Looking around, there isn’t anything that makes it stand out in any way. It’s a poor village, that much is obvious, though in the dark it’s hard to tell if it’s just particularly backwards or from a time that’s earlier than Childermass’s own.

"He doesn't," Lambert answers, evenly, before the drunk can marshal his wits together for a response, the storybook's logic constraining his ability to improvise outside his own tale.

"But he doesn't need to. Everyone knows what witchers ask for, right?" He lets the man go, knowing his expression is twisting into something sharp and ugly but not quite able to care. It's hard, looking at something you used to fear and realizing how pathetic it really was in the first place. If he was a better man, he'd feel pity, not anger ... but Lambert isn't a better man.

"'Give me the first thing you see when you get home.'" He says the words with the air of ceremony, head cocked to the side and a bitter little smile on his lips as he shoves him off in the right direction. The man reels, almost tripping over himself, but he wipes at his face (it mostly just redistributes the dirt on it) and nods vigorously, retreating. Lambert watches him go, shoulders still knotted with tension, before he glances at Childermass.