Contains spoilers for this episode and earlier episodes.
Geralt's party reaches a refugee settlement and reunites with Yarpen. Beata finds her sister Talver, only for both girls to face accusations of witchcraft. Geralt challenges the priest's lack of evidence and offers trial by combat. The priest instead demands that someone lift a burning horseshoe without injury. Regis does it, apparently meeting the condition for their release. Before the dispute can end safely, Nilfgaardian soldiers attack the settlement. Beata is killed and Geralt is knocked unconscious amid the violence.
Yennefer brings a grieving Francesca to Montecalvo, where the surviving mages argue about whether they should risk themselves for Ciri. Francesca explains the princess's connection to Lara Dorren and the power others want to exploit. Fringilla's apparent defection proves to be a deception: she is passing information about Vilgefortz's portal machinery back to Yennefer. The plan now requires drawing him out of his protected base rather than simply finding a route into it.
Ciri and the Rats rob the noblewoman Gilda Casadei. Ciri humiliates her beyond the demands of the theft, then kills hired pursuers who recognize her. Her growing attachment to Mistle does not make the gang's exposure disappear. In Nilfgaard, Emhyr confronts Vilgefortz over Teryn while Skellen pursues his own plans against the emperor. Skellen hires Leo Bonhart, a hunter carrying witcher medallions as trophies, to find and kill Ciri and the Rats.