“It’s very interesting, it really is!” said Glyba, beaming. “I’d like to hear it. I hope Djoru will be able to explain to the boy how to prophesy.”

“Djoru might have managed it,” said Gesar, walking into the room, “but I haven’t.”

He sat down with us (now that was strange—I thought there were only three chairs at the table before then) and took a glass. (Well, there definitely wasn’t a fourth glass on the table before, let alone a full one!) He looked at me, cleared his throat, took a sip of cognac, and said: “The ball keeps going wide of the goalpost. The lad is an Other, the lad really is a Prophet. Only we were mistaken. He’s not a Higher Other, only first or second rank.”

“That’s not crucial for a Prophet,” said Glyba. “He’ll utter his prophecies less often, that’s all.”

“This isn’t just a matter of initiation,” Gesar went on. “Or of understanding the technical details. I’ve explained all that, he’s a bright boy. But there has to be the right state of mind. The readiness to prophesy. And that’s harder to induce. All my fiddling and fussing got me nowhere—his head’s lost somewhere up in the clouds . . .”

“Probably remembering his mother,” Glyba said sympathetically. “I ended up in the Watch as a child too, I missed my family terribly . . .”

“Boris Ignatievich, can I have a word with him?” I asked.

“Give it a try,” Gesar agreed willingly. “I don’t think it will help, but try it. Only don’t drag it out—it’s almost midnight already, the kid can hardly keep his eyes open . . .”

His look as he watched me go was sympathetic and approving, but without any real enthusiasm.

Innokentii Tolkov, ten and a half years old, Prophet of the first level of Power, was not sleeping yet. He was sitting on the floor beside the heap of toys provided out of the Night Watch’s largesse and twirling a toy telephone in his hands. When I appeared, he became embarrassed and put the phone back into the multicolored heap—it was a toy for tiny tots: a few large buttons with numbers that played some kind of jolly Chinese tune when you pressed them, and a button for recording any phrase that you wanted. Nadya had had a “telephone” like that too, when she was three years old.

I suddenly felt really worried.

“Hi, Kesha,” I said, sitting down on the floor beside him.

“Good evening, Uncle Anton,” said Kesha.

“Well, you’ve got a real treasure hoard here,” I said awkwardly, dragging a toy helicopter out of the heap. “My Nadya wanted to play with one of these . . .”

“You take it for her,” Kesha said calmly. “I don’t need it, after all.”

I looked into his eyes—and “worried” became “terrified.”

“How do you mean?” I asked in an artificially cheerful voice.