Sergei Kalugin’s voice fell silent. I set the player on pause and adjusted the seat to a more comfortable position. I glanced sideways at Arina. Fortunately, she had closed her mouth, but now her chin and cheeks seemed to have turned flabby. When she slept, the illusion seemed to dissolve—although it didn’t really, it wasn’t the crude yashmak that all witches use, it was something far closer to being real. But that made it all the harder for the witch to maintain it.

How strangely life works out sometimes. There I am sitting in Moscow, delighted at the idea of a short work trip to London—and suddenly I get caught up in a swirl of events and dragged off to the other side of the world, to a place I don’t really know anything about . . . even though half the computer hardware I can remember was produced in Taiwan.

And who with? A former witch who is now a Light Other. Someone I once fought a deadly duel with . . .

I felt a sudden ache in my chest. It wasn’t a physical pain, but a clear, piercing realization that my duel with Arina wasn’t just a thing of the past, it was waiting for me in the future too.

It wasn’t a vision of the future, no. Something else. As if subconsciously I had already understood everything that hadn’t yet come together, that was still stuck in my conscious memory in the form of separate, scattered splinters. All these Prophets, dreams, visions, Tigers, Witches, Gesar and Zabulon—it had all merged together to produce a result that I didn’t like at all.

And the main reason I didn’t like it was because I would have to kill. Or be killed.

What the hell was going on! What rotten damned impulse had made me pay attention to some bawling kid at an airport—I could have just walked on by . . .

I winced painfully. I could have just walked on by. And allowed him to die? And another hundred and fifty people with him?

Of course I couldn’t.

That’s the way things are arranged in this world—one person’s life is always another person’s death.

The pretty air hostess walked by quietly, smiling. Catching my eye, she inclined her head slightly and glanced inquiringly at the empty glass on the broad armrest of the seat. I nodded. I waited for her to bring the cognac, took a sip—and stayed there, half-lying in the seat. I could have done with a bit of sleep . . . but sleep wouldn’t come now. My biological clock would go completely haywire. First from Moscow to London, then from London to Taipei . . .

Why was I certain that I would have to fight with Arina?

And not simply fight, but fight to the death?

Yes, she had become a Light One, but she was still a dark schemer . . . as bad as Gesar.