"Nadiushka and your mother have gone for a walk to the river," I said.

"Did you meet them?"

"No. Oksana said: 'Your Nadia and her granny have gone for a walk…'"

Svetlana tittered, but then she immediately pulled a frightened face. "Don't tell my mother that. She'll be upset."

"Do you think I'm tired of living?"

"Why don't you tell me how your hike went?"

"The witch got away," I said. "We chased her down to the fourth level of the Twilight, but she still got away…"

"The fourth?" Svetlana's eyes flashed. "Are you serious?"

I sat down beside her. The hammock swayed indignantly and the trees creaked, but they held. I gave her a short account of our adventures.

"And I've never been to the fourth level…" Svetlana said thoughtfully. "How interesting… The colors come back?"

"I even thought there were some smells."

Svetlana nodded absentmindedly. "Yes, I've heard rumors about that… That's interesting."

I kept quiet for a few seconds. And then I said, "Svetlana, you ought to go back to the Watch."

She didn't object as usual. She didn't say anything. Encouraged, I went on: "You can't live at half-power. Sooner or later you…"

"Let's not talk about it, Anton. I don't want to be a Great Enchantress," Svetlana said with a wry grin. "A little bit of domestic magic, that's all I need."

The gate banged-Ludmila Ivanovna had come back. I glanced quickly at her and was about to look away-then I stared at her, puzzled. My mother-in-law was glowing. Anybody might have thought that she'd just put some uppity salesgirl in a shop firmly in her place, found a hundred rubles in the street, and shaken hands with her beloved Yakubovich.

She was even walking differently-with light steps, her shoulders held straight, and her chin held high. And she was smiling blissfully. And singing in a soft voice, "We were born to make a fairytale come true…"

I shook my head hard to clear it. My mother-in-law smiled sweetly at us, waved her hand, and in two strides she was past us and heading for the house.

"Mom!" Svetlana shouted to her, jumping up. "Mom!"

My mother-in-law stopped and looked at her, with that same blissful smile still on her face.

"Are you feeling all right, Mom?" Svetlana asked.

"Wonderful," Ludmila Ivanovna replied affectionately.

"Mom, where's Nadiushka?" Svetlana asked, raising her voice slightly.

"She's gone for a walk with a friend," my mother-in-law answered imperturbably.

I shuddered. Svetlana exclaimed, "What do you mean, Mom? It's evening already… children can't go walking on their own… with what friend?"

"With a friend of mine," my mother-in-law explained, still smiling. "Don't worry. You don't think I'm so stupid I'd let our little girl go off on her own, do you?"

"What friend of yours?" Svetlana screamed. "Mom! What's wrong with you? Who's Nadia with?"

The smile on my mother-in-law's face began slowly dissolving, giving way to an uncertain expression. "With that… that…"- she frowned. "With Arina. My friend… Arina… my friend?"

I was too slow to catch exactly what Svetlana did-I just felt a chill tremor run over my skin as the Twilight was parted. Svetlana leaned slightly toward her mother, who froze with her mouth open, swallowing air in small gulps.

Reading people's thoughts is pretty difficult. It's much easier to make them speak. But we can take an instant snapshot of information from close relatives in exactly the same way as we do between ourselves for the sake of speed.

But then, I didn't need the information anyway.

I already understood everything.

And I didn't even feel afraid-just empty. As if the entire world had frozen over and stopped dead.

"Go to bed!" Svetlana shouted at her mother. Ludmila Ivanovna turned and walked toward the house like a zombie.

Svetlana looked at me. Her expression was very calm, and that made it very hard for me to pull myself together. After all, a man feels a lot stronger when his woman is frightened.

"She just came up and blew on her. Took Nadienka by the hand and went off into the forest with her," Svetlana blurted out. "And she's been walking around for another hour, the stupid fool!"

That was when I realized Svetlana was on the verge of hysterics.

I managed to pull myself together.

"What could she do against the witch?" I grabbed Svetlana by the shoulders and shook her. "You mother's only a human being."

Tears glinted briefly in Svetlana's eyes-and then immediately disappeared. Suddenly she pushed me gently away and said, "Stand back, Anton, or you'll get caught… you can hardly stay on your feet as it is…"

I didn't try to argue. After the adventures I'd had with Edgar I wasn't going to be any help. There was hardly any Power in me. I had nothing left to share with Svetlana.

I ran back a few steps and put my arms around the trunk of the stunted apple tree that was already in its final years. I closed my eyes.

The world around me shuddered.

And I felt the Twilight shift and stir.

Svetlana didn't gather Power from people around her, as I would have done. She had enough of her own-obstinately neglected, unused… and constantly accumulating. They say that after giving birth, female Others experience a colossal influx of Power, but I hadn't noticed any changes in Svetlana at the time. It had all seemed to vanish somewhere; it was being hidden, saved up-as it turned out-for a rainy day.

The world was losing its colors. I realized I was falling into the Twilight, the first level: The intensity of the magic was so great that nothing even slightly magical could remain in human reality. The book Fuaran-Fact or Fiction? fell through the rough board table and thumped hard against the ground. Three houses away clumps of blue moss-the emotional parasite that lives in the Twilight-flared up on the roof and were instantly consumed by flames.

Svetlana was enveloped in a white glow. She was moving her hands quickly, as if she were knitting with invisible yarn. A moment later, the yarn became visible, as threads as fine as cobweb gossamer streamed away from her hands and spread out, driven by a non-existent wind. A storm began raging around Svetlana-and then fell silent, when the thousands of glittering threads had flown off into the distance in all directions.

"What?" I shouted. "Sveta!"

I knew the spell she had just used. I could even have cast a Snowy Cobweb myself-maybe not so efficiently and rapidly, but still…

Svetlana didn't answer. She raised her hands to the sky, as if she were praying. But we don't believe in any gods, or in God. We are our own gods and our own demons.

A rainbow sphere, like an oversize soap bubble, parted from Svetlana's hands and drifted majestically up into the sky. The bubble expanded, rotating slowly around its axis. A dark-red spot on the translucent rainbow film reminded me of the planet Jupiter. When the red spot rotated to face me, I felt a cold, searing touch, like a breath of icy wind.

Svetlana had created the Eye of the Magician. First level again… but to create it immediately after the Snowy Cobweb!

The third spell followed with no perceptible pause, and I realized Svetlana had been holding it in readiness for a long time, for occasions precisely like this. She released a flock of ghostly white birds from her hands. You could have called them doves-except that the ghostly birds' beaks were too large and sharp, too predatory.

I didn't know that spell at all.

Svetlana lowered her hands and the Twilight settled back down. It came creeping back to us, touching our skin with its cautious, predatory chill.

I emerged into the ordinary world.

Followed by Svetlana.

Here nothing had changed. The open cover of the book lying on the ground hadn't even slammed shut yet.