“Zabulon?” I asked stupidly. “You’ve discussed this with him?”

“Yes, Zabulon,” Gesar replied firmly. “You should understand, Anton, that there are some things so important for all Others that all enmity is forgotten in the effort to understand them.”

“But if there’s no Twilight, how will these human-Others use magic?”

“They won’t need to enter the Twilight. They’ll operate with just their own internal energy—although perhaps in time they’ll discover a way to pump energy directly out of other people . . . and we’ll become practically immune to magic,” Gesar laughed. “You can’t give an electric shock to someone who doesn’t conduct electricity.”

He paused and then sighed.

“But we’d have a really tough time, of course. We could forget all about having such a long life.”

“So Kesha’s prophecy isn’t dangerous, and it doesn’t contain anything new,” I said thoughtfully. “And perhaps it’s not the first of that kind?”

Gesar didn’t say anything, but he smiled.

“Then why was the Tiger so afraid that the prophecy would be heard?”

“Because there really is a chance that someone will try to destroy the Twilight,” Gesar said calmly. “For instance, as we see, your girlfriend Ar—”

I frowned.

“A certain Witch of your acquaintance,” said Gesar, correcting his mistake. “As you’ve already seen, she has a definite bee in her bonnet—she’s afraid that her careless interference with a prophecy has brought disaster down on the country. And she’s not the only one, either. There are radical Dark Ones, for instance.”

“But what do they want? Are they prepared to lose their Power?”

“They believe that magic will simply change. And they hope that their own personal Power will be increased in the process. There are radical Light Ones, too. Today, for instance, you were working with a lad who wanted to make people happy by making the human authorities supermoral. That’s a standard situation, isn’t it? But there are other Light Ones who are tormented by the awareness of their own Power. And they’d like it if there was no magic, if people lived without any wizardry at all!”

“But do many of them know that the Twilight can be destroyed—and who is capable of doing it?”

“Fortunately for you and Nadya, not many,” Gesar said drily. “Or they would try to influence her.”

“So what should I do?” I asked. Suddenly I felt like what I really was—despite the rank of Higher One that had come my way by chance: a novice Magician, a rank-and-file Other, the pupil of a wise Magician.