'Polina Vasilievna and Andrei don't count. You know perfectly well they're just office workers. Moscow's been left without a single Watch operative!'
'The Dark Ones have gone quiet too.'
'So what?'
'Anton, that's enough.'
I nodded, realising I wouldn't be able to get another word out of her.
'Okay, Olya. Six months ago we were on equal terms, even if it was only by accident. Now we're obviously not. I'm sorry. This is a problem for someone with the proper competence to deal with.'
Olga nodded. It was so unexpected I could hardly believe it.
'You've finally got the idea.'
Was she fooling me? Or did she really believe I'd decided not to interfere?
'I'm pretty quick on the uptake,' I said. I looked at Svetlana. She was chatting happily with Tolik.
'Are you angry with me?' Olga asked.
I touched her hand, smiled and went into the house. I wanted to do something. I wanted to do something as badly as a genie who's been let out of his bottle for the first time in a thousand years. Anything at all: raise up castles, lay waste to cities, program in Basic or embroider in cross-stitch.
I opened the door without touching it, by pushing at it through the Twilight. I don't know why I did it. I don't often do things like that, just sometimes when I've drunk a lot, or when I get really angry. The former wasn't the case here.
There was no one in the sitting room. Why would anyone want to sit inside, when outside there were hot kebabs, cold wine and more than enough loungers beneath the trees.
I flopped down into an armchair, picked up my glass – or Sveta's – from the low table and filled it with cognac, then downed it in one, as if it was cheap vodka, not fifteen-year-old Prazdnichny. I poured myself another glass.
That was when Tiger Cub came in.
'Don't mind, do you?' I asked.
'Of course not.' The sorceress sat down beside me. 'Anton, has something upset you?'
'Take no notice.'
'Have you had a quarrel with Sveta?'
I shook my head.
'That's not the problem.'
'Anton, have I done something wrong? Aren't the guys having a good time?'
I stared at her in genuine amazement.
'Tiger Cub, don't be stupid! Everything's just great. Everyone's enjoying themselves.'
'And you?'
I'd never seen the shape-shifting sorceress look so uncertain of herself. Were they having a good time or weren't they? You can't please everyone.
'They're continuing with Svetlana's training,' I said.
'What for?' she asked with a slight frown.
'I don't know. For something that Olga couldn't do. For something very dangerous and very important.'
'That's good.' She reached for a glass, poured herself some cognac and took a sip.
'Good?'
'Sure. That they're training her, giving her direction.' Tiger Cub looked around, trying to find something, then frowned and looked at the music centre by the wall. 'That remote's always going missing,' she said.
The music centre lit up and Queen started to play 'It's a Kind of Magic'. I was impressed by how casually she did it. Controlling electronic circuits at a distance isn't a simple trick, it's not like drilling holes in a wall just by looking at it or keeping mosquitoes away with fireballs.
'How long did you train to work in the Watch?' I asked.
'From when I was about seven years old. At sixteen, I was already involved in field operations.'
'Nine years! And it's easier for you – your magic's natural. They're planning to turn Svetlana into a Great Sorceress in six months or a year!'
'That's tough going,' the young woman agreed. 'Do you think the boss is wrong?'
I shrugged. To say the boss was wrong would have been about as stupid as denying that the sun rises in the east in the morning. He'd been learning how not to make mistakes for hundreds – even thousands – of years. Gesar might act harshly, even cruelly. He might provoke the Dark Ones and leave the Light Ones to carry the can. He might do anything at all. Except make a mistake.
'I think he's overestimating Sveta's strength,' I ventured.
'Come off it! The boss calculates everything.'
'I know he calculates everything. He plays the old game very well.'
'And he wishes Sveta well,' the sorceress added stubbornly. 'Do you understand that? In his own way, maybe. You would have acted differently, so would I, or Semyon, or Olga. Any one of us would have done things differently. But he's in charge of the Watch. And he has every right to be.'
'So he knows best?' I asked.
'Yes.'
'And what about freedom?' I asked, pouring myself another glass. I didn't really need it, my head was already starting to hum. 'Freedom?'
'You talk like the Dark Ones do,' the young woman snorted.
'I prefer to think they talk like I do.'
'It's all very simple, Anton.' Tiger Cub leaned down over me and looked in my eyes. She smelled of cognac and something else, a light floral smell. It wasn't likely to be perfume: shape-shifters don't like anything that is scented. 'You're in love with her.'
'Sure, I'm in love with her. That's not news.'
'You know she'll soon be on a higher level of power than you.'
'If she isn't already.' I didn't mention it, but I remembered how easily Sveta had sensed the magical screens in the walls.
'She'll go way beyond you. Her powers will totally dwarf yours. Her problems will seem incomprehensible to you, they'll seem bizarre. Stay with her and you'll start to feel like a useless parasite, a gigolo, you'll be clutching at the past.'
'Yes.' I nodded and was surprised to notice my glass was already empty. My hostess watched me closely as I filled it again. 'So I shan't stay. I don't need that.'
'But there isn't anything else on offer.'
I'd never suspected that she could be so hard. I hadn't expected her to be so concerned about whether everyone liked her hospitality and her home, and I hadn't expected to hear this bitter truth from her either.
'I know.'
'If you know that, Anton, there's only one reason you're feeling so outraged about the boss dragging Sveta upwards so fast.'
'My time will soon be gone,' I said. 'It's sand running through my fingers, rain falling from the sky.'
'Your time? Yours and hers, Anton.'
'It was never ours, never.'
'Why?'
It was a good question. I shrugged.
'You know, there are some animals that don't reproduce in captivity.'
'There you go again!' she exclaimed. 'What captivity? You should be glad for her. Svetlana will be the pride of the Light Ones. You were the first to discover her, it was you who saved her.'
'For what? One more battle with the Dark? An unnecessary battle?'
'Anton, now you're talking just like a Dark One yourself. You love her! So don't demand or expect anything in return. That's the way of the Light!'
'Love begins where the Dark and the Light end.'
Tiger Cub was so indignant she couldn't even respond. She shook her head sadly and said reluctantly:
'You can at least promise . . .'
'That depends on what.'
'To be sensible. To trust your superiors.'
'I promise halfway.'
Tiger Cub sighed and then said confidingly:
'Listen, Anton, you probably think I don't understand you at all. But it's not true. I didn't want to be a shape-shifting magician. I had healing powers, and pretty serious ones.'
'Really?' I looked at her in amazement. I'd never have thought it.
'Yes, I did. But when I had to choose which side of my powers to develop, the boss called me in. We sat and talked over tea. We talked very seriously, like adults, although I was only a little girl, younger than Yulia is now. About what the Light needed and who the Watch needed, what I could achieve. And we decided that I should develop my combat powers, even at the expense of everything else. I didn't much like the idea at first. Do you know how painful it is when you change?'
'Into a tiger?'
'No, changing into a tiger's okay, the hard part's changing back. But I stuck with it. Because I believed the boss, because I realised it was the right thing to do.'
'And now?'
'Now I'm happy,' the young woman declared passionately. 'When I see what I would have lost, what I would have been doing with my time. Herbs and spells, fiddling with distorted psychic fields, neutralising black vortices, mixing up charms . . .'
'Blood, pain, fear, death,' I said in the same tone. 'Doing battle on two or three levels of reality simultaneously. Dodging the fire, tasting the blood, going through hell and high water.'
'That's war.'
'Yes, probably. But why do you have to be the one in the front line?'
'Someone has to, don't they? And then, after all, I wouldn't have had a house like this.' Tiger Cub waved her hand round the room. 'You know yourself you don't earn much from healing. If you heal with all your power, it just means someone else keeps killing people.'
'This is a nice place,' I agreed. 'But how often are you here?'
'Whenever I can be.'
'I guess that's not very often. You take shift after shift, you're always where the action's hottest.'
'That's my path.'
I nodded. What business was it of mine? I said:
'You're right. I suppose I must be tired. That's why I'm talking such rubbish.'
Tiger Cub looked at me suspiciously, surprised I'd given in so quickly.
'I need to sit here with my glass for a while,' I added. 'Get completey drunk all on my own, fall asleep under the table and wake up with a splitting headache. Then I'll feel better.'
'Go on, then,' the sorceress said, with a slight note of nervousness in her voice. 'What did we come here for? The bar's open, you can have whatever you like. We can go and join the others. Or I could stay and keep you company.'
'No, I'll be better off on my own,' I said, slapping my hand against the pot-bellied bottle. 'In absolute misery, with no food to go with the drink and no company. Look in before you go for a swim. Just in case I'm still capable of moving.'
'Okay.'
She smiled and went out. I was left all alone – unless the bottle of Armenian cognac counted as company. Sometimes it helps to believe it does.
She was a fine girl. They were all fine and wonderful, my friends and colleagues at the Watch. I could hear their voices through the Queen song, and I liked that. I got on really well with some of them and not so well with others. But I had no enemies here and I never would have. We were a close team, and there was only one way we could ever lose each other.