I only remembered that I’d forgotten to buy the toilet paper after I got off the elevator.

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

APPARENTLY SVETLANA HAD UNDERSTOOD EVERYTHING THE moment I walked in the door. But she only asked the question late in the evening, when we were already in bed.

“Have you blocked your magic?”

“Uh-huh.” I didn’t attempt to deny it, but I tried not to get involved in explanations. “The block will run out tomorrow.”

“I see. For a dare?”

“For a dare.”

Svetlana put down the book that she was reading in bed for the second evening in a row and glanced into my eyes. I tensed up, expecting some ironic comment or at least the question “What the hell for?”

“Was it hard, Anton?” Svetlana asked.

“Yes,” I admitted. “I never realized before that I’m always doing something with magic—little bits and pieces, but I do them . . .”

“I understand.”

“It’s hard to understand,” I said, smiling to soften the unintended harshness of my words. “Until you try, it looks dead easy.”

“Anton, I haven’t used magic outside the home for four years now.”

“What!” I sat up on the bed. “But that’s stupid!”

“Yes, I know,” said Svetlana, nodding.

“But why?”

“I felt like I was becoming less and less human,” Svetlana replied. “Almost imperceptibly. At first it seemed miraculous—solving every problem with a single movement, only worrying about the balance between good and evil . . . Then I realized that I never solved any problems but my own. I started trying to reassure myself that there was nothing wrong with that. That the Night Watch couldn’t exterminate evil . . . that that wasn’t its job in any case: all we can do is not allow good to be defeated, humans have to strive for all the rest themselves. Well, you know . . . And the things they teach young Others in school—the ones with the most passionate hearts join the Watch afterwards, and the ones with cool heads simply live as Others among humans. And then it started making me feel . . .” She paused, trying to find the right word.

“Sick?” I asked with avid curiosity.

“Uncomfortable.” Svetlana shook her head: “Not sick. We really do try to do good, after all. But . . . uncomfortable. You know, it’s . . . Rumata Estorsky probably felt that way just before he took out his swords and stood facing the door that the storm troopers were breaking down.”

“I understand,” I said with a nod.

“I love you precisely because you do understand and I don’t have to explain to you who Rumata was,” Svetlana said seriously, and smiled. “And then . . . I realized that I would end up like he did.”

“I went through something like that,” I said.