’

‘Mm,’ Geralt says, trying to ignore the reignited want under his skin, and how tantalisingly close Jaskier is.

‘Sleep now,’ Jaskier says. His voice is lax with oncoming sleep, and he pats Geralt’s side with absent affection. ‘There’ll be time for that in the morning.’

‘When we wake,’ Geralt agrees, and eventually he follows Jaskier into dreams.