"No," Geralt answers that question with almost uncharacteristic promptness. His mood, however, is as brooding and gloomy as anyone who's met him in the past decades of his long life would expect. In a way, that would be more straight forward. Which isn't enough of a reason to motivate him to strike a bargain with a demon. Fuck that. Straight forward doesn't necessarily mean better. But it would be simpler, and it wouldn't involve Yennefer—which might be a redundancy.

He has to think again about what to say. What he wants to say and what he has to say, which might not be exactly the same list.

He wants to ask Jaskier what the hell he's even doing here, when he arrived. He wants to ask if the bard is actually dead.

Instead, he offers a gob of raw meat to the the nightmare horse, coaxing her close enough to touch her ugly face. As if he didn't miss Roach enough before this. On the other hand, if he has to ride out into the land around Penance, an ugly horse might suit it.

"No," he repeats then, and adds helpfully. "I haven't made any deals. Until recently, I've done my best not to get involved in all the mess between demons and lords of Hell."

They're every bit as bad as the lords he's known before.

"But things got messy. You just got here. Believe me, you're luckier for it."