Except for the prologues, the events of each story are written in a first person narrative using the voice of the Light Magician character Anton Gorodetsky, a member of Night Watch.
Events in each of the prologues are written in a third person narrative and take place entirely outside of Gordetsky's presence.
A long time ago, the Light and Dark others fought a fierce battle in which neither side could win.
The book is separated into three novellas: Anton Gorodetsky is assigned by Gesser to investigate mysterious warning letters sent to both the Watches and the Inquisition.
However, as far as the Others are concerned this is impossible and as such, the Light Other is in danger because refusal to fulfill this human's request means that he or she will dematerialise in the Twilight.
Anton joins his wife Svetlana (who left the Night Watch), her mother, and their daughter (Nadya) on a vacation in a remote area.
Whilst there, he learns of an incident where werewolves tried to attack two human children but who were saved by a mysterious woman living in the forest.
Anton magically reads the older girl's memory, and notices that she saw a book titled "Fuaran" on the shelf.
According to stories, the book, written by an ancient witch (named Fuaran) contains a spell able to turn an ordinary human into an Other.
In turns out the witch played a major role in a joint Watch experiment to create the perfect socialist state in the 20s.
Arina was meant to put a potion in the bread that, over time, would cause whoever ate it to fully believe in newly arising government.
Confronted by Anton and Edgar, Arina dives into the fourth level of the twilight, where it takes time before the pair manage to follow her, only to find that she had escaped.
Edgar and Anton return to the real world and decide that it would not be smart to search a Higher Other's house, as Arina had proven herself to be.
Having lost their target, the duo split ways, Edgar to get backup in order to find the witch and Anton to return to his family.
His ultimate goal is to travel to the International Space Station and read the book while looking at the Earth from orbit (the spell of Fuaran works on everyone in the caster's range of sight), turning all humans into Others, so at last he will not be different from the rest.
Anton catches up and confronts him, with Gesar, Zabulon, and Edgar all linked to his mind, and feeding him energy from everyone they have the right to leach it from.
What Anton did not want the vampire to realize was that because Kostya was an Other (an Other without classification to boot), he would not be able to perform any magic in the vast emptiness of space.
Kostya, assuming the shield was put up because Anton was afraid and wanted to protect himself from harm, expressed his surprise at such an act of cowardice and opened the portal.