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Geralt is always reachable by the network. Unless it's an emergency, expect not to hear back for a few hours, if not a few days.

To talk to him in person, you'll need to be in Cadens or go to his domain, a snowy mountain fortress. Yard is open; doors are locked. If he isn't around, leave a delivery with the white wolf.

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[ His handwriting etches over the door of the wardrobe, in the flicker of one of her lanterns; a flower shaped of flames in held within. She bites her lip as she reads it, her mind racing. It's not happening to them. The man she'd met in town, Claude, had had the same bruises, but if Geralt and Sam are fine... then doesn't that make it more likely that she's right?

The next fragments come with gaps between them, like she's having trouble putting together her thoughts. ]

It's

Are you

Something's

[ She groans to herself, putting her head in her hands. Finally, she manages a complete sentence. ]

I think he's trying to come back.

[ What. His first thought is, how is that possible? But he's long stopped trying to predict what the Singularity is capable of. Or what may force its way through, with enough power.

He takes a moment before answering. ]

Tell me what you've noticed.

I keep dreaming about him. In ways I never did before. And

[ Again, there's a gap where she struggles to explain herself, but the answer comes faster this time. ]

There's lightning. Even when it's sunny, even inside. I see it in the corner of my eyes, or in mirrors and windows. Tall figures, all black. And I have these bruises on my arms. Handprints. They just appeared overnight. Nadine hasn't said anything yet, but maybe she just can't sense him yet.

There was another Summoned in town, a new guy. He had the same marks on his arms.

[ Cue him looking to Sam again, who appears increasingly concerned and receives no answer from Geralt as to what's happening.

Bruises appearing after haunting dreams often means a curse or a specter. But it can also mean a being, unknown. What he's largely called a demon for lack of a better term. ]

Can you ask Nadine?
Last time he vanished, she said she felt it at once.

[ Julie hesitates. It's not that she hasn't thought to ask Nadine, it's that all of this combined with what happened when she spoke to the Singularity is making this terribly confusing. Between the lack of sleep and the confounding nature of everything happening, she can barely keep up with her own ideas about what could be going on. ]

I don't know that she would feel him yet. That's the thing. I don't think he's quite made it here yet. I was going to wait until you got back to tell you, but something happened.

I went to the Singularity, and... I felt something. No one else with me did. Just me.

[ He rubs his temple. Maybe it says something, that his attention has been more split than usual, that only now does he think back on how he found Jayce in the Horizon. Something going on, the man had said.

But her final sentence distracts him. Wait. Between Ciri's misadventure earlier and now this, Geralt's first thought is not that Julie means the Singularity in the Horizon. ]

How did you reach the Singularity?

[ She pauses, eyebrows deeply knit with confusion as she looks at his question. It has not occurred to her that he could have thought she went to the physical one, and she doesn't understand what he means at first. ]

In the Horizon. The one in the middle.

[ Oh. Right, of course. That one. He's never approached it himself, but it's never occurred to him it's anything other than a manifested product of the Horizon itself. Same as everything in there.

Seems that might not be so. ]

Are you saying you felt something trying to come through?

I don't know if that's what it was, but I felt something.

[ It's almost impossible to explain, how she actually felt it. She can put words to it, but it's not exactly right. It's something that radiated inside her very being, not a passing idea that can be summarized. ]

It was warm under my hands, and it was awake. It knew I was there, like it could see me. And then... it wanted. I don't know what, but it was just like... I never felt anything like that before. It wasn't for anything specific, it was just this WANT. But then I got interrupted and it all went away.

[ The stretch of silence is longer this time. A minute, two. Because what the fuck. Where does he even start? With Julie telling him she thinks a demon is trying to climb back into this sphere or the fact that the Singularity is, what. Awake? Living? Or is there something inside it reaching out?

Neither are particularly comforting scenarios. ]

I spoke to someone earlier. He said his dreams were interfering with his domain,
but I don't know more than that.

[ At the time, that had felt not especially unusual. Restlessness and a lack of concentration, one's emotional state—the Horizon's always been fickle. ]

Do you want Jaskier or Ciri to stay with you until I've returned?

[ He can take as long as he wants, because what the fuck is right. Julie's been grappling with it for weeks now, nearly as long as Geralt's been out of the city, and she's not any closer to what it means. She's not even sure if this theory about Flagg is anywhere near right, and if not for the bruises, she wouldn't have said anything at all. The bruises are what she can't reconcile. ]

Interfering? Did he say how?

[ Because there's something there too, she simply hasn't mentioned it. She thought it was maybe just the exhaustion, or her mind playing tricks on her. She also doesn't tell him about the change in her magic, figuring that it can wait. It's not bad, it's just different. Like she'd told Ciri.

Julie knows, knows that Ciri is every bit as qualified to protect the two of them, herself and Nadine, as Geralt is. More than Sam. But it's not the same, and Ciri has just gone through some shit herself. She mentioned issues with her magic, and Julie knows enough to be wary of what Ciri can do without meaning to. It says a lot, coming from someone who still accidentally sets things on fire on a fairly regular basis. ]

No. I'll be okay for three days.

He didn't have to. I saw it. Blood and fire. I presumed...

[ He needn't explain. Julie knows what happened to his own place not long ago, and even before that, how the shadow of Ciri had spawned. And that room he still cannot rid himself of, buried deep beneath the stairs. His experience with the Horizon has been less than stable from the start. To say the least. He's the last person to consider something might be deeply wrong where bad dreams and one's Horizon being fucked is concerned.

Were Julie alone, Geralt might've insisted. She has Nadine, though. Protection is important, but he imagines a familiar, comforting face means equally as much, if not more. Out of all of them, Nadine knows Julie best. Knows Flagg, too, in ways none of them do. Ciri will be close by, if she's needed. ]

If anything else happens, tell me.
I'll come see you as soon as I can.

But it wasn't
Never mind, we can talk when you're back.

[ There's no point in it right now. He's still days out, and what she'd seen in the Horizon doesn't seem to have actually affected anything, at least not in an urgent way. She got what she wanted, she knows when they'll be back. ]

Just be safe.

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