I was tasked with raking the dry leaves, while Jay wielded a pair of shears nearby. As I raked through the years of debris and dug deeper and deeper through the cultural layers, I was immersed in the smell of stale leaves and raw earth. Slowly going over autumn memories in my mind, I stumbled over a fresh one. That red leaf in the hallway and the feeling of a warm autumn morning when the sun burns and the air is clear and crystal-cold... The end of September? I glanced at the sorcerer. Could it be that in the pile of dry leaves he too had found the day when he had to freeze the house, not knowing that he was leaving it for thirteen years?

I didn't want to understand him at all, and I chased my sympathy away, but my habit of empathizing with the characters in my favorite TV shows was doing its job. I even thought for a moment about making conciliatory coffee. It would have been a good plot twist! But I shook it right off. Katherina, pull yourself together! You yourself left the house unexpectedly, and who knows how many years you will have to stay here. And no one will feel sorry for you. Well, not except for Robin, but he can't help. He's the one who approved it and was a witness to it, whatever that means.

The thought of being stuck here for years made me angry again at the sorcerers, at the cunning Sai, at the intelligent-looking old man, and even at Alina for dragging me on this unfortunate journey. I started paddling furiously through the leaves, and before I knew it, I had reached the ground, covered with long white hairs of grass that was trying to grow, but it lacked light and air.

It was around noon when Robin showed up. I was excited to have a legitimate excuse to make coffee! But first, I wanted to see how he would remove the leaves. I'd missed the trick with the branches last time.

Robin first asked if Jay wanted to do it, but he shook his head. Then Robin ran his hands over the pile of leaves and twigs as if placing them in a cube, and then did a few graceful passes. Here was the pile, and then it was gone. I almost applauded! What a great trick! More like magic than turning on the water and making the trash disappear in the bucket.

"Did you notice anything?" asked Robin.

I shook my head. It must have looked more spectacular with the silver sparks. Robin glanced around the cleared garden and was pleased.

"What about the backyard?" he asked as we drank coffee with fresh cookies from the bakery. Robin couldn't come up empty-handed.

"I'll try to remove the grass," Jay said doubtfully, "but we have to disperse the birds and mice. Or eliminate them from the pattern."

"Why not use several spells in sequence?"

"I want to do it elegantly."

"I see," Robin smiled.

I listened indifferently and sipped the rest of my coffee as slow as I could. I didn't want to wash the dishes again, for crying out loud! What's the big deal about drinking out of those cups tomorrow? It's the same coffee, only dried out, it just mixes with the fresh coffee. I did not dare to implement this innovative approach though.

However, this time no cups had to be washed.

"Jay, I want to ask you something," Robin began gently.

"What?"

Robin squinted at me shortly.

"You know. I heard the rumors and the Council wanted to search your house, but they couldn't. Besides, the search ritual didn't show anything for a mile around."

Jay grinned.

"Of course it didn't."

" They looked in the shadow of the world as well.... So you don't have it?"

Jay was silent for a moment, and then he said:

"I hid it. Very secure, even too secure... Rina, go wash the lions."

"I already washed them yesterday," I objected, knowing full well that he just wanted to get me out of the kitchen.

He shot me a look that was comparable in effect to a cannonball. I left the cup with the unfinished coffee and dashed out into the hallway. Yes. Of course. Rule number one. Do what he says.

Grumbling and cursing the useless magic, I dragged the bucket of water outside.

A surprise awaited me. I didn't pay attention to the lions while I was cleaning the leaves. Today I no longer doubted that they had switched places. The sleeping lion was as clean as I'd left it yesterday, but the one that was sitting was covered with moss again, and there was dirt stuck to its muzzle. What if the sorcerer had made him dirty on purpose, so that he would have a reason to remove me from the house? Nonsense, I immediately rejected my own theory, he does not need any reason, he can kick me out at any time without any explanation. Rule number one!

"Where did you get so filthy?" I asked the proud lion. Yes, yesterday the white flowers were on the sitting lion's head, and now that lion was asleep, with the branches hanging over his back.

I was scrubbing the dirt off his mane when Robin came out of the house and told me to quit that thankless task and get changed. We were going downtown.

I remembered the way down to the sidewalk - it was easy, the main thing was to walk all the way down, and there you would see the dense houses and trees. Here is the bakery with the bread in the hat! I ran to the window to marvel at the buns and pastries, and froze when I saw myself in the reflection. My Auntie's voice in my head wailed that the years of trying to make a lady out of me had gone to waste.

My jeans were dirty, and my sweatshirt looked like it belonged on someone else's shoulder - because it was someone else's. I had completely forgotten that my short, shoulder-length, mouse-colored hair, though straight, still sometimes needed brushing. For some reason, the tangled strands weren't as apparent in the small bathroom mirror in the morning as they were in the reflection on the sunny street. I brushed my hair with my fingers, smoothed it out, and tucked the grown bangs behind my ears. I'd have to trim them when I get home.

Robin waited patiently for me to finish my girlish rituals. He seemed to be still thinking about his conversation with Jay. What the bakery owner was thinking, peering at me from behind the counter, I wouldn't speculate.

The sun was high and burning. We walked toward the bridge, and I looked around absent-mindedly, mentally placing Alina in my place. There was the clothing store, with racks of colorful trousers and blouses and skirts and a stand of scarves in front of the entrance. A shop with gems and crystals, a perfume store, a bookshop. I was so preoccupied that I flinched when Robin spoke:

"It's expensive here. The same by the palace, in the center. And on the west side, on the right, there are some low-cost stores."

We were approaching the bridge, and Robin pointed to the left, where flat-roofed, one-story houses stood among weeping willows. There were strings of clothes and linen drying in the sunny area.

"These are the laundries. They have emergency cleaning with magic, and then there's regular cleaning, which is cheaper. I keep talking about the price because Jay needs to find a source of income, and right now he doesn't have much money."

I shrugged my shoulders. What do I care? There's rule number one, I don't have to think at all.

A couple of bicyclists passed by. There weren't as many people as there had been the night I'd first found myself in the city. Everyone must be working during the afternoon. Or maybe there was a concert or performance that day.

"Is there a theater around here?" I murmured at random.

Robin was just now explaining that the name of the river, Karné, means "ink river" and has several versions of its origin.

"Yes, of course," he said in surprise, "and a very old one. One of the legends says that the name of the river was given by a Court Writer who liked to sit on the bank and compose plays for that very theater."

We came to the middle of the bridge, and I froze, amazed at the view, and missed the next version. To the right stretched the fields, lush, fresh, flooded with sunlight, and a blue ribbon of the river cut through their green expanse. The distant mountains were faintly visible in the haze on the horizon.

"Fish Bridge," Robin pointed to a bridge farther down the river. "Leads to the wharf and the Fish Market. Mostly they sell fish there, of course, but other goods, too. I'll tell you right away, it's not the nicest neighborhood."

I reluctantly looked away from the horizon. Here's nature, mountains, romance, and this guy's talking about fish. The harbor behind the bridge was crowded with ships and smaller boats.

"I don't eat fish," I lied, afraid I'd be forced to cook that, too.

"Neither do we. When practicing magic, it's better not to eat meat."

"Why is that?" I wondered.

"You can... attract something carnivorous. Like scarlet butterflies."

" The ones that were in the woods? What about them?"

"Nothing nice," Robin replied. "I don't want to scare you."

How can you scare a big girl with a butterfly story? I read every book in the horror section of the local library when I was a kid, you know! But Robin chose to introduce me to the whichever one? The tenth?.. Version of the river's name.

"... the most romantic version: if you go out on the bridge at night, the sky and stars will reflect in the river, like sparks of magic in ink."

"There's ink with magic?"

"This is an ancient way of making notes, it is no longer used. Nowadays they spell the note itself, but earlier they spelled the ink and wrote the text with it. But it's not profitable; you can't sell a lot of notes, because everyone can see the text of the spell, so they can copy it."

I was starting to get a little annoyed. The butterflies were more interesting than the technology of the notes and the commercial secrets of the sorcerers. But I had to endure it, not to go back to the house for endless cleaning.

The curving hills on the left were covered with dark firs, trees with fresh bright foliage and vineyards on the sunny side. They framed the riverbed, which looped and disappeared behind the next turn. The old town stretched out at the foot of the nearest hill. Red tiled roofs, spires with weather vanes, pinnacles, and stovepipes were just like the one on my abruptly cut bus journey. Along the embankment, among flowering bushes that looked like lilacs, stood benches for those relaxing citizens. Halfway up the hill, a castle with four towers around the edges and a platform on the west side towered over the city. I immediately imagined the beautiful princess coming out in the evening to admire the sunset. Or was it the king? Robin had been telling Jay something about it, so I decided to ask.

This story turned out to be a good one. The old king's son, the heir to the throne, died under mysterious circumstances. Since relations with the Highlanders were at their worst at the time, they were blamed for it.

"But in fact he got drunk, wished to bathe in starlight, and drowned," Robin revealed, in a low voice. "I know from a reliable source. But they hastened to use his death to start a war. The old king wanted the mountains and the territory beyond them, which had once belonged to his ancestors. And the hidden deposit of precious stones would have pleased him a little, too."

The war led to nothing but losses on both sides. The old king died. His son's widow had no right to the throne because of her ancestry. Now the country is ruled by his grandson, who is not yet sixteen years old. Because of his age, he has not yet been crowned, but everyone calls him the King. He is supported by the ministerial cabinet, and his mother also has the right to speak as Regent to her son. It is rumored that the young king has a secret advisor, whom, however, no one has ever seen.

Suddenly I realized: "So this is the capital, then?"

"Well, yes," Robin smiled.

"But why is it on the border?"

"It was moved after the destruction of the world. So that the Highlanders would understand that we would one day reclaim the mountains and the land beyond them," the sorcerer sighed.

I realized I didn't know the name of the city. It was useless information, too, but it's strange not to know where you are.

"Ankarné," Robin answered. "'An-' means belonging, so the city is called 'By the Ink River.' If the man is from a small town and an ordinary family, he is called by the name of the town, for example, Jay an-Tarin.

"So you and he are from a town called Tarin?"

"Exactly. But I have a last name, Kor. My parents are quite famous craftsmen in the sewing of festive garments. My mother first made dresses for the local ruler and his wife, and my father embroidered them with beads and flowers from cloth. Now the whole country and even the royal court knows about them."

"And the...?" I waved my head indefinitely in the direction of the house.

"His father is a miller, and his mother baked bread and raised his five brothers and sisters."

Oh, well, funny that he's acting like a crown prince, I almost said, but held back.

We walked through the old part of the city, away from the castle. Here it was, the river, with its bed paved in stone, just like the cobblestones. I'd seen it that day, seemingly infinitely distant, when I'd run from the sorcerers. So I ran across it to the west, ran to the city wall, and ended up outside the city limits.

"The Ella, after one of the queens of the ancient times," Robin reported, "comes from a spring on that hill over there and flows into the Karné below. The maidens believe that if you wash your face with the water from the spring, your face will be fresh and radiant, and the lads believe that one sip will save you from a hangover."

We arrived at the Southern Market, which was much more compact than ours - the architecture of the old town didn't allow room to spread out. It was crowded, even though the merchants were already beginning to pack up.

"They arrive early, and by mid-afternoon they're already closing. The Old Market by the castle runs from noon to evening, but the goods are different there. There are three markets in total within the city limits - the New Market on the other bank, the South Market and the Old Market, and the fourth, the Fish Market, is behind the city wall."

We did not go to the market itself, but followed the Ella embankment and turned into one of the backyards. It turned out to be a throughway and led us down a narrow street of two-story stone houses. There were no big glass showcases here, as on the promenade beside the bridge. Merchants displayed a shelf of basic items at the entrance or in the windows, and one could also be guided by the signboards.

"This is where they sell notes, this is a good bookstore, this is a place to buy sai baits, here is everything for the garden - seeds, pots, tools..."

The tiny garden store was crammed with cabinets with a thousand identical boxes. The only difference was the inscriptions and drawings of the plants. The smell of earth permeated the air. At the sound of a bell above the door, the storekeeper came out, and Robin bought several sacks of seeds.

As we moved from window to window, I could only waggle my head. Robin read the signboards aloud. Mistress Mun's private patisserie, Master Zeri's sewing atelier, some other gentleman's notes and spells... Wines from the region. Cheeses from the south. Writing supplies. An antique shop. The magical services of Mistress Carra.

"That's if you need to enchant an object or something in the house," Robin explained.

The signboards swayed in the wind, which carried the scent of the river. Slowly we came out to Karné again. An uneven street diagonally led us out between the Old and the Fish Bridge. Everything here was either old or new, west or east. Oh yes, sometimes it was also fish or ink.

I tried to find the sorcerer's house on the other side of the river. It didn't take long - I simply followed the direction in which Robin was gloomily staring with his arms folded across his chest. I couldn't see the house itself, but the smoke was puffing over the roofs.

I wondered if the sorcerer had set his home on fire because he'd decided to burn the grass in the backyard. I was worried about the backpack. Clothes were not the problem, but my phone and camera were in it, even though discharged. I couldn't do without them at home!

"I can't leave even for half an hour," Robin grumbled.

I caught a new sense in my gut. Jay was in the house, and he wasn't more annoyed than usual.

"It's okay in there," I muttered.

"I know... Do you sense him that well?"

"What's hard about that, he's annoyed all the time," I shrugged.

"Let's go," Robin only sighed.

Along the way, he explained:

"I have some sense, too. When we were kids, we learned magic on our own, however we could. Anything we found, we tried to apply. Sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Because of that, I can only travel a few worlds down and up the spiral."

"Spiral?" I asked.

"All worlds are lined up in a spiral," Robin said incomprehensibly and stopped talking, apparently not in the mood to give me another lecture.

He bought a whole pie from another bakery on the way, and told me I had to go to the market myself tomorrow. I frowned and hoped that the house had burned down and that I would be allowed to go home because there would be no place to clean.

White smoke was billowing from the chimney. Robin sent me with the pie to the kitchen, and hurried up the stairs. I made some tea, like he'd told me to, and went upstairs, too. I could have used the situation to lie in bed in silence, but I hadn't yet been invited to the first or second floor, and curiosity had won out.

The stairwell turned out to be spacious, with two blackened paintings of dull landscapes hanging on the wall, and an empty vase on the floor between them. A bench was missing - it would have felt like a reception area. I jerked the doorknob on the right first, but it was locked. Then I cautiously opened the door on the left.

"This one you could sell," Robin said, nudging the brown cover with a fire poker, all that was left of the imposing tome.

"So that someone could start putting into practice the nonsense that's written there?"

Jay was sitting on the floor of the library, tossing books from the stack in front of him into the fireplace. I couldn't believe my eyes: the room was clearly bigger than my room and the kitchen, though it was above them. There were rows of dark wood shelves reaching up to two people's height to the ceiling, a couple of high-backed armchairs and a little table in front of the fireplace, a desk with writing utensils by the balcony, and a closet in the corner.

" Get in here," Jay said without taking his eyes off the books.

I realized that he meant me, so I slipped through the gap and stood against the wall.

"Bring me the books from the bottom shelf," the sorcerer said, and waved somewhere behind him.

I reluctantly peeled myself off the wall and wished I had stayed downstairs. The room was stiflingly hot, and the smell of smoke overpowered the library spirit. The books were heavy, with thick covers covering the uneven edges of yellowed paper. Having placed the first stack in front of the sorcerer, I went back to the shelf, and pulled out a book at random. There was a triangle stamped on the cover, with a rhombus going into it from below.

"It's not a library, it's a disgrace," Jay reported. " Sai brought me all the books she could get her hands on, and I have to say that the magical science of our world is ruined by the Council with its prohibitions. These books are nothing but fantasy."

Robin dragged the books and Jay flipped through the pages irritably. I reached for the window between the shelves and pulled it open. The fresh breeze fought the heat from the fireplace. I crouched on the wide window sill and opened the book. From the first page a creepy-looking, though beautifully drawn, muzzle stared back at me. It was a dragon, similar to Chinese drawings - with wide nostrils and an elongated rectangular jaw, but with human eyes.

The bird tattoo itched - maybe it felt the magic ink? I turned the page hastily. The text wasn't handwritten, it was typed. Holding the heavy book in one hand, I flipped through the pages with the other. The book was filled with incomprehensible geometric patterns, graphic representations of dragon parts, arrows and captions, columns of text in an obscure language. I stumbled upon a drawing of a five-toed black paw with diamond-shaped claws. Beside each finger was a brief caption. The artist had depicted the paw in such a natural, three-dimensional way that I thought for a second it was going to reach out and rip my racing heart out.

Jay walked over and gently took the book out of my hands. Just like a child, honestly! As soon as I found an interesting toy, he instantly wanted exactly that one.

" May I borrow it?" asked Robin, poring over the books Jay had set aside as worthy of his library.

The sorcerer didn't answer. He was absorbed in the dragon book, tracing his finger along the lines and frowning. My sense told me he was agitated, but I couldn't sense any nuance, whether it was good or bad agitation. Robin was engrossed in his reading, too, and I went out to the balcony to admire the view of the rooftops and nearby hills . As the room grew cooler, I wandered among the shelves with my head up. For some reason, it seemed to me that the most interesting books would be the ones just above the ceiling. I considered the ladder in the corner, wondering if I would fall along with the shelves if I climbed it. My train of thought was interrupted by a growling belly.

"Robin!" I suddenly remembered. "The tea's gotten cold!"

Robin put the book down and called his friend over.

"Let's go get something to eat, Jay."

He struggled to tear himself away from the book: "Can you even think about anything but food?"

Robin laughed and asked me: "Why don't you bring some pie and tea over here?"

I must have looked very funny from the outside at that moment, because Robin's lips stretched into a smile again, and Jay raised his eyebrows in surprise. I straightened up, shook my head, and shrieked: "Eating in a library?!"

What sort of routine is that? Maybe they don't wash their hands before they flip through the pages, either! I defiantly swung the door open and walked out. Auntie's voice in my head began to reprimand me for inappropriate behavior. On the stairs I heard Robin:

"See! And you said that she..."

I didn't listen to what Jay was about to say - I was too outraged.