Zabulon smiled sarcastically, but didn’t say anything. Somehow he didn’t seem in any hurry to leave—apparently he couldn’t get enough of the sight of a genuine Prophet. He and I were standing off to one side, but Gesar and Olga were sitting on the sofa, one on each side of Kesha, singing a duet in praise of the advantages of life as an Other. After the serious fright that Semyon had suffered before we arrived, he was drinking tea in the kitchen with Olga Yurievna. Nothing so very terrible had actually happened to him while we were on our way there. He simply discovered that he’d lost the ability to communicate with anyone by magical means, that he couldn’t probe the surrounding space or divine the future for even a minute ahead. And there was also the sense of impending danger that had been growing with every second. Semyon didn’t know anything about the “tiger” but he had realized that this was no ordinary skirmish between the Watches, that it was something far more serious than that. So he had been standing there with some kind of spell cocked and ready to fire, waiting to see who would reach him first . . .

“It’s interesting that I’m a wizard,” Kesha said indecisively. “But . . . do I have to be one? Can’t I stay human?”

Gesar and Olga exchanged glances over the boy’s head. Zabulon cleared his throat.

“Yes, you can,” Gesar admitted, “if you want to. Do you want to?”

“No,” Kesha said firmly. “I just wondered.”

When the catty neighbor had called the boy a dumpling, she’d been pretty close to the truth. He was flabby and round-faced, like Doughnut in the book about Dunno. The skin on his face was lumpy, the way it usually is in older people but only very rarely in children. Parents who have children like that usually say in an apologetic tone: “You know, he’s very clever and good-natured.”

As for being good-natured, I didn’t know, although the boy’s aura was good, unambiguously Light. There was nothing there for Zabulon. But as for him being bright—that seemed to be true enough.

“Is it all because of the plane?” Kesha continued with his questioning. “Because I got frightened?”

“Yes,” Gesar said, with a nod. “The plane really could have crashed. And Anton”—Gesar nodded in my direction—“realized that you’re a Prophet.”

“And he saved the plane?” the boy asked.

“As you can see, the plane didn’t crash,” said Gesar, avoiding a direct answer.

“So I can only predict things? Is that all?” Kesha asked with evident disappointment.