“That’s not certain,” said Arina. “Gagarin’s flight into space was prophesied in the seventeenth century . . . Anton, you really astound me, in the best sense of the word.”

“Since you changed color, you’re simply itching to do good,” I said.

“Maybe so. But aren’t you? Anton, no one in the Watch would dare to do anything like this. I’m prepared to try. And I swear to you that if the prophecy turns out to be good, or unclear—then we won’t do anything. Let it come true. But what if we’ve suddenly been given a chance to steer people’s lives in a better direction?”

“ ‘We,’ ” I snorted. “The last time you said ‘we’ was when you were with Edgar and Saushkin. They came to a bad end.”

“You don’t trust me, and that’s right,” Arina said, nodding. “But with you I’ll have the chance to do something genuinely important, not just drudge away aimlessly in a Watch.”

“I’m almost certain you told Edgar the same thing,” I replied somberly.

“Think, Anton,” said Arina, opening her handbag and taking out a little sphere. “For the time being, I’ll go back to . . . my place. Pardon me for not inviting you—the Minoan sphere only transports one.”

“I thought it was a single-use item,” I said.

“No, it’s a single-charge unit,” Arina said, with a smile. “And I know how to recharge it. I’ll come to visit you in the morning, if you don’t mind?”

I shrugged. Arina smiled, grasped the sphere tightly in her fist—and disappeared.

I sighed, picked up the empty beer bottles, and started climbing down off the little wooden ship. Unlike the witch, I would have to make my way to the hotel on foot.