“Nadya . . .” I began, looking at my daughter. I could barely make out her face in the candlelight. “Will you do what I ask you to do?”

“What?” she asked tensely.

“We have only two choices,” I said, gazing at her. It was a good thing I had been able to see her grown up—even if it had been in a dream.

In a dream that must not come true.

“There are always three,” Nadya said stubbornly. “In all the fairy tales, there are always three paths.”

“It can’t be helped, this isn’t a proper fairy tale,” I said, and tried to laugh. “Only two. Kill the Tiger—and destroy all the magic in the world. All the Others will become ordinary people. And there could be all sorts of cataclysms . . . I don’t know.”

“Magic has become an evil,” Arina said intensely. “People must—”

“People must be people,” I responded. “If there’s no magic, they’ll find some other way of destroying themselves.”

“So have you decided to let the Tiger kill us?” Arina exclaimed.

“And there’s a second way,” I said, glancing at my daughter. “To prove to the Tiger . . . to prove to the Twilight that we will never reveal the prophecy. We won’t tell any people about it. Then it won’t come true. And the Tiger won’t have to kill us.”

“To make the Tiger believe that, you need a sacrifice,” Arina snorted. “A terrible, irrevocable sacrifice . . .” She paused for a moment and then screeched in outraged indignation: “Anton, you want to kill—”

“Daddy, do you want me to kill you?” Nadya asked.

Arina was a former Dark One. And Dark Ones take everything the wrong way. Unlike Light Ones.

I shook my head.

“No, my love, I don’t want to leave you with that burden. And anyway, there’s still Arina, isn’t there? Promise me. Simply promise that you’ll never tell anyone Erasmus’s prophecy. And you swear too, Kesha.”

“He’ll kill the boy,” Arina said quickly. “The Tiger will kill him. Tear him to pieces in front of your daughter—won’t that be a fine psychological trauma for her?”

Kesha exclaimed passionately: “I won’t tell anyone! Not anyone!”

“Swear,” I repeated. “So that what I’m about to do won’t be in vain. Swear.”

Kesha started nodding desperately.

Nadya got halfway up off her stool.

“Don’t,” I told her, and turned to Arina.

“You’ll never do it,” Arina said quickly. “We’re both Higher Ones, but I’ve got more experience, Anton.”

I didn’t say anything . . .

About what Edgar had once told me. At the Cosmodrome in Baikonur, when I was standing facing Kostya Savushkin, my friend and a Higher Vampire, who was planning to turn all the people of the world into Others . . .