The case came up very soon. To be more precise, we didn't want to wait for the right moment, so we had to move on to action.
Seva wrote a note, in which he asked Pauline to come to the appointed time at a private glade that he had known for a long time - there he had once trained to turn into a kite without any help. Thinking about how best to pass a piece of birch bark to the addressee, Airborne went to lunch, where he still got into the network of the same Katya. I had to go for a walk with her without much desire, although he could easily get rid of the sorceress - experience in this part at least a lot. Why did he go? He could not explain it to himself.
They came to the robinic, Seva's companion, who wanted to taste fresh berries (as if she hadn't just had lunch). And while Katya was enjoying the ripe fruits, he was automatically picking raspberries in the palm of his hand with a small note. I wanted another girl standing next to him, dirty with bright juice...
- What's in your hand? - the future healer was interested in the seemingly uneven birch bark edges.
- Nothing," he shrugged his shoulders.
He shaken his head and led the sorceress to the birch groove. And there, with her head tilted in a light scarf sliding backwards, was another girl with a basket in her hand. She slowed down and waved at him.
Now or never.
Without looking at Katya, the sorcerer quickly approached Pauline. He poured raspberries into her palm and slipped a note. And his hands were cold. I wanted to warm up, I wanted to invent an excuse to touch the embarrassed face across the street. The hand reached out to him, but suddenly Seva woke up, and, fortunately, in this criminal hand was a red berry, and it was possible to silently send this berry to Pauline's mouth, and it was possible to retreat before a bunch of questions climbed into her head.
She would see a note. She might come.
It's simple. Just wait until dusk, and whatever happens.
- Hello, - Pauline went through the branches and found herself on a familiar glade, hidden from the extra eyes, and shyly said hello.
- Hello," he answered, "I thought you wouldn't come.
- I had to separate myself from my friends, but it wasn't too late to turn back," she smiled, but it was - Seva realized - a faux pas.
- No!" It seemed that if she left now, it would be the end, the end, the end of everything, he would just burn alive, unable to get out of this place.
The water lady would have been bewildered by Seva's strange behavior if she hadn't been seized with excitement. "Don't make it up! - She ordered herself. "Don't get lost in something that isn't there! But the fire started to spread all over the body, which only calmed down the coldness of the black eyes in front of it. "He just needed Waterman's help with something like that ritual. He needed Waterman, not Polina Brusnikina. No. Not her.
- You..." she said, "maybe you need help. Did you dig up another complicated rite in Muromtsev's library?
- Yes. I need your help, but not with the ritual.
- And what...?
- Pauline, - her chest is clenched, - it seems that Seva called her by her name for the first time in her memory, - Pauline, - he covered his eyes, and she finally noticed that he again for the first time in her memory can not pull a mask of calmness or not even trying to.
- I've been fighting with myself for a while now... - I've got it. - I guess it started with the very first time we met, but I just didn't understand before... With a heavy breath, he sat back down and covered his face with his hands
- And every day it only gets worse, all my praiseworthy healing self-control is going to hell... I can't cure even myself, because I've never encountered such a thing and didn't think I'd run into it, because black blood took care of the absence of a heart line on my hand...
It took a lot of effort to get the witch's eyes up.
Silence reigned, but it was impossible to bear. It was simply impossible. Now that he had given the Waterman what he had been tormented by, it was not easier for him to do so.
A step, then another step, and now Pauline touched his hand with her cold palms. And not even had time to raise her head - with her free hand Seva hugged her, firmly and firmly, and put her chin on her head. And then, finally, it got better.
For the first time in many months he felt so calm, because she did not try to distance herself, because she leaned her cheek against his chest, and he felt like her heart was beating.
Pauline, it seems, clung to him with her whole body, clung to both palms of her hands in the shirt, and the freed hand of the sorcerer pressed her even harder against him. He breathed in, and there was not a drop of bitterness in his breath, as if he had been going somewhere for many years, and now he was finally in the right place.
Will everything be all right? Did he?
But the nights at this time are always fragrant, tender. Everything disappears. There are still words, touches and, perhaps, the same feeling. A feeling that saves cities.