[Thancred’s implied question is not very veiled at all — why did they chose to remain in Thorne, when the weight of returning to the castle feels vaguely burdensome? The simplest solution would be to leave, and it isn’t like they weren’t given the chance to do so, free of consequences. In Stephen’s case, his choice was more complicated than that, and it stands to reason the same applies to the two of them. At the end of their long journey, he feels confident that their rationale may not be so distant from his own.

But Yennefer takes the reins of the conversion with a leading question, and Stephen frowns. Yes, he knows that name — it was floated to him by Sam, who was kind enough to summarize the ever-growing list of notable events transpiring before his arrival in Abraxas. The name Relena was hard to forget, given the story connected to it.]

One of the Summoned kept in the castle dungeons, right? I heard something about an experiment performed at the Queen’s request. An attempt to remove her connection to the Singularity and transplant it into a native.

[Needless to say… that’s troublesome. Makes him wonder what it would take for the Queen to get a similar idea into her head, even though she keeps no more Summoned prisoners.]

I also heard that didn’t turn out great for either of them.