Avallach stood at the far side of the living room with his arms crossed while Finn and Ciri sat across from him near the low table. He had been quiet for the last minute, looking from one of them to the other.
"Are you sure?" he asked. "Once we leave, there will be no turning back."
Ciri nodded. "I'm sure."
Avallach was silent again for a moment. Then he looked at her properly. "Do you know the purpose of why I am helping you, Zireael?"
"The White Frost," she said. "You want me to stop the White Frost. In your world, and in mine."
"And do you know how to do it?"
Ciri frowned and glanced at Finn. He gave her a small nod. She looked back to Avallach.
"Tor Zireael," she said. "The Tower of the Swallow."
This time Avallach nodded.
"We must go there," he said. "Of that I have no doubt. Once we arrive in your world, Eredin will find us quickly enough. I would be a fool to expect otherwise. We may need to take detours to throw him off our trail, perhaps more than once, but you must remember our end destination. The tower. That is where you will use your gift. If we go there too quickly, we walk straight into the place where he most expects us to appear."
Finn leaned forward a little in his seat. "Shouldn't we just kill Eredin first?"
"If it were that simple, he would already be dead," Avallach said. "Eredin can appear and disappear at will. He does not ride alone. He has many riders with him, and three of us would not be enough to destroy the Hunt outright. We need allies. People who can be trusted to stand their ground. Three of us may survive a clash. That is not the same as winning what comes after it."
Finn let out a quiet breath through his nose. "Geralt. Yennefer. All the same..."
Ciri turned to Avallach. "But I wish to not tell Geralt why you are with me. He needs to not know about the Tower, and the White Frost."
Finn looked at her. "What? Ciri... you're doing the same thing as your counterpart in the story."
"And my counterpart is right," Ciri said. "I do not want Geralt to know. There is a chance that I might die in that tower. Better to hide it from him until the very end."
"You won't die," Finn said.
Ciri looked at him for a moment, then turned her face away.
"In any case, we need him as well," Avallach said. "Him, and those around him. We will need them against the Hunt. I have many plans in mind for how Eredin may be dealt with. Some of them, I suspect, you already know." His eyes shifted to Finn. "But in the end, it is fate that guides lesser beings to the one path that does not end in ruin. We shall depart this evening, so prepare yourselves."
"Wait," Finn said. "You must know, Avallach... Eredin. He'll have a surprise for you. A curse."
Avallach frowned, though only slightly. "It is one of the many possibilities."
"We should avoid it," Finn said. "I know your first thought is to go to the Tower at once. We shouldn't do that. We should gather allies first."
"We'll teleport to Geralt," Ciri said.
"If you must know, there is almost no chance we could do that," Avallach said. "Eredin would certainly await us there and strike the moment we appear in Zireael's world. If we are going to Gwynbleidd's location, it should not be directly."
Finn reached down, pulled a map of the Continent from his bag, and spread it over the low table.
He pressed a finger to a stretch of land far to the southeast. "Here. The deserts of Zerrikania. The Korath Desert. We should pull Eredin's attention there. Hard enough that he definitely feels it. Ciri uses her powers as strongly as possible. Then we try to fight him there and see if our current setup, or rather my capability, is effective against the Hunt. After that we leave through your portal and go where allies might actually be found. We know Geralt is somewhere in the Northern Kingdoms, but we don't know where, we..."
"I can teleport to him," Ciri said. "I can try to sense him from far away."
"Yeah, but you can't use your powers again right after the first one, Ciri," Finn said. "You might hide your presence here, but you won't hide it in your own world. We could go to Nilfgaard first. Or Vizima, if you want to call it that. Where your father is."
Ciri's head snapped toward him. "What in the bloody hell are you talking about? I do not want to go there."
"Well, worth a try," Finn said with a shrug. "But we know Dandelion is in Novigrad. Triss Merigold too. We could use them to reach Geralt. We could try the witchers' fortress, though I don't know if any of them will actually be there. Yennefer is probably somewhere in Nilfgaard, but that's off the list, and I don't trust the other sorceresses. So... Novigrad, or the fortress. Thoughts?"
"As much as I want to see the fortress, we have better chances of finding Dandelion and Triss than finding anyone in the fortress," Ciri said.
Finn looked back to the elf. "Avallach? What do you think?"
Avallach looked down at the map.
"The Korath Desert," he said. "An open field. Good for your weapons. The sand will be rough on the heavy steed. Still, if we are on foot, we will not outrun any horse."
Finn spread one hand. "Then you better make your portals quickly."
Avallach gave him a flat look.
The elf exhaled through his nose. "Very well. The idea is sound. You should prepare yourselves. As I said, in the evening, we will begin our journey."
He turned and left the living room.
Ciri rose soon after and headed for the hall. Finn folded the map back up and slid it into his bag.