A plan for the advanced training of Fourth- and Fifth-Level Others in order to identify the more powerful magicians among them. That was a bit more interesting. Peering attentively at the sheet of paper, I read this remarkable phrase: “The goal of holding this advanced training program is advanced training for the purposes of determining . . .” After that I suddenly started feeling bored, signed the papers, and dropped them into the “Approved” file. The sheets faded and disappeared, teleported off to their authors.

So, what next?

A schedule of classes for patrol members on the subject of “Certain aspects of interaction with members of the Day Watch in situations where ‘wild’ Others have been discovered and apprehended.” I glanced through the lesson summaries with great interest. Olga was intending to teach the classes, which was already interesting in itself. And the subject was a burning issue of perennial interest—by no means all Others were found and initiated by members of the Watches, quite often people discovered their own magical powers independently . . . and then things could get really messy, regardless of whether they were Dark Ones or Light Ones.

So I actually marked the first class in my diary, in order to attend it myself. Not as an inspector, simply as one of the students. It was always useful to learn something new.

And what was this?

Olga again?

Amusing. She must have been bitten by the teaching bug. A lecture for Watch members on the subject of “The Watches’ response in cases of technological and social catastrophe. Specific aspects of interaction with the human agencies of law enforcement.” And two remarks. The first was “attendance desirable”—so it was only nominally an open lecture with optional attendance: in fact, everyone was recommended to attend. The second was “invited guest—a non-Other.”

That was really interesting!

And the lecture had begun half an hour ago . . . I wondered why neither Olga nor Gesar had said a word to me about it.

I decided that my desk work was over for the day and stood up. I could consider this as attendance at a recommended lecture and an inspection at the same time. That note—“attendance desirable”—had freed my hands. Simply turning up at Olga’s lecture would have been awkward, it would have looked like an official visit. But this way it was all fine and dandy—I’d just come to learn something.

The lecture hall was absolutely crammed and I felt like a total idiot. Everybody must have been there, apart from Gesar (he had nothing to learn, even from Olga) and the guys in the duty office.

As I walked in, the crowd burst into laughter. I even hesitated in the doorway. But fortunately they weren’t laughing at me. It was quite dark by the door and no one had even noticed me.