I was going to get even with him for calling Rose a dragon’s minion, but I wasn’t sure what he would say. It was curious, to learn of the enemy’s secret plans from his own lips.

Without the mediation of spies, I could learn far more than they would have told me. Charlo persuaded the crowd with such zeal and such fervor. He had no idea that the dragon was watching him, not through a keyhole, but standing nearby, in plain sight and not even trying to hide around a corner. And still I was still a creature who had entered this world through a narrow tunnel not used by humans, connecting two worlds. I continued to feel like a spy, peeking at the gathering in the square and all of humanity in general from the tiny keyhole in the door that separates one world from the other.

«I won’t listen to an honest girl being insulted,» Klovis shook the invisible debris from his coat, turned on his heels and was about to leave, but Charlo’s menacing shout stopped him.

«Don’t you dare say anything to our illustrious Monseigneur Dragon, or the prince will rip out your tongue.»

Clovis turned and clenched his fists so that his knuckles whitened. He would have liked to challenge him to a duel or even a scuffle, but he knew that he could easily avoid the challenge by claiming that he was now a republican and had no intention of tolerating aristocratic habits, and that a fist fight would have been a distant prospect. Could anyone compare to him in running speed?

«What could you possibly have learned from a downtrodden noble family except prayers, swordsmanship, and philosophy?» Charlo grinned mockingly. «You prefer words to toil, slowness to lightning speed. You value long hours of leisure more than the swift path to glory and advantage. We cannot be lazy like you. Why did we come to the square under the cover of night, when everyone is asleep and there is no one to hinder us. This is the most direct path to the palace. We will come silently, swiftly and unexpectedly. No one will be able to resist us. Have you not sneaked up behind the dark ones we’ve robbed and disarmed them? You yourself acted like a thief in the night, and now you’re trying to play the moralist.»

«And you suggest that we storm the palace without even getting an order from the prince to do so. It’s better to wait for the lord’s command than to act on our own. At least that way we can count on his support. Where is he now? From which roof is he watching us and laughing at our foolishness? We will die, and he will find other, even more servile and subservient followers.»

«You’re talking nonsense,» Charlo protested firmly.

«I have every right to be, since I’ve already been banished, I’ve got to do something to establish my sullied reputation as a pariah so you won’t have any regrets about me.»

Klovis looked either questioningly or mockingly around the half circle of black figures, which had swung open to make way for him, and then turned again to Charlo.

«At least extinguish the torch so none of the sentries will notice the flame creeping up the path to the front door. We all prefer the ascetic way of life, dressed in black, like the monks, but they only wear cassocks and tonsils, and we hide from every passerby dressed in uniform. If you’re such an ardent ascetic, Charlo, you shouldn’t feel the lack of comfort because there’s no fire nearby. The moonlight is enough for shadow. You used to be the quickest to sneak off to the sewer grates if there was a cart rattling close by carrying convicts to their execution. Now you’ve suddenly grown bolder, offering to go to the King’s palace. Well, go!»

«That’s not all I suggest,» Sharlo said with a wry squint as if he were trying to establish some sort of rapport with himself. «Isn’t the second part of the plan appealing to you?»

«You try that, and even if they don’t drag you down to the palace door, you’ve signed your own death warrant.»

Klovis thought for a moment, as if he did not know how to express his fears accurately.

«You see,» he tried to explain. «It’s not just your life that’s at stake here. It’s a case of you and your instigator taking the lives of all your followers. It’s not enough to slit the throat of Viniena’s lord, you want willingly to become entangled with a man from whom others, the most dangerous and vicious, will flee at a moment’s notice. Believe me, you’re looking for an enemy who has killed people far greater than you for fun. You can’t beat him.

«I’m not asking you to fight him,» Charlo protested angrily. «To fight him would be a suicide. You’re not the only one with the foresight to see that. I’m trying to make it clear that if he comes to the old man’s rescue, we can steal from him, quietly, without being seen by him as missing any of the treasure. What would be garbage to him would be useful to us.»

«He may already know all about your plans,» Klovis assured him.

«How could he?» – Reluctantly, as if he were a mischievous sort of ruffian, Charlo snapped back. «Who could have warned him? Had His Majesty sent him the dispatch? He knows nothing of our plans. No one knows.»

«He knows everything,» Klovis tried his best to convince the intruders of his rightness, trying to create an atmosphere of fear in the square with his serious tone as opposed to the playful jokes of the instigator. Indeed, a chill ran down the skin of some. It was immediately clear that Klovis knew what he was talking about. His unwavering self-confidence elevated him above the others. It didn’t even matter that he was standing below the platform and that Charlo was preaching from the podium like a pulpit.

«Remember, he has all-seeing eyes. There is not a rebellious or even harmless thought in our heads that escapes him. He has the highest power with him, and behind us only is the arrogance and rebellious ramblings of someone who has apparently lost his mind.»

«That means you’re on his side,» Charlo snapped.

«I don’t even know his name. All I know is that he is more powerful than all of us.»

«What does his name mean to you? I don’t care if it’s Mr. Lucifer. Doesn’t a corrupt little soul care who he gets his bounty from? He may have already bought your vote, but not mine. We don’t care what power he has, as long as he has a treasure left unattended somewhere in the snow. He has cellars full of gold…»

«But he’s got a breath of fire,» Klovis protested, his tone fair enough. He seemed the most judicious of the group.

«You wouldn’t want your skin to burn as if you’d been in an oven, would you? There’s no such thing as a shadow with burnt scars.»

«Don’t listen to him,» Charlo said to the crowd.. «He’s only trying to delay our march to the Palace even for a moment. It’s because I’m foresighted that I’m taking you there first, and then to the gold mines. Apart from the king, there is no one to warn our handsome villain. Even if any of the courtiers could warn him of the danger, they wouldn’t lift a finger, because everyone is afraid of him. No one would save someone who later would certainly want to take the life of his own savior. We will be rich, and the prince will be pleased with us. Lock that fool up in a cellar somewhere, so he won’t bother us,» he pointed with the torch at Klovis.

«Lock him in a storeroom or a quarry or, better yet, drown him under a bridge. You can see he’s a dragon s fan. Anyone who colludes with the demon ends up dead in a noose, and he won’t think to help his pals. He treats everyone like an enemy.»

«You’re wrong, Charlo, I never quarrel first, but if anyone tries to quarrel with me, my anger will be terrible,» I said it mentally, so that only Charlo himself could hear, and he did. The torch fell out of his hand, went over the wooden board of the platform, and went out on the stones of the sidewalk. I didn’t want to see the flaming fire, so I let the torch fly away and go out instead of lighting the wooden beams, supported it with my invisible power, so to speak, and extinguished it at a distance.

Klovis did not hear my words, but, guided by some inner instinct, he turned around.

«Monseigneur,» he lowered his head with a guilty look, as if trying to explain, «I will accept your anger if it falls on me, but I am no longer with them.» The unnatural black curls lay on his forehead and covered his eyes, but I could make out the wrinkles in the corners of his eyes. He was some five or six centuries younger than me, and he, too, was in his early twenties, like me the last day of my human life, but he looked older than me, probably because he had already been dejected and suffering the vicissitudes of life in his younger years.

Charlo’s mouth fell open in surprise, but he couldn’t say anything. He only noticed me now, and finally realized that he’d miscalculated.

«What is the matter with you? Have you become unwell?» I asked mockingly, and walked to the scaffold with quick, brisk steps. Charlo was already numb with fear, and I was more confident than ever. «You wanted to go as far as my cellars and were not afraid of the hardships of the long journey, and when I myself came to you to listen to the petitions you were timid and no longer remember what you wanted to ask. Even girls are never so shy, but perhaps your shyness is due only to your deference to a dragon so great and famous?»

I spoke with dignity, but I moved lightly, nimbly, like an errand boy or a fox that had spotted a hare, but the crowd of shadows parted before me like before a very distinguished person. Some shuddered away from me, others stood dumbfounded. There was indeed an air of awe or fear all around.

I jumped swiftly to the platform, disregarding the ladder, easily getting off the ground and overcoming the height-a jaguar’s leap. Only a carnivore would act so coldly and calculatingly. I stood beside Charlo, letting him pull back, but blocking the path to the ladder, without which he couldn’t get down. Jumping from the height of the platform would have been an unacceptable risk for him, and he didn’t want to twist his ankle or break a bone. And my flexibility and invulnerability were just a little lacking by him.

«All right, shut up,» I said mercifully. «You don’t have to be a wizard to read everything in your eyes. Did you want gold?»

I snapped my fingers and a heavy, iron-clad chest appeared on the platform at Charlo’s feet. The wooden boards and beams sagged beneath its weight. The lid was flung open, and those present were dazzled by the glitter of the piles of gold coins.

«Are they real?» Priscilla flew up the steps to the platform like a butterfly, stooped in front of the chest, and raked the coins with her palms as if they were gold sand.

«I suppose I could use a little variety?» It was again a quick flick of my unnaturally long fingers, and on top of the gold an invisible hand sprinkled a guest of gems. Some of it crumbled, but just as Priscilla was about to pick it up and feel it, it crumbled to rainbow-colored dust under her fingers. The walls of the chest began to blur and eventually dissolved into a puddle of wet sand, which instantly vanished as though nothing had happened. The coins still rattled in different directions, but they did not remain a golden rain for long. It looked like a kind of optical illusion. In the first moment they were rounds of gold, but in the second they were sizzling embers. Charlo was afraid to touch the treasure as if it had been plagued by plague, and now he was glad of it. Priscilla realized she’d been tricked and pouted resentfully, but was too shy to say anything.

«You wanted to fight me?» I suggested, drew a sharpened stiletto from my inside pocket, and handed it to Charlo.

«You’re insane,» Charlo shrugged back. He could no longer keep up his show of unconcern. Well, I was disgusted with his impertinence to begin with. He was behaving like a normal human being for once, not ingratiating himself or trying to show he was above them all. The mask was torn off, and beneath it, instead of a shadow, just a fearful wretch who feared for the safety of his hide.

«I’m sane,» I countered calmly. «But you are sane or not. How can a healthy person observe such hallucinations as the ones you’ve just experienced? Can people who are even remotely sane see these things in their dream?»

I showed him what I’d shown many people, cutting my clear, pale skin with the blade, striking a vein, and dipping my fingers into the wound to leave a few blood droplets on it. Of course, the cut healed on its own, but it seemed to the audience that the scar had smoothed over my skin as soon as the moonlight touched it. A common belief, the moonlight touched the body and the restless spirit returned to it. I’d read enough scary books to know that, except that the moon cycle had nothing to do with my invulnerability. I glanced at my renewed skin, wiped the blood from my fingers with the handkerchief I’d left in my pocket, and, with a chuckle that would have scared the hell out of any demon, said Charlo:

«If you were in your right mind, you wouldn’t have seen anything like that.»

I jumped off the stage just as easily, and then added more kindly:

«I was only trying to persuade you that gold can only be obtained from a lord you serve faithfully, not by robbery. Do not think that I am a conjurer and that the chest is only a trick. If you had ever been to a circus, you’d know that people can’t perform such a trick. Think hard about what you saw. In the meantime, I advise everyone to go home.»

«Yes, I’m going,» Klovis threw off the short black cloak from his shoulders and aptly tossed it at Charlo’s feet. «I’ve had enough of the blackness.»

He staggered away at a brisk pace. Without his cloak he looked like a bird without wings. The cloak, like a tattered plumage, lay near the scaffold.

«No one can escape us,» Charlo shouted threateningly. «And you,» he said suddenly to me. «Why you not burn us. If you can breathe fire, why haven’t you burned all your enemies?»

«I can’t,» I said. «I can’t leave just a handful of ashes from everyone. Otherwise, I would put the executioners, who are on duty day and night in the torture chambers of my castle, out of a job. They have to practice their trade on someone, too, lest I turn them away.»

Charlo fell silent. He was uncomfortable with the prospect of my prison.

«I won’t be back for a while, but I’ll pick my own time,» I said as I left. «I’ve taught you a lesson, and now I’ll give you time to think. Consider, Charlo, what you’ve just seen, and conclude for yourself, perhaps your nighttime walks are bad for your sanity, perhaps you’ve just seen things no one else has, and perhaps I, the dragon, only exist in your sick imagination.»

I waved my hand, glowing like a firefly in the darkness, as if to send them all into oblivion, and ducked into the alley, where Klovis’ footsteps were already fading around the corner. I knew that someone swift and unpredictable was following him, nimbly leaping from one roof to another, hiding behind chimneys and ledges, scratching the tiles with his claws, and all the while intently observing the figure of the young man, who from a height looked only a dot crawling through the narrow streets.

There was again a nimble, precise leap. Someone’s claws caught on the ledge of a stacked brick chimney and scratched it. The gutter creaked, the heel of someone’s boot scraping lightly against the iron-clad heel. Klovis, of course, didn’t hear all that. He couldn’t have been as sensitive to the presence of another predatory creature near him, his hearing was not as acute as mine, and his thinking was not as quick. Compared to me, he was short-sighted. So, who could he have spotted on the rooftops, if even I guessed the existence of a stalker not because I noticed it, but by the sounds it made as it moved. Even I had a hard time distinguishing him from the average yard cat that climbed up on the roof.

«Don’t turn around!» I chased and shoved Klovis aside so that some heavy glass object, thrown from above, whistled nearby and shattered on the sidewalk. One sharp shard killed a mouse that had carelessly darted out from under the basement grate. Klovis barely restrained his nausea from my pushing it to the ground, not so far from the slashed body of the beast.

«It would have been you,» I tossed the ugly corpse with the edge of my boot where it belonged, behind the sewer grate.

The boy swallowed convulsively and nodded, as if trying to say «thank you!»

Someone who had jumped off the roof was now running away from us through the tangled streets. A person could not remain unharmed and uninjured by jumping from such a height. Another man would have been dead by now if he had dared such a maneuver, but this one was still full of energy and was running away almost at a hopping pace. Isn’t that monkey agility?

«What did I ever do to deserve your help?» Klovis got to his feet and shook down the dirt.

«Normally, help is required of me. But, believe, if I were to come at you from around the corner, no amount of help would bring relief.»

«He won’t let me get away. Wouldn’t he?» Klovis turned as if he could see the flaming footprints left on the stones by someone’s soles.

«He is strong, but he is not omnipotent…» I remembered that I had not only escaped the dungeon myself, but I had broken all relations between us.

«What do you mean by that?» Klovis looked to me hopefully, as if I were someone smarter and more experienced, someone who could answer any question correctly.

«Sit back somewhere, and then, who knows, things may turn in your favor.»