I didn’t have far to walk—it only took five minutes. But even so I had time to think with bitter sarcasm that today, having abjured the use of magic, I was bound to get into some kind of scrape. The young checkout girl would short-change me and give me lip. An old pensioner at the checkout would count the change in her hand and sob bitterly as she took the chicken thighs and millet off the conveyor belt and put them back in the basket. A beardless youth would try to buy cheap vodka or fortified wine, and the checkout girl (the same one who was going to short-change me) would pretend that she didn’t notice his age.

Basically, something unpleasant was bound to happen, something on which, in normal circumstances, I could use the weak remoralization spells available to me because of my rank—Reproach, Crying Shame, or even Disgrace—in order to restore justice and punish vice.

But even now I had no intention of giving in. I was going to show everyone, and in the first place myself, that I was capable of living like an ordinary human being while preserving my dignity and making the life around me better. I would shame the checkout girl (dammit, how had I got landed with this girl I’d never even seen?), pay for the old woman, who would bless me as I walked away, and lecture the youth sternly on the harmfulness of consuming alcohol in adolescence. Basically, I was going to do everything that I always did, only without magic.

It had worked with the traffic police!

So when I grasped a basket and set out on my journey round the shop (right, oil—there it is . . . the eggs are close by) I was ready for anything. Sausages . . . bread . . . the toilet paper’s near the entrance, I’ll pick it up there . . .

Standing in the queue for the checkout, I automatically picked up a round lollipop and a chocolate egg with a surprise in it off the counter. I thought about how for the last few months these traditional treats had no longer roused the same childish delight in Nadya that they once had.

What could be done about it? Children grow up faster than we can grasp what’s happening.

There was an old woman in the queue. And a youth with some kind of bottle. And the checkout girl was young and lippy-looking, with a piercing in her nose.

I braced myself inwardly.

The old woman set out on the conveyor belt a chicken, a bag of grain (what was this, did my clairvoyant abilities still work, even when my magic was blocked?) and, rather unexpectedly, a bottle of Crimean Cahors wine. And then a plastic card appeared from her little old purse.

“My terminal’s not working, only cash,” the checkout girl began.

“Am I supposed to know the terminal’s not working?” asked the old woman, instantly joining battle.