sat down next to each other. I could feel Svetlana trying to pull away, hard as that is in a hammock.

'Start at the very beginning,' I advised her.

'At the beginning . . .' Svetlana sighed. 'At the beginning . . . that's not possible. Everything's too tangled.'

'Then explain why you let the witch go.'

'She knows too much, Anton. If there's a trial . . . if it all comes out . . .'

'But she's a criminal!'

'Arina didn't do anything bad to us,' Svetlana said quietly, as if she was trying to convince herself. 'I don't think she's bloodthirsty at all. Most witches are genuinely malevolent, but there are some like her . . .'

'I give up!' I said, raising my hands in the air. 'She kept the werewolves in line, and she didn't hurt Nadya. A genuine Arina Rodionovna, she really is. What about the disruption of the experiment?'

'She explained that.'

'What did she explain? That almost a hundred years of Russian history was flushed down the tubes? That instead of a normal society, a bureaucratic dictatorship was built . . . with all the consequences that flow from that?'

'You heard what she said – that would have meant people finding out about us!'

I gave a deep sigh and tried to gather my thoughts.

'Sveta . . . think about what you're saying. Five years ago you were a human being yourself! We are still human . . . only we're more advanced. Like a new twist in the spiral of evolution. If people had found out, it wouldn't have mattered.'

'We're not more advanced,' Svetlana said with a shake of her head. 'Anton, when you called me . . . I guessed that the witch would be watching the Twilight, so I jumped straight to the fifth level. Apart from Gesar and Olga, I don't think any of our Light Ones have ever been there. . .'

She stopped. I realised this was what Svetlana wanted to talk about. Something that was truly terrible.

'What's down there, Sveta?' I whispered.

'I was there for quite a while,' Svetlana went on. 'I discovered a few things. Just how doesn't matter right now.'

'And?'

'Everything it says in the witch's book is right, Anton. We're not genuine magicians. We don't have greater abilities than ordinary people. We're exactly like the blue moss at the first level of the Twilight. Remember that example from the book about body temperature and the temperature of the surroundings? All people have a magical temperature of thirty-six point six. Some who are very lucky, or unlucky, have a fever – their temperature is higher. And all that energy, all that power, warms the world. Our body temperature is below the norm. We absorb power that isn't ours and redistribute it. We're parasites. A weak Other like Egor has a temperature of thirty-four. Yours is, say, twenty. Mine is ten.'

I had my answer prepared. I'd already thought about this, just as soon as I'd finished reading the book.

'But so what, Sveta? What of it? People can't use their power. We can. So what's the point?'

'The point is that people will never come to terms with that. Even the best and the kindest always look enviously at those who have been given more. At the sportsmen, the handsome men and beautiful women, the geniuses and the ones with talent. But they can't complain about it . . . it's fate, chance. Imagine that you're an ordinary human being. Perfectly ordinary. Suddenly you discover that some people live for hundreds of years, can predict the future, heal diseases and put a hex on you. Quite seriously, all for real! And all at your expense! We're parasites, Anton. Exactly like the vampires. Exactly like the blue moss. If it gets out, and if they invent some new instrument that can distinguish Others from normal people, they'll start hunting us and exterminating us. And if we band together and create our own state, they'll drop atom bombs on us.'

'Divide and protect . . .' I whispered, citing the Night Watch's main mantra.

'That's right. Divide and protect, not people from Dark Ones, but people from Others in general.'

I laughed and looked up into the night sky, remembering myself when I was a little younger, walking along a dark street to a rendezvous with vampires. With a passionate heart, clean hands and a cool, empty head . . .

'We've talked so many times about what the difference is between us and the Dark Ones,' Svetlana said in a low voice. 'I've