The fairy shook her head so decisively that she almost lost her hat. “Nothing like that. He was much taller and wouldn’t begin to hide his face. But the ring was mine. I couldn’t take the oath back and cast the spell on the diamond dust. The little fellow turned without a sound and disappeared, hiding the sack with the dust under his cloak. A day passed, another day, then a week. Everything was quiet. I already began to calm down, when suddenly in the middle of the night there was a terrible commotion on Bald Mountain. Vampires, witches, werewolves, all sorts of other scum – everyone was rushing around as if scalded and gossiping like smooth grandmas, although no one really knew anything. Even corpses crawled out of the graves, although they had a rightful day off and it was not their night at all…”

“What, there are nights like this?” Eddy asked with superstitious horror.

Middlelina frowned. For her, the answer was too obvious. “Next morning, the bosses from Magciety of Jerky Magtion came in large numbers and started moving. The area where the Artifact Depository is located was immediately cordoned off. The night before, someone had infiltrated the depository, and it’s as confusing as a labyrinth. The placement of corridors and rooms changes each new moon. They assumed that the thief was still inside, because it’s impossible to teleport from the depository. Two groups of combat wizards and a guide entered the depository and rummaged through everything there. It goes without saying, they found no one. A hole gaped in the floor of the depository. Definite work of evil spirits. Only evil spirits could undermine the labyrinth in such a short time. All the artifacts were in place, except one…” the fairy knocked a new cigarette from the pack. Eddy thought that she was either terribly bothered or really smoked like a chimney.

“Baron, a flame! Ah, yes, I forgot!” she said and again used her fingernail.

“So, what did they steal?” Eddy, not liking long introductions, asked impatiently.

Keeping the smoke in her lungs, the fairy raised her eyebrows and made several zigzag movements with the cigarette. “I know that it’s some little thing unpretentious in appearance… Soon I heard that diamond dust was allegedly discovered at the crime scene. Not waiting until they figured out it was me – and this is easier than easy to do by the magic superimposed on the dust – I hid. I spent several days with a witch I know, but then the old lady got scared, and I ran to the moronoid world,” the fairy said.

“And it was impossible to remain? Well, explain to these lads from Magciety: you know, the oath and all that?” Eddy asked.

Middlelina let out smoke through her nostrils. “Possible, not possible, what’s the difference!” she replied nervously. “They don’t need an explanation, but the missing artifact. You watch, they’ll send the Clay Hound after me!”

“Is it so terrible? What’s the Clay Hound?”

“Oh, necromagic! No more, no less. Quickly mould a piece of clay, and saturate it with human and canine blood in a ratio of one to three. It doesn’t know fatigue. Possesses amazing sense of smell. Until the blood dries, it’ll follow the trail and lead to the thief even in the event that he teleports. When the Hound is very near, teleportation even becomes impossible. The very possibility is crossed out at the root. In short, it’s horrendously difficult to hide from the Hound!”

“But how will it pick up the trail?” Eddy asked thoughtlessly. He was never especially interested in dogs and only knew that it is not worthwhile to swing your arms in particular when you pass them on the street.

“How can you ask that! It’s simpler than simple!” the fairy threw up her hands. “Diamond dust with magic superimposed on it? My magic! I’m sure it’s already on my trail. Cursed clay! Sit here and be afraid! Dammit, I hate it!”

Continuing to flutter around the room, Middlelina almost slammed into Methodius’ childhood photo. Depressiac’s collar, lying on the bed once occupied by Daph, also did not escape her gaze. “Wow!” she exclaimed. “I wasn’t mistaken! Fun place! They won’t figure out any time soon that I might be HERE…”

Eddy wanted to clarify what she had in mind by “here” and what was so special in his little room on the outskirts of town, but did not. Lately, their home had seemed to him a very strange place now and then. Khavron felt this with that acuteness of a child who has not grown up.

“By the way,” the fairy continued. “Since I’ve settled here, there’s something I must confess. Are you ready for it?”

“Depends,” Eddy replied carefully.

“This! If you notice that I’ve changed abruptly, stopped recognizing you, threaten or try to hex you, don’t be disturbed or angry. The thing is, it won’t be me.”

“Why not angry?” Khavron did not understand. “Then I also want to warn you. If at some point I launch a hammer at you, make a hole with a drill, or accidentally pour boiling milk on your head, don’t be disturbed or stand up for your rights! It won’t be me.”

“You see, here’s the thing… It’s an unpleasant family secret, almost a skeleton in the closet,” Middlelina continued with embarrassment in her voice. “I had a twin sister. As painful as it is to say this, she wasn’t a very pleasant person in every respect. Fairies usually serve Light, she served Gloom. The lifespan of dark fairies is usually not long. As for how she met her end, I won’t tell you. If she wants, she’ll tell you herself…”

“What will she do?” Khavron asked again with superstitious fear. He was not too drawn to dealing with dead fairies.

Middlelina ignored his rejoinder. She was suffering. Her small hands creased the rim of her straw hat.

“For better or worse, a sister is a sister. I let her – later regretted it a hundred times – settle in my body for any third of a day of her choice. So, she still uses this right. I don’t know exactly what happens in those hours, when she borrows my consciousness, but I guess that it’s nothing particularly good. The body is always returned to me gorged and tired. I need to sleep it off, spending a good half of my sixteen hours on it. It turns out that, although only a third of a day belongs to her, in reality we’re equal, since I still need a third to sleep it off and generally tidy myself up!”

“Is there really something not right with you?” Eddy carelessly said.

“OF COURSE NOT!” the fairy soared up. “See what this glutton has turned me into! I hate her! Sometimes, in order that she could no longer get into anything, I’d eat two crumbs of a nut roll and drink a thimble of milk to spite her! But really, how do you make an impression on this pig? With her, everything’s like water off a duck’s back!”

Middlelina’s indignant face turned purple. Eddy listened patiently. He was already used to the fact that as soon as it comes to relatives, especially brothers and sisters, the most decent-looking people would start to gnaw the finish with their teeth.

“And what she can do at all! No diligence, no curiosity! Doesn’t know how to braid sun rays! Or stitch dew on eucalyptus leaves! Or transform tears into sea pearls! She’s only capable of predicting the future! Oh, she also knows combat magic very well! But it’s bad taste! A fairy, and suddenly a combat wizard arranging brawls in pubs!”

Eddy squinted sweetly, imagining to himself the tiny fairy, smashing the Queen of the Beach club with drunken eyes. “Would be good to send her there… Kind of like working out with a straw from the bar,” he thought.

“I understand, I understand. You have a terrible sister! I commiserate. I have a sister of my own, so you don’t have to tell me,” he said, trying to end the outpouring of family issues.

“Sister? What, also a crazy sorceress?” the fairy sympathized.

“Worse. She constantly searches for a man who can be chained with a wedding band on the finger. I don’t envy this poor fellow in advance.”

“A ring of celibacy?” the fairy asked with interest. “Your sister didn’t quarrel with powerful wizards, did she?”

“How would I know? I don’t think so,” Eddy said.

“And has she been searching for long?”

“Yes, as soon as she was divorced from Methodius’ papa, she has been searching… About ten years already, probably…”

“That’s still tolerable,” the fairy said authoritatively.

Khavron, however, did not think so. “But not in the same room! To have an older sister is such a monstrosity. I was thirteen when all sorts of idiots began to come to Zoe! They hung around here all day, sat on my bed, broke my roller skates, neighed like horses… Now and then I wanted to borrow a gun from someone! And then she acquired this fair-haired little thing with a chipped tooth, and it became a hazard warning!” Khavron said, displeased.

“Well, well. Don’t complain. Still suffer for about ten years. When that small boy hanging in the frame comes into his own, you’ll have a little more room. How would you like to settle in the Kuskovo estate?^[1] If you want, it’s possible to rename it Khavronovo village!” the fairy proposed.

Eddy blinked in bewilderment. He took the fairy’s words as a silly joke. “How’s that?”

“You think it’ll be rather small? Well then, you’ll relocate to Versailles!”

“I need it very much. Better that I kick everyone out of our entrance, break all the partition walls here, plant a palm forest, and I’ll swing in a hammock and eat bananas. I’ll place a sniper on the roof so that he will shoot everyone who at least resembles a groom from a distance!” Eddy said. Now and then he fantasized in this direction, so he had everything worked out to the smallest detail.

“As you say,” the fairy said obediently. “I could arrange all this for you, but, I fear, it’s not worthwhile for me to especially attract attention with magic. Now, my sister is another matter. Sometimes she gets carried away, and she starts doing stupid things.”

“Hmm… But how can I tell you apart? Well, you and your sister?” Eddy asked, interested.

“My sister and me? Oh, you won’t confuse us, don’t worry! I grow thin, but that pig is a glutton. It’s precisely because of her that my waist is nearly equal to my height. I smoke, but she hates tobacco. She gets my hair dirty! She uses nightmarish perfume! She quarrels with my friends! Well, and many, many other things! The only thing that comforts me is that lately we don’t communicate. When I’m here, she isn’t. When she’s here, I’m not,” Middlelina stated.

“She won’t finish me off?” Eddy asked doubtfully.

“Just let her try! I’ll draw a sign on you and she’ll understand that you’re a moronoid under my protection!” Middlelina said decisively.

She raised her fan and, before Khavron had time to figure out what she was going to do, quickly drew a sign in the air. It seemed to Eddy as if something burning touched his chest. He yelled and grasped his chest, but the strange sensation was already gone.

“No need to be startled! It’s my personal magic brand. We fairies mark unicorns this way, and not a single vampire dares to shoot an arrow at them… Don’t worry, in your case the mark is temporary. About three days, no more… But now my sister will recognize you.”

After looking under his T-shirt and detecting nothing on his chest except the usual hair, Eddy calmed down little by little. “All the same, you should have warned me… Also considered me a unicorn! And what’s your sister’s name?”

“Indexelina!”

“Well, that’s a name. But this… what’s her name… Thumbelina isn’t related to you?” Eddy asked and immediately paid for his innocent question. The magic field of the indignant fairy threw him a good half metre away.

Middlelina stomped her foot. “Who? Thumbelina? You’d even ask if I’m related to a rifle, as one self-taught wit asked me! Now deceased, I dare add!!! Thumbelina! Phew! That scandalous person! What is the unacceptable flirtation with a mole worth to her, and, by the way, it was not a mole at all originally! The nicest retired treasurer of the gnomes. A little boring and frugal, I agree, but not at all deserving of such a fate… And then, just between us, Thumbelina’s marriage with the elf king was too hasty. In our circle, unequal marriages aren’t recognized. And you know why? Because when love disappears, inequality remains! And then what do the poor people do? Gnaw their elbows and throw darts at the wedding pictures!”

“But in the fairy tale, everything’s different!” Eddy said, backing further away from the angry fairy just in case.

“Fairy tales, young man, are political ads of the magic world. Just that! The side that won immediately orders a fairy tale about itself. Take at least the fairy tales about Ivan the Fool! They were all ordered by his wife, Vasilisa, who was actually the one ruling the realm, after overthrowing Tsar Gorokh! Ivan, though, was anguishing till old age. Vasilisa had to invest huge funds, spinning him as an independent political figure. She bribed robbers, dragons, and giants, trumpeting everywhere that he beat them. She even forced her uncle Koshchei the Deathless to kidnap her, but Ivan foolishly, instead of finding her in six months, as dictated by the script, searched for a whole seven years… On the whole, an old and boring story! Look into any textbook of magic PR! Hey, aren’t you listening to me?”

“Aha. I mean, not aha!” Khavron corrected himself. He was actually not thinking about magic PR. A thought so brilliant and so bold suddenly dawned on him. It came to his mind that he could ask the fairy for money and pay off Felix.

However, he did not have time to bring himself to this, as something strange began to happen with Middlelina. Her face – not even the face but the expression – subtly changed. It became sarcastic and irritable. The fairy stared squeamishly at the cigarette in her fingers, threw it away, and began to wave the hat indignantly. “Disgusting smoke! That nitwit filled my lungs with smoke again!”

Then the fairy’s gaze paused on what she used to scatter the smoke. “And this hideous hat again! I wrote to that bore so that she wouldn’t dare wear it! Well, let’s see her reply,” she said and peeked at the inner part of the brim of the hat. “What? Where must I go? And she writes this to her own sister, whom she hasn’t seen for so long!” she said in outrage and, after tossing the hat, incinerated it with a stare.

Eddy squinted at his watch. The minute hand had barely crawled over the “12” mark. The hour hand was on four. “Any third of the day! So, this is Indexelina!” Eddy realized.

After finishing with the hat, the fairy deigned to notice Khavron. “And what’s this giant runt? Did the bore really get herself a new moronoid page? Oh, she even tagged him! Well, of course! She signed all her things even in childhood! Pencil cases, rulers, stockings, magic wands! Hey, creature, what’s your name, and where did my sister dig you up?”

Eddy introduced himself. He explained that he was not exactly dug up anywhere and that Middlelina was hiding in his apartment from persecutors from Bald Mountain.

“Of course! The bore ran to the moronoid world all the same and was ready to do something! I warned her not to make promises to anyone! Well, well, Khavron Eduardovich, or whatever your name is, tell more tales! What did my sister tell you about me? That I’m hysterical, a psychopath, a dark fairy who turns people into snakes, frogs, or drunk plumbers? Don’t be silent! Answer!” Indexelina ordered.

Khavron mumbled something out of caution, not going into details. Indexelina did not insist, quite satisfied with the mumbling. “Jumbo! March after me! Don’t look around! Don’t communicate telepathically with flies!” she ordered.

Having flown to the kitchen, she immediately, by some magic scent, saw clearly the bottle of cognac hidden in the cupboard behind the saucepans. Eddy did not even know about this bottle, part of Zozo’s secret strategic reserves. Khavron mentally butted his sister’s aura. “Hidden! From her own brother!” he thought with indignation.

After uncorking the bottle with one motion of the fan, the fairy forced it to soar up into the air and fill the little cup of dark opaque glass that appeared in her hand. It was no bigger than a thimble.

“Don’t fairies drink nectar? Ambrosia and all that?” Khavron asked politely.

“Fairies drink everything they don’t eat… And eat everything they don’t drink! Well, to our meeting!” Indexelina said.

The thimble was emptied in a flash. A second one followed the first. Then, pausing for a bit with the cognac, Indexelina busied herself with opening Vienna sausages. Where they had been taken from, Eddy would have difficulty saying, but, all things considered, Indexelina stole them from one of the small restaurants in the Centre. Taking into account the size of the sausages, the fairy had to shrink them two or three times. The hungry Eddy watched this blasphemy sadly.

“Don’t want to treat me, then don’t! I won’t ask. No sense in wasting time on trifles. Better to fire a shot at her for money…” Khavron thought. “Here, they threatened to kill me,” he began from a distance.

Indexelina nodded with her mouth full. “Good thought! I approve. If help is needed, let them whistle for me. You’re so huge and silly,” she muttered.

Khavron realized that it was useless to aim for pity. “I need a lot of money! I thought that you could…” he started.

“No need to continue further, jumbo. Item XII of the Book of Prohibitions,” the fairy interrupted.

“What?”

“I articulate: Under the threat of deprivation of magic, fairies and other magical beings are forbidden to create money and other media of exchange from air, mud, sea water, and others. To cast a spell on calculators and ATM, and to dupe servers and bank terminals. And they are especially forbidden to transfer to moronoids monetary funds obtained in the aforementioned manner. Everything was different in the Middle Ages. Although making gold from air, now, alas… Ne-ver!”

“But why? This is such nonsense!” Eddy exclaimed.

“What did you say? Don’t argue! Si-i-i-lenc-e-ee!” the fairy yelled.

Khavron quieted down uneasily. The angry fairy tried to fly over from the sink to the kitchen table, where she had left her cup; but she was too full and her dragonfly wings worked in vain. On noticing this, Eddy delicately placed his palm under the fairy and transferred her to the table.

“Abort the ‘silence’ command!” Indexelina relented. She, as any self-respecting fairy, had not seven but seventy-seven Fridays. Moreover, not even in one week, but on one Thursday.

“I’m beginning to like you, jumbo! You’re so roomy, not too bulky. I can send you for grub, when I’m too lazy to use the magic wand. Do you want to become my page, to spite my sister? I can imagine what she’ll say when she sees my mark instead of hers on you!”

Eddy immediately confirmed his readiness to become anyone’s page and again started to beg for money. “Please! It’s so simple!” he said with hope.

“It’s precisely because it’s simple that it’s forbidden. Were it otherwise, any batty wizard could pelt the moronoid world with packages of money no less real than real banknotes. Or even turn all the paper of the world into money. This would lead the moronoid world, which is holding on by a hair, to catastrophe,” the fairy said didactically and drained yet another thimble of cognac. Her small ears, slightly protruding as in all fairies, grew red.

“But can’t you go around this ban?” Khavron asked conspiratorially. “Well, instead of the money give me a small thingy of ten diamonds?”

“How many?” the fairy asked with a smile.

“Well, five…” Eddy unwillingly corrected himself.

“Won’t you burst?”

“At the very least… well, as a last resort… one,” Eddy uttered, crushed, and experiencing a strong desire to drop a saucepan on the all-knowing fairy.

“Of course it’s possible. Even very simple,” Indexelina assured glumly. “The whole problem is that you intend to turn the diamonds into money, and this I know… Even on condition that they on Bald Mountain don’t find out anything, this will become known to the Book of Prohibitions, and then I’ll be deprived of my magic. Every drop. The Book of Prohibitions, you see, isn’t simply a book. It’s a law that fulfills itself without knowing leniency.”