Marianna, Yevda, and Nadya are shivering up there in the sky, (like three jewels jittering inside their flying crowns, or coffins, depending on their fate). Marianna is known as the Sapphire because she is blue eyed; Yevda is the Emerald, green eyed, and Nadya is the Ruby (with brown eyes and red hair). Their fairy tale is one of war and of witches, of poverty and prettiness, of lightness and speed, of secret terror and secret victory. Their enemies call them the Nachthexen: night-witches.