perhaps even a wolf. And some woman did lead them out of the forest. The kids were lucky, but take a belt to them . . .'

'The young one, Romka, used to stammer. Quite badly. Now he speaks without the slightest problem. He rattles on, recites poetry . . .'

I thought for a moment. Then I asked:

'Can stammering be cured? By suggestion, you know, hypnosis? . . . Or some other way?'

'There is no cure for it. Like the common cold. And any doctor who promises to stop you stammering with hypnosis is a quack. Of course, if it was some kind of reactive neurosis, then . . .'

'Spare me the terminology,' I asked here. 'So there is no cure. What about folk medicine?'

'Nothing, except maybe some wild Others . . . Can you cure stammering?'

'Even bedwetting,' I muttered. 'And incontinence. But Sveta, you didn't sense any magic, did you?'

'But the stammer's gone.'

'That can only mean one thing,' I said reluctantly. I sighed and got up out of the hammock. 'Sveta, this is not good. A witch. With power even greater than yours. And you're first-grade!'

Svetlana nodded. I didn't often mention the fact that her power exceeded my own. It was the main thing that came between us . . . that could really come between us some day.

And in any case, Svetlana had deliberately withdrawn from the Night Watch. Otherwise, she would already have been an enchantress beyond classification.

'But nothing happened to the children,' I went on. 'No odious wizard pawed the little girl, no evil witch made soup out of the little boy . . . No, if this is a witch, why such kindness?'

'Witches don't have any compulsion to indulge in cannibalism or sexual aggression,' Svetlana said pompously, as if she was giving a lecture. 'All their actions are determined by plain egotism. If a witch was really hungry, she might eat a human being. For the simple reason that she doesn't think of herself as human. But otherwise, why not help the children? It didn't cost her anything. She led them out of the forest and cured the little boy's stammer as well. After all, she probably has children of her own. You'd feed a homeless puppy, wouldn't you?'

'I don't like it,' I confessed. 'A witch as powerful as that? They don't often reach first-grade, do they?'

'Very rarely.' Svetlana gave me a quizzical look. 'Anton, do you have a clear idea of the difference between a witch and an enchantress?'

'I've worked with them,' I said curtly. 'I know.'

But Svetlana wasn't satisfied with that.

'An enchantress works with the Twilight directly and draws power from it. A witch uses accessories, material objects charged with a greater or lesser degree of Power. All the magical artefacts that exist in the world were created by witches or warlocks – you could call them their artificial limbs. Artefacts can be things or elements of the body that are dead – hair, long fingernails . . . That's why a witch is harmless if you undress her and shave off all her hair, but you have to gag an enchantress and tie her hands.'

'For sure nobody's ever going to gag you,' I laughed. 'Sveta, why are you lecturing me like this? I'm no Great Magician, but I know the elementary facts, I don't need reminding.'

'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you,' Svetlana apologised quickly.

I looked at her and saw the pain in her eyes.

What a brute I was! How long could I go on taking out my insecurities on the woman I loved? I was worse than any Dark One . . .

'Sveta, forgive me . . .' I whispered and touched her hand. 'Forgive a stupid fool.'

'I'm no better myself,' Svetlana admitted. 'Really, why am I lecturing you on the basics? You deal with witches every day in the Watch . . .'

Peace had been restored, and I was quick to reply:

'With ones as powerful as this? Come on, in the whole of Moscow there's only one first-grade witch, and she retired ages ago . . . What are we going to do, Sveta?'

'There is no actual reason to interfere,' she replied thoughtfully. 'The children are all right, the boy's even better off than he was before. But there are still two questions that need to be answered. First, where did the strange wolf that drove the children towards the cubs come from?'

'That's if it was a wolf,' I remarked.

'If it was,' Svetlana agreed. 'But the children's story hangs together