I decided it was more important to learn at least some magic first before visiting Avarice. JJ’s assurance or not, but I wanted something to reassure me I can protect myself against at least something.

If only there was a book “Magic for Dummies” in the world that had some real, not fictional explanations. Maybe there even were books like these. Hell, there must’ve been—witches had to pass on knowledge somehow.

But finding any sort of guide, written or a living? Now that turned out to be a problem.

Maybe JJ had some information about how to find witches, but I didn’t want to ask him for help. I needed to do it on my own, to establish that I had an ability to navigate in the supernatural world without him holding my hand. And a small break from him seemed like a good plan to calm my hyperactive hormones.

So I searched whenever I could. First was the vampire site. It had mentions of witches, but nothing I could use—no names, no contacts, no addresses. That left me with only one other option.

Surely witches had to eat like everybody else, and therefore work for their food. And at least some of them must have used their talents for it. It wasn’t too farfetched to guess that at least some of many psychics, espers, mediums, fortune-tellers, gypsies and others was a real deal.

I only needed to find a single thread to unravel the entire roll and find a witch who will agree to tutor me.

I spent the most of the week in fruitless meetings with charlatans, and each of them frustrated me more and more.

Exactly on the last day of the month, Avarice sent one of her goons to my shop for my portion of the money. Not the Scar or Baldy, thankfully—instead it was her bodyguard. He was curt, but polite, and I noticed him and JJ exchanging nods of male respect.

It made me wonder even more about how exactly did JJ ‘negotiated’ with Avarice. Again, I didn’t ask him. Instead, I decided that when the time comes, I will ask Avarice herself. Something told me she will give me a fuller answer, anyway.

Three days later, I felt like I scanned through almost everyone I could. There were still about a dozen of possible witches to visit left, but they were at the end of my list for a reason. The reason being that they were too cringe-worthy.

I put that specific one on the end of my list because of his lack of renown. My logic was simple—if a person claiming herself to be able to do magic could really follow on their words, wouldn’t they have more clients than others who can’t?

This one only had a scarcely populated VKontakte page, though all the reviews left on it by clients were positive.

The witcher who called himself Yakov Kadoni (a pseudonym, most probably) lived in a simple multi-apartment nine storeys house that was built when this city was still called Leningrad.

I punched the number of his apartment into the intercom. Several series of beeps later, a roughed by the intercom’s mic voice sounded from the other side. “Who’s there?”

“This is Diana Daraeva, we had arranged a meeting—”

“Of course, come in!”

The intercom rang a happy trill of opening the door, and I hurried in before it closed again.

By the time the dirty elevator with a third of its buttons burned by cigarettes and/or filled with gum brought me to the target floor, Yakov was already waiting for me with the door open.

He was a man in the early part of his thirties. His dark skin, bushy brows and inky-black hair instantly exposed him as someone with roots in Caucasus, though his earlier lack of notable accent meant that he probably was a descendant of immigrants.

I also noted that he belonged to the more eccentric category of espers—those who dressed like they came from pages of a book. I liked those the most—both kinds of espers sprouted the same amount of bullshit, but I had a weakness for all things flashy.

Yakov wore a brown robe with red and white plant patterns that reminded me of those common to cheap carpets, that ended low at his ankles, and soft slippers. It looked like an outfit of a mage who just came from a shower.

He beamed at me in greeting as soon as I stepped out of the elevator and waved me closer. “Greetings, greetings! Please come in, dear guest!”

So I did. Yakov settled me with a set of guest slippers and urged through a narrow hallway to his—showroom, I guess. It was full of all sorts of magical paraphernalia: old books, animal sculls, weird figurines, and other things that one can imagine should be in a mage’s house.

Yeah, I liked that one alright, even if my hopes about him being a real deal were about nil. Still, I had to give him my test.

“Please, dear Diana, tell me what did you seek my services for,” Yakov said as we sat across each other at his small round table. It only lacked a crystal ball in the middle. He studied me with his small black eyes. “Do you have trouble at work?”

“No. It’s something else.” I took off my backpack and produced a simple charcoal sketch from it.

A picture of a woman in pain, so painfully hot to the touch that I had to put it into a transparent folder (that, and to save the paper from crumpling). I put it on the table and pushed it to Yakov.

“This picture… I think it’s cursed. It gives me the creeps,” I said, pursing my lips in feigned uneasiness. “Can you fix it, Yakov?”

I observed him as he looked at the sketch. If he was a real deal, he will realise that so was the picture, but if he wasn’t, then I will just leave before he asks for money from me. I tapped my heel on the floor as I waited.

Finally, Yakov carefully reached towards the picture with his hand. His palm hovered over it, not touching, as he closed his eyes. The gesture all too similar with the way JJ examined the sketch when I showed it to him…

Yakov jerked away from it with a loud gasp.