Family mattersOddly enough, no one touched Hiyata when he returned home. Ladai, looking out at the noise, grunted loudly, waved his hand and returned to his room. Dila was nowhere to be seen. Either she was sleeping so soundly and did not hear how the ward, falling asleep on the go, dropped the hanger and collided with a chair. Either she still hasn't returned from her mysterious job.No, Dila's job was ordinary. At first sight. She was an analyst, she was always studying and calculating something. But how this work is combined with the structuring of spells and why they often have to be structured at night, Khiyat did not understand. He even suspected that in fact the aunt had a man. But don't ask about it.The guy put the cat, taken out from under his shirt, in a chair, which he took with him, because there was nowhere else to put it. She was tame, but hardly homely - Lidzhes caught her when she, along with other stray diners, were brought out of the pitey by a skinny waiter.Khiya

The guys nodded in unison."I don't understand," Velda said. He shouldn't, but he does. How?“Maybe somehow,” Tiyan suggested and began to fumble in his pockets in search of food.He can't do anything on his own. Otherwise, the keepers would not be needed. The stones from which the city is built are unintelligent, they are not able to understand that the defense lacks energy, and cannot add it.- What if it's an amulet? Kalar asked.“The city itself is that amulet. Where have you seen amulets that charge themselves?“Nowhere,” Kalar admitted. “Even the accumulators need to be opened so that they draw in energy.“Here,” Velda typed in and said worriedly. “The protection here is either not the same as in other cities. Or the last custodian died much later than everyone thinks. Or not dead at all. Sitting somewhere... - the girl thought.“In the bushes,” Ladai prompted.Velda nodded.Sitting and giggling as he watches us call the city."He can't sit anywhere," Dean said irritably. “Every

The head of the council of the city of Big Stone found a house on the mountain without any effort. Despite the fact that the person living in it stubbornly called himself a hermit, a wide path was trodden to its threshold. And the dwelling least of all resembled a cave laid down for hermits. Solid house, partly stone, partly wooden. It stands on a man-made ledge surrounded by huge pines. Even some fragrant greenery grew near the house itself. And along the path someone planted flowers.Hermits don't live like that. Atana knew exactly. She saw these hermits, at best, whiled away their days sharing a cave with a skinny, mangy goat, giving a mug of milk a day. And they ate from the garden and what they begged from good people, going down to the villages. And they were dressed in unwashed gray-brown rags.The owner of the hermit's house did not even remind. Good clothes, trimmed and without the obligatory shaggy beard.He sat on the threshold, smoking a pipe and looking at the sky.And he

What is he doing? Dorana asked in a whisper, admiring enough of some crippled guy touching something invisible in front of him.“He is studying defense,” Khiyat replied.They watched the guy through the attic window, passing to each other an old magnifying tube, bought somewhere by Ladai. It’s impossible to make magic lenses, but sometimes you really want to see who is wandering along the fence.How long will he study it? the girl asked the next question. - If it takes a long time, they can start looking for me. I'm helping my mother, I just brought you food.“Who knows,” Khiyat said with a sigh.He and Ladai had been spending all their free time in the library for nearly two decades now. They studied maps of the island. Khiyat read aloud the diaries of the previous keepers, after which the guys looked at the genealogical tree drawn by someone on the flyleaf of a book on the history of the city. Why they needed it, the guys did not say. But Dorana suspected that they were going to loo

The next day, apparently having thought of something at night, Khiyat decided to go to his grandfather Dorana's native village. To find a hermit living in a cave and ask her a few more questions. He took Dorana with him, she was there and knew where she was. And Ladai, Liiran and Taladat were charged with doing everything in their power to hide their absence from the city.While Khiyat confusedly and verbosely explained why all this was needed, Vin also went to ask questions. The person who convinced him of being chosen and special. For courage, the fireman drank, because of which his path was not easy and full of obstacles. Something fell under my feet, then the streets and alleys disappeared somewhere, and then the city wall came from somewhere. The guy kicked her a couple of times in frustration and sat down, leaning his back against her. I decided to rest, think and remember the right way. The bright sun warmed the alcohol in his blood, increased his strength and Vin fell asleep.