The kitties understand that our ways must part now. We are standing on the roof-top platform. They are pressing their heads against Natalija and me. Nobody speaks.

They stretch out their wings, jump, drop to accelerate rapidly and skim the waves. Do magical wings profit from the ground effect or are they just evading potential shooters? Very soon they vanish into the twilight.

Natalija returns to Zora, who looks at the still bright cloudy sky.

Z: I wish I could fly with them.

P: Will you run?

Z: Yes. The man … .

There is nothing for me to say.

Z: The man I killed was fairly popular. A good neighbour. He just had issues with me, since his daughter … . It does not matter.

P: It was his fault he started it. Don’t let it affect you.

Z: How would you know?

P: I’ve killed people, too.

That may have been an error.

Z: We have to leave the country. Everybody would connect us with this island. We are heading back. Can you come with us?

P: Will this end well? You are looking at me as if I smelled badly.

S: You smell like a wax candle. You just look ugly. Not like a hairy spider, more like a beetle. But you are still fun to be around.

I cannot help myself. I keep laughing until I start snorting from a lack of air.

--

Zora’s father has collected the guns the soldiers left on the street. Zora is making sandwiches. She has refused my help. Arthropodophobia is a deplorable new social ill.

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Z: Can you really raise the dead?

P: He wasn’t really dead. My venom, if I use the basic version, stops the metabolism but preserves the victim in a state between life and death. I think it is for storing prey. I have an ability to cure people from toxins. I even profit from healing them.

Z: I see. Is your offer of magic still valid?

P: Yes. Now?

Z: How much time will it take?

P: About an hour.

Z: That’s all right. I doubt they’ll come back in the dark to a place where unknown creatures roam.

I decide to take her word for it. She lives here, not I.

--

P: Why does this house have a room for rituals? It simplifies this job a lot.

The young woman Zora defended speaks up: „Ours has a room like this, too.“

Z: Thank you. That clarifies things.

I perform the ritual with the Magic esssence first. Her eyes light up and she sends everybody out of the room.

As she bids us reenter the room, we learn that she has wings. Going by the eyes of her kids that makes her the coolest mom of the world.

The Gun essence is not as spectacular. She touches the orb next to the door and the color of the light in the room changes. She has gained Tools of the Magister.

--

We are sitting around the table in the living room. Stjepan has gotten the big screen to display a map of the island. But first I need to clarify something, as the woman transformed into a devil is still with us. After introducing myself I simply must know how much I can say in her presence.

P: May I inquire about your name and your intentions?

L: My name is Lidija and I would like to come with you. I cannot go home after this.

She whispered that and avoided any eye contact. Very well, let’s do this. We can still drop her off when we reach the mainland.

P: We have two regular and one emergency driver for the transformed cars. We are six people and if we are to take luggage and some provisions, we will need two cars. I am too close to capacity to take in a lot of luggage into my internal storage.

M: It really sucks that I cannot drive my own car.

P: Yes, unfortunately yours is the only one we cannot store and it is also the smallest. So we will need to use it.

Z: Do you want to ride with me, Maria?

M: No. If I cannot drive I’ll rather be in another car.

P: Very well, the cars can go over shallow water, but the Adriatic probybly does not count as shallow water for that purposes in its deeper parts, so I would propose that we go to the mainland. That leaves only the questions of where we go into the water, which route we take to the mainland and where we land.

--

It is after midnight. I am carrying sleeping children into Maria’s car parked for that purpose right in front of the door. We are heading out in silence. If you are driving slow enough to not make a lot of wind, these vehicles don’t make a noise.

We reach the beach without encountering anybody. At that point Zora yields the lead in the convoy to me.

We reach the mainland without trouble. Zora takes the lead again and we turn onto very lonely country roads after a short stressful passage through a costal hamlet.