“And if I did,” said Danny, “what then? Who would you tell? How far would the story go?”

  “Nowhere, man,” said Hal. “You saved my ass all over the place, you think I’m going to do anything to hurt you? But you took off yesterday, you went outside when the rope trick stopped working, and when I went out after you, you were gone. Vanished. What are you, man? Are you, like, an alien?”

  “A Norse god,” said Danny.

  “What, like Thor?” Hal laughed.

  “More like Loki,” said Danny.

  “Is this your final answer?” asked Hal. “Am I really supposed to believe this one?”

  “Believe what you want,” said Danny. “Class is about to start.” Danny went to the door and Hal followed him into the classroom.

  Hermia was sitting in the Applebee’s on Lee Highway, looking out the window at cars pulling in and out of the BP next door, when her mother slid into the booth across from her.

  “Have you already ordered?” Mother asked.

  Hermia felt a thrill of fear. She was too far from the nearest gate to make any kind of clean escape. Mother was a sandmage, which should have meant she was powerless in a place as damp as western Virginia, but as Mother often pointed out to her, her real affinity was for anything powdered or granulated, from snowflakes to dust, from shotgun pellets to salt and pepper and sugar. The table was full of things that Mother could use.

  Besides, wherever she was, Father would not be far away, and he was a watermage—a damward, able to choke her on her own saliva, if he chose. If they wanted Hermia dead, to punish her for running off and not reporting to them about the gatemage she had found, she could do nothing to stop them or avoid them.

  So apparently they didn’t want her dead. Yet.

  “They’re getting me a hamburger,” said Hermia. “There’s not much you can do wrong with a hamburger.”

  “They could leave it on the counter for twenty minutes, letting it get cold while the bacteria multiply,” said Mother. “And then they bring it to you, without apology, assuming that you’re the mousy little thing you seem to be and won’t utter a word of complaint.”

  “I’m not mousy,” said Hermia.

  “They don’t know that,” said Mother. “And you look so Mediterranean—they know you don’t belong here in this hotbed of Scotch-Irish immigration.”

  “So you’ve made a study of American demographics and genealogy?”

  “I study everything,” said Mother. “People are like grains of sand—from a distance, they all look alike, but when you really study them, each is a separate creation.”

  The waiter came over and Mother ordered a salad. But before the waiter could get away, she said to him, “What do you think of a daughter who suddenly disappears and doesn’t tell her mother and father where she’s going and whom she’s with? What would you call such a girl?”

  The waiter, who had flirted with Hermia a little when he took her order, answered instantly: “Normal.”

  Mother laughed, one of her seal-like barks. “Hope springs eternal, doesn’t it, dear boy. But I assure you, you’re not her type.”

  The waiter, looking a little baffled, muttered something about putting her order in and left.

  “You do enjoy toying with them,” said Hermia.

  “Observing them,” corrected Mother. “Seeing how they respond to unusual stimuli. I’m a scientist at heart.”

  She was Clytemnestra and Medea rolled into one, that’s what was in her heart, thought Hermia, but she knew better than to say so. “So you found me,” she said.

  “Oh, we’ve known where you were the whole time,” said Mother.

  Hermia didn’t bother to answer.

  “I know you think we couldn’t possibly have traced you, with all your jumping through gates, but you see, when we first realized you might have gatemaking talent, we implanted a little chip just under your jaw. We track it by satellite. We Illyrians are truly godlike in our prescience, don’t you think?”

  It had never crossed Hermia’s mind that they might have installed a tracking device in her body. She had given Danny away every time she used one of his gates.

  Or maybe not. When she made a jump through one of Danny’s gates, it would take time for them to get to where she was. Knowing where she was wasn’t the same thing as being there to observe her.

  But last night they’d had plenty of time to get to Perry McCluer High School.

  “You spent the night here?” asked Hermia.

  “In the Holiday Inn Express,” said Mother. “It has a nice European feel to it.”

  “Meaning that the rooms are tiny and have no room to put your luggage?”

  “We didn’t make ourselves known during the festivities. But we saw some of the Norths challenge you, and watched as a couple of mere Orphans brought old Zog’s eagle down and then cracked open the earth and swallowed up their truck.”

  “They gave it back afterward,” said Hermia. “Or did you fall asleep before the end?”

  “From these actions, we cleverly deduced, in our Aristotelian way, that somebody had passed through a Great Gate. I think it wasn’t you who made the gate, because if you were able to make gates, you would have disappeared the moment I sat down.”

  “No, I can’t make gates. You know I can’t.”

  “I know you have always said you can’t. But now I believe you. Maybe.”

  “I’m not telling you who—”

  “It’s Danny North who’s the gatemage,” said Mother.

  “Don’t you dare lay a hand on him.”

  “No habanero powder in his eyes or up his nose?” asked Mother. “Why must you always spoil my fun?”

  “He’s not just a gatemage, he’s a gatefather,” said Hermia. “In all the history of the world there’s never been a gatemage like him.”

  “The world has a lot of history. And there are two worlds, for that matter.”

  “He beat the Gate Thief,” said Hermia.

  “Isn’t that nice.”

  “What do you want, Mother?”

  “My darling daughter to tell me she loves me, even if it’s a lie, and to pretend she’s glad to see me.”

  “I’m not reporting to you anymore.”

  “You don’t have to report, as I just explained,” said Mother.

  “Danny and I and the other gatemage—”

  “So you are a gatemage, and not just a finder.”

  “I’m a lockfriend,” said Hermia.

  “And the other gatemage? Victoria Von Roth?”

  “A keyfriend.”

  “How lovely. It’s like you’re twins, born thirty years apart.”

  “The next time Danny makes a Great Gate, we’re going to make sure all the Families and the Orphans have equal access to it.”

  “Even the drowthers?”

  “We aren’t going to let a Great Gate give one Family an advantage.”

  “But you already have, silly girl,” said Mother. “That cow Leslie now has the power to snatch other people’s heartbeasts away from them, and Marion can crack open the earth without causing so much as a three point oh on the Richter scale. They could take down every Family right now.”

  “And yet they haven’t done it,” said Hermia. “Doesn’t that tell you something?”

  “Doesn’t the fact that we didn’t kill you tell you something, too?”

  “It tells me that your hope of getting through a Great Gate is greater than your desire to keep anybody else from getting through it.”

  “It should have told you that we mean to play nice,” said Mother. “We’re going to let you and your boyfriend Danny and his aging mistress Veevee set out the rules and we’ll play along.”

  “Till you see a way to get an advantage,” said Hermia.

  “Wasn’t it nice of me to come and inform you? Some of us wanted to kill you and then deal with Danny North separately. We’d pretend we didn’t know where you were. They’re very angry with you for betraying us.”

  “I didn’t tell him anything,” said Hermia.

  “You didn’t tell us anything,” said Mother. “But . . . water over the dam, isn’t that what they say?”

  “You got your physics degree at Stanford, Mother. Don’t pretend to be uncertain of your English.”

  “We’re going to station an observer at the high school,” said Mother. “And we’re going to expect you to stay there, too.”

  “I’m too old for high school,” said Hermia.

  “But you’re such a little slip of a thing, they won’t doubt that this is your senior year.”

  “I don’t have to be at the high school. I can gate in and out whenever I want to talk to Danny.”

  “As long as he keeps gates available to you,” said Mother. “No, we want you there where we can watch you both.”

  “And where you can threaten to do violence to me in order to get him to do what you want.”

  “Would that work?” asked Mother.

  “I don’t think so,” said Hermia, “but with Danny you never know. He’s not in love with me. I don’t think he particularly likes me. But he’s a compassionate kid. You could probably just point a gun at a puppy, take a picture, and then send it to him along with the threat, ‘Do what we say or we’ll shoot this dog.’ ”

  “Well, we aren’t going to threaten to shoot you or a puppy. We think—some of us think—that now that you know that we’ve known where you are all along, and didn’t interfere with you, you’ll return to us with renewed trust and loyalty.”

  “Are you among those who think so?” asked Hermia.

  “I’m only one vote among many,” said Mother. “But it’s pleasantly needy of you to ask for my reassurance.”

  “You know that whoever you send, Danny can just gate away.”

  “Oh, I hope he doesn’t do that,” said Mother. “We’d have to shoot the dog.”

  3

  Danny thought he was going to Laurette’s house that night for a birthday party. Not the teen-movie cliche of a party so huge that it overflows the house and infests the neighbors’ yards and results in the police being called. It was just a get-together at Laurette’s house in honor of Xena, Laurette’s friend and, since he arrived at Perry McCluer, Danny’s.

  But when Danny showed up at the house, and the door opened at his knock, he knew he’d been had. His friends were all there—the girls Laurette, Sin, Pat, Xena, and the boys Hal and Wheeler. But a big banner high on the wall, plainly visible from the front door, said nothing about birthdays or Xena.

  It said “Intervention,” and Danny knew at once that he was the target, the patsy, the subject.

  “What am I supposedly addicted to?” he asked.

  “He doesn’t even get the ‘How I Met Your Mother’ reference,” said Sin.

  “He doesn’t watch television,” said Hal.

  “Wow, we should have intervened about that,” said Xena.

  “When are you going to intervene with Laurette about always showing off her cleavage?” said Danny. “It scares the teachers. They think they’re going to fall in and get lost.”

  “Let’s stick to the plan,” said Laurette.

  “It’s not my plan,” said Danny.

  “You’re not going to dodge this one,” said Sin.

  “You still haven’t told me what you’re intervening about,” said Danny. “Maybe I’ll agree with you and we can move on to the party portion of the evening.”

  “We want you to stop hiding who you are,” said Hal.

  Danny turned to him. “I’m President Obama’s love child with a Chicago waitress. I’m actually black, but I act super-white and it fools everybody.”

  “We know you have powers,” said Sin.

  “You’re a fairy,” said Xena. “The Tolkien kind.”

  “ ‘Elf’ is a better word,” said Pat.

  “No, it’s definitely ‘fairy,’ ” said Xena, “because it’s more fun to say.”

  “I’m not an elf and I’m not a fairy,” said Danny. “These days I’m on the track team. I’m going to get a letter and be an athlete and then I’ll be too cool to hang out with you.”

  “We know you healed us,” said Pat. “My complexion has cleared up totally, and Sin’s infected piercings got uninfected.”

  “You didn’t do anything for my weight problem,” said Xena, “which wasn’t very nice.”

  “Maybe he likes you the way you are,” said Wheeler.

  “I’m trying to think how I did this magical stuff,” said Danny.

  “It all started happening after you got here, that’s point A,” said Xena.

  “Post hoc ergo propter hoc,” said Danny.

  “He’s talking Logic,” said Hal. “I wish Ms. Schrader hadn’t done that unit on fallacies.”

  “Point B,” said Xena, “is the tripping place.”

  “So I heal people and I make them clumsy,” said Danny. “Sounds like a contradiction.”

  “And there’s that flying thing with the rope climb,” said Hal. “You’re the one who set it up. You told me to move my hands as if I was climbing. That means you thought I’d somehow get up there without actually climbing.”

  “Is that how you remember it?” asked Danny.

  “Notice how he’s not actually denying it,” said Hal.

  “I would deny it if I knew what you were accusing me of.” Danny realized once again that it’s always a mistake to equivocate. If you’re going to lie then just lie. Don’t try to make it technically true or almost true or truish.

  “I didn’t think we should call it an intervention,” said Hal. “I thought we should call it an ultimatum.” He seemed really angry.

  “Admit to this crazy stuff you’re accusing me of, or else,” said Danny.

  “That’s what an ultimatum is, all right,” said Hal.

  “What’s the ‘else’ ?” asked Danny.

  “Or else you’re not really our friend.”

  Danny knew they were right, but also they were wrong. They couldn’t possibly understand what telling them would mean. It’s one thing to think your friend has some connection with mysterious stuff. But if they found out what he was, they either wouldn’t believe him or they’d pressure him to demonstrate it and he wasn’t going to make any more damn gates at Perry McCluer.

  “If you were really my friends,” said Danny, “you wouldn’t decide what the answer is and then threaten to ostracize me if I don’t tell you that you’re right.”

  “Then what’s the answer?” asked Sin. “We’re not going to tell anybody.”

  “Let’s say I admit I’m some kind of fairy. You promise not to tell. But since you already think you know it, and you also promise not to tell, then how would my telling you change anything?”

  “You don’t trust us,” said Wheeler.

  “What if I’m some kind of magical guy. Have I done anything evil with it? Hurt anybody?”

  “I think Coach Bleeder landed on his ass a couple of times because of you,” said Hal.

  “Did it ever occur to you that if I had these powers, maybe I was keeping secrets from you for your own good?”

  “There are some things that humankind is not meant to know,” intoned Laurette.

  “ ‘If I tell you, I have to kill you’,” quoted Xena.

  “Let’s put the shoe on the other foot, where it belongs,” said Danny. “If we’re such good friends, why would you threaten to stop being my friends if I don’t tell you something that, if it’s true, I clearly want to keep to myself?”

  Sin stuck out her feet. “How does that put my shoes on the other feet? These are the only feet I have.”

  Nothing he did was going to help. Because Danny knew from the family history where this led. You tell drowthers what you are, then you have to show them. And once they see it, they get scared of you, and either they avoid you or they try to become your servant because it’s human nature to want to be close to power.

  Danny didn’t want to find out which way his friends would go. He’d never had friends before, and now he was going to lose them no matter what he did.

  Better to lose them without their knowing for sure what he was and what he could do.

  “I accept your terms,” said Danny.

  They leaned forward expectantly.

  “I’m not going to admit to any of this stuff, so I guess that means we’re not friends.” Danny walked back to the door.

  “Wait!” said Laurette.

  “We didn’t mean it!” said Xena.

  “I did,” said Hal. “He sent us a mile into the sky, and if he says he didn’t it’s bullshit.”

  Danny opened the door and stepped outside.

  He could hear someone—several people—rushing toward the door. He didn’t want to play out this scene on the front lawn.

  So he gated back to his house and pulled the gate in after him.

  Had he even closed the door behind him? For all he knew, they had seen him disappear.

  But he was pissed off at them. Why would friends try to force him to tell what he clearly didn’t want to tell? They weren’t his friends. He barely knew them. So why did he have this gnawing feeling in his gut?

  “Where did you gate from?” asked a voice.

  Hermia was sitting in his living room.

  “How did you get in?” asked Danny.

  “I used Veevee’s gate,” said Hermia. “I was visiting her, and I wanted to visit you, but you weren’t here so I waited.”

  Danny looked at her steadily. “What are you doing here?”

  “My family came to me,” said Hermia. “My actual parents. I was so honored.”

  “Was it a happy reunion?” asked Danny, sitting down across from her in the only other chair in what passed for a living room.

  “It was all about you,” said Hermia. “They want you to trust them. They say they won’t try to control you, they don’t want a war, but they think you need training.”

  “Like I’d ever let any of the Westilians anywhere near me.”

  “I’ll tell them that,” said Hermia.

  “Are you in their pocket? Do they have some kind of control over you?”

  “Meaning, can you trust me? Yes and no. You can trust me to keep my word. But they have some kind of tracking device imbedded in me, so wherever I go, they know where I am.”