He sees it, in the shift of her eyes before she strikes. Ciri is quick, but he's the one who taught her. He sidesteps out of her path, catching her wrist in one hand.

Were it anyone else, he knows exactly the right way to twist that hand and plunge the dagger through them. Or crush the bone until they drop it. But it's Ciri. He lets her go instead. Puts distance between them again while he tries to sort out what the fuck is even wrong.

What it is that's made her view him as a threat.

"You know me."

That's what's tugging at him. Jo said Geralt, but Ciri did not ask where he was. He can grasp that perhaps this place has made her see him as something strange, unknown. But she'd not even blinked at his name or questioned his whereabouts—as if it didn't register at all.