“Maybe I should give him a kiss?” Nadya asked in an innocent voice. “To inspire him. That always helps in the cartoons!”

Why, the little . . . the little . . . no, not witch, of course. But she does have a bit of the witch in her. Like every woman.

“I’m afraid kisses won’t do it,” I said. “Nadya, talk to the boy. Try to understand what the problem is. I . . . I won’t be far away. I’ll be back in five minutes.”

I walked out of the room, closed the door behind me, and thought that in just a couple of years’ time I would be more wary of leaving my daughter alone with little boys. Would you believe it! “I’ll kiss him!” I ought to throw that TV out . . .

“Anton!”

I walked into the room where Gesar, Alisher and Jermenson were sitting. There seemed to be more cognac in the bottle than before, which roused my suspicions. Glyba had gone off somewhere, but the Kazakh White Magician’s replacement by Alisher had not affected the way the group was passing the time.

“There was some kind of . . . movement . . .” said Gesar, gazing at me. “Tell me, you haven’t done anything stupid, have you? Like teleporting the lad away from here?”

“No, it was Nadya,” I said. “I called her . . . to talk to the boy. She’s known all her life that she’s an Other. Maybe she can give him some ideas?”

“A truly devoted father,” said Gesar.

“Well, that’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” I asked him. “When you told the boy that there was no hope, that he should give up trying?”

Gesar shook his head slowly.

“No, Anton. Thank you for valuing every word I say so highly, but it wasn’t a hint. I simply said there was no hope. I wasn’t thinking of your daughter . . .”

“But how lovely that would be . . .” Jermenson said thoughtfully. “A pity . . .”

And then I felt the “movement” that Gesar had mentioned. As if the Twilight had swayed, splashing out energy, and then frozen.

“I’ll go and give Nadya’s ears a tweak,” I said.

“It’s not good to tweak little girls” ears,” said Gesar, getting up. “And that’s not her.”

“It’s the Tiger,” said Jermenson. He got up too.

“Anton, take your daughter and leave,” said Alisher, pulling a bracelet made of three intertwined rings—gold, silver, and copper—out of his pocket. He threaded his left hand through it and dangled it in the air, as if he was gauging an invisible load.

“What are you doing?” I asked. “You said . . .”

“Never mind what we said,” Jermenson replied, with a shrug. “And anyway . . . if we can spin things out for an hour or two, that could decide everything. He won’t come through the Twilight, Gesar?”

“No,” Gesar said firmly.

“Perhaps we should ask the Inquisition after all . . . or Zabulon . . .”