The Gate Thief

9

Danny wrote out the message and rehearsed it with his friends until they had it memorized. He didn’t want them to read it. He wanted them to look at the Families face to face, eye to eye. Not challengingly, but calmly, easily. They were the messengers of a Great Mage. They had to act like it.

“I come from Loki,” the message began. “He has made a Great Gate. He has faced the Gate Thief and defeated him. He has passed through the Great Gate to Westil and returned. He will allow each Family to send two mages to Westil and return at once, but only if you agree, individually and as Families, to these three promises.

“One. You will not make war on or cause harm to any other Family or any individual mage.

“Two. You will not take the lives of drowthers or enslave them, but will respect their laws and customs.

“Three. You will cease the killing of gatemages or suspected gatemages. Instead, you will send them to Loki to be trained. Gatemages will never belong to any Family, but only to the company of Gatekeepers. I will return tomorrow for your answer.”

Danny sent them one at a time and watched carefully through a peephole in case someone tried to harm them. He made peepholes for Veevee and Hermia as well. The messengers held on to their amulets. Danny was determined that no one would be harmed.

Hal and Xena stumbled over the memorization a little, but corrected themselves and went on. No one else made a mistake. They appeared in each Family’s meeting room, in front of whoever happened to be present in response to the anonymized email they had all received.

Then Danny brought each of his friends back the moment the last word was spoken. It wasn’t a press conference. It was an offer and an ultimatum, both at once. He didn’t have to explain that failing to agree to the terms would put any Family outside the peace that Danny was establishing. That meant that when the other Families sent their two mages through to Westil and back, they would be free to use their vastly increased power to make war on the noncompliant Families.

“They’ll all agree,” Stone had said. “The question is whether they’ll keep their word.”

“That’s why they won’t know where I am,” said Danny. “So they’ll never know where their punishment is coming from.”

He spoke boldly of punishment, but he had no idea what he would actually do if someone broke their word. It depended, he supposed, on what form their oath-breaking took. If they tried to get someone to the Great Gate without permission, he would put them somewhere inconvenient. If they mistreated drowthers or started a war, he would let the peaceful Families send more and more mages through to Westil until the oathbreakers were outnumbered and defeated.

If they killed somebody, he would …

Put them in Hammernip Hill?

He didn’t want to think about killing people with his power. But if they harmed one of his friends, he’d do what it took to make sure they never did such a thing again. His messengers were under his protection, and that had to mean something if it was going to work.

But he knew they would measure his intentions by what they themselves would do with the kind of power he had. They would be ruthless, even cruel. So they would assume that he meant to do the same, and would fear him.

Which means, thought Danny, that I really am exactly what I’m trying to prevent them from becoming-a power-hungry tyrant, determined to bend everyone else to his will.

But if I don’t keep them under control until they can see how much better this new order works than the old ways ever did, then the experiment can never work. The world will have no peace. So I must be the tyrant over the tyrants, to keep all the drowthers, the orphans, the weaker members of the Families-to keep them safe.

Safe from Uncle Zog and Grandpa Gyish. From whoever the other Families’ equivalents might be.

After each messenger came back to Danny’s tiny living room, Hermia and Veevee continued to watch the Family that had just been visited, to see what they’d say. Most of them were so naive that it didn’t seem to occur to them that just because the messenger was gone, no gatemage was listening. Only Hermia’s family seemed to be speaking artificially, with exaggerated sweetness and willingness to comply. “They know we’re listening,” said Hermia. “They won’t say anything real.”

“They have to eventually,” said Danny. “But there’s no reason to spy on them any further. They’ll agree because they have no choice, and they’ll keep their word because they fear what will happen if they don’t.”

“But Danny, my darling,” said Veevee, “you haven’t sent a messenger to your own dear Family.”

Danny didn’t bother saying something petulant, like “they’re not my family.” Like it or not, they most definitely were his kin, the Family he knew better than any other.

Xena raised her hand. “I’ll go,” she said. “I want to meet your real parents.”

“No you don’t,” said Danny.

“You think I’ll embarrass you?” asked Xena.

She apparently had the idea that she was some kind of girlfriend of his, and that he simply didn’t want to bring her home to meet the parents.

“I have to talk to them myself,” said Danny.

“But you don’t have an amulet,” said Sin.

“He doesn’t need one,” said Hermia. “He can make a gate to any place on Earth faster than he could possibly reach an amulet.”

“I knew that,” said Sin.

“I just want my Danny to be safe,” said Xena possessively.

She’s embarrassing herself, thought Danny. Doesn’t Xena see how obvious she’s being?

Then it occurred to him that high school girls, as a tribe, weren’t exactly subtle about who they liked and who they didn’t. Nobody was going to act like Jane in Pride and Prejudice, so nobody can tell whether they like the boy or not. Xena had decided to be in love with the guy who could take her anywhere in an instant, and so she didn’t care who knew it. In fact, being obvious about it might be her way of staking a claim so none of the other girls thought of trying for him.

“You really don’t know what mages are like,” Veevee said to Xena with exaggerated kindness. “That’s because Danny is the only one you’ve ever met, so you don’t understand. If you make an obvious offer to any other mage from one of the Families, they’ll jump your bones without a quibble. Then they’ll walk away, leaving whatever bastard they’ve conceived inside you.”

“I’m not offering anything,” said Xena. “I just care about him.”

“Tone it down, darling,” said Veevee. “You’re scaring the boy.”

“He’s not gay, you know,” said Xena. “He isn’t scared of me.”

Great, thought Danny. She knows that I’m sort of interested. How can it be so obvious?

“If he ever sleeps with somebody,” said Veevee, “he’ll doubtless get all conscience-stricken and marry the poor girl, and then where would you be? Stuck with a man who will come to hate you, one you can never be equal to in any way. The permanent magically retarded wife, always dragging him down. Is that how you want to spend your life, darling?”

“I get it now,” said Pat. “When you say ‘darling,’ you mean ‘idiot.’”

“I’m glad somebody speaks Catty-Bitch-ese around here,” said Veevee. “I’d hate to be the only one.”

“I don’t speak it,” said Pat, “but I understand it. I learned it in school.”

“Oh, don’t be modest,” said Veevee. “You speak it like a native.”

“Neither of you knows my mother,” said Hermia. “She could take you both to school.”

“So you’re one-upping each other about who’s the bitchiest?” asked Hal.

“It’s not a competition,” said Laurette.

“You just think you automatically win because you’ve got the biggest knockers,” said Xena.

“Does anybody really say ‘knockers’?” asked Laurette.

“You have to talk to your Family, Danny,” said Hermia.

“I know.”

“Tonight. Now. They’re going to hear about the terms you offered everybody else and if you haven’t talked to them, they’ll think they’re not getting a chance at a Great Gate. Then they really will be determined to kill you.”

“Oh, they’ve only been kidding around up to now?” asked Danny.

“Up to now, half of them have been protecting you,” said Hermia. “Or at least your own parents have been. But if you make it seem that they’re shut out…”

“I know,” said Danny. “I know I know I know.”

“So do it,” said Hermia.

“Later.”

“Now.”

Danny grinned. “You’re not the boss of me.”

“I am,” said Veevee. “The school has me down as your legal guardian. Go talk to your family.”

“I didn’t make an appointment the way I did with the others,” said Danny.

“And you can be sure they know about it by now,” said Hermia. “They’re already thinking the worst.”

She was right. Everybody was right. Danny gated to the library in the old house in the compound.

The walls had been rebuilt since they tore them out looking for Danny on the day Hermia had pointed out that there was a spy inside the wall. There were new carpets. Everything was all nice and clean for company. All the aunts and uncles were sitting around the table. Baba and Mama at one end of the table. Gyish and Zog weren’t there at all.

Danny looked at each of them in turn. Aunt Lummy and Uncle Mook, the two he knew best and trusted most. They looked worried and stern. Auntie Uck and Auntie Tweng and Uncle Poot and Uncle Thor seemed much more relaxed, but Danny imagined that was because they didn’t actually care what happened to Danny-or they had such rage toward him that they felt a greater need to disguise their feelings.

Baba and Mama were smiling. And oh, yes, there were Danny’s half-brother Pipo and half-sister Leonora. They weren’t important in the council, so they must have been brought in to create some kind of cozy family atmosphere. As if they had ever given Danny the time of day.

“If Zog and Gyish don’t sign off on this, it won’t happen,” said Danny.

“Hello to you too, Son,” said Baba.

“I’m not here as your son, sir,” said Danny. “I’m not here as a North. I’m here as the only person in Mittlegard who can make gates.”

“Is that still true?” asked Mama. “Your Keyfriend and Lockfriend haven’t picked up any new skills?”

“I’ll be back when Gyish and Zog are here,” said Danny.

“Wait,” said Baba. “We didn’t think you’d want to see them, but they’re just outside, you don’t have to go.”

“Of course he wants to see them,” said Auntie Tweng. “He wants to rub their noses in it.”

“In what, exactly, do you think I want to rub their noses?” asked Danny.

“In the fact that you’re a mage,” said Auntie Tweng, “and we all know that the reason you didn’t send one of your little drowther friends as a messenger was so you could come here personally and gloat.”

“Do you know that?” asked Danny. Of course it was true, at least a little bit, but it wasn’t the whole reason and it galled him that anybody in this room thought they knew Danny. “I can’t imagine why any of you thinks you know me at all. With the possible exception of Uncle Mook and Aunt Lummy, none of you ever cared enough to find out what kind of person I was when I lived here.”

“Yes, this is just the tone we expected from you,” said Uncle Poot. “Self-centered and arrogant as always.”

“We know what power does to a person,” said Thor.

“And how would you know that?” asked Danny. “None of you knows what power is. There hasn’t been any real power in any of the Families for fourteen centuries. And as far as I’m concerned, it can stay that way.”

He thought of disappearing right then, leaving them to stew on it for a while. But that would be childish, and Veevee would tease him and Hermia would yell at him and so he stayed where he was.

“You can’t hear the arrogance in your own tone?” said Auntie Tweng.

“He’s always been like that,” said Zog as he entered the room. “Vain about his schoolwork, vain about everything, even when he had nothing to be vain about.”

“Shut up, Zog,” said Baba.

“Oh, you think you’re still head of the Family, is that it, Alf?” said Zog. He stressed Baba’s original name instead of calling him Odin.

“Of course he is,” said Mama.

“No,” said Zog. “He is, now.” He thumbed toward Danny.

“The only way I could be head of this Family,” said Danny quietly, “is if I were a member of it. But I’m not. I never was.”

Mama began hotly: “Our blood runs in your-”

“The best of your blood is buried in the dirt of Hammernip Hill,” said Danny. “Whatever genes I have can’t be helped. But as you made very clear, blood means nothing if I don’t have some tangible value to you. And right now, the only way to keep the whole world from erupting in war is for all the Families to know I don’t belong to any of them. Nor am I one of the Orphans.”

“Those drekka,” said Grandpa Gyish. “Bastards and foundlings.”

Danny wanted to make a tiny gate to make him trip and fall on the floor, but he restrained himself. “Making bastards has always been a favorite sport of the Westilians,” said Danny, “but the genes tell true, and the Orphan mages are as powerful as you.”

“Are you sending Orphans through the Great Gate, right along with the Families?” asked Thor, sounding alarmed.

“Oh, come on now, don’t you understand how this works? I send whoever I want through the Great Gate. I’ve already sent four Orphans through a Great Gate.”

“It already exists?” said Zog eagerly. “The new gate?”

“Not for you it doesn’t,” said Danny.

“So you aren’t going to let me through, is that it?” demanded Zog. “Even if the Family chooses me.”

“With only two places to fill,” said Danny coldly, “there is no chance that they’d send a Clawbrother like you. They’ll send Mama and Baba for exactly the reasons you made Baba the Odin and let him marry Mama. Because they’re the most powerful mages in the Family. All the Families will send their most powerful mages.” It took all Danny’s self-restraint to keep from reminding Zog just how far down that list he was.

From the hatred on Zog’s face, Danny knew he didn’t have to.

“The little boy is still pissed off because you bruised his shoulder,” said Grandpa Gyish.

“That injury healed the moment I went through a gate,” said Danny. “Just because you base all your choices on spite and vengefulness and fear, Grandpa Gyish, doesn’t mean that I do. You never had the power to cause me any pain that lasts.”

Then Danny pointedly looked at Baba. “But you did,” said Danny. And he looked at Mama, too. “So I want you to know that I’m past all that. I’m giving the North Family equal access to the Great Gate, when I make it. No more than any other Family, but no less, either. If it’s the two of you who are chosen to represent the Norths in the passage to Westil, that’s fine. But if not, so be it. I don’t really care.”

“Of course it will be them,” said Auntie Uck. “It’s already decided, as soon as we learned of the terms you were giving the other Families.”

Danny looked at Thor, who was head of the Norths’ network of spies.

“No, I didn’t find out,” said Thor. “Do you think the other Families would let my drowther informants get close enough to know anything? They all contacted us at once. To find out whether we’d gotten an invitation from you and to see if you were treating us equally.”

“What did you tell them?” asked Danny.

“We told them nothing!” said Zog savagely.

“Telling them nothing,” said Danny, “was the same as telling them everything-that I hadn’t spoken to you yet, that you didn’t know yet what would happen.”

“We knew,” said Uncle Mook. “Zog and Gyish guessed wrong about the motive, but we all knew you’d come here. Because however much you may hate and resent us, you don’t want us dead.”

“Don’t count on that,” said Gyish. “Spiteful little bastard.”

“If he wanted us dead,” Aunt Lummy pointed out gently, “we’d be having this meeting inside Hammernip Hill. He could have put us there whenever he wanted.”

“Do you accept the terms?” said Danny. “Assuming you’ve heard the three promises I’m demanding from everybody.”

“We’ve heard them,” said Uncle Mook. “For some of us, the terms will be easy to swear to.”

“Which is why Zog and Gyish had to be here,” said Danny. “They not only have to say the words. I have to believe them.”

“Or what?” asked Zog. “You’re not sending me through the Great Gate anyway, so what can you do to hurt me?”

Now it was time for a demonstration of power. Danny made a gate that swallowed Zog and dropped him from the ceiling. He landed sprawling on the table, the breath knocked out of him.

The sheer surprise of it shocked everyone, and most of them jumped up or pushed back. Thor tried to do both and ended up knocking down his chair and then falling over it.

“What can I do to hurt you, if you break your oath?” asked Danny quietly. “Why, anything I want.”

Danny rose to his feet. The others sat down, except for Tweng and Uck, who were helping Zog get off the table and back to his chair. “As with all the others, I’ll expect your answer tomorrow.”

“At what time?” asked Thor.

“At the time I return,” said Danny.

“And when will that be?” demanded Gyish, who was apparently unhumbled by what Danny had just done to Zog.

Danny didn’t bother to answer. He just gated back to his living room, where the others were waiting.

“That went well,” said Hermia dryly.

It took a moment for Danny to realize that Hermia had been watching-and Danny had not made gates for her and Veevee this time.

“Oh, don’t get all uffish about it,” said Hermia. “I’ve been working on trying to do something besides lock your gates.”

“You made a gate?” asked Danny eagerly.

“I wish,” said Hermia. “But I moved the other end of the last viewport you made for me.”

“You moved it all the way to the library?”

“No,” said Hermia. “I attached it to you, and you carried it with you. I was essentially looking and listening through the top button of your shirt.”

Sin giggled. Xena glared at her. “Woah, cool,” said Wheeler.

This was a huge breakthrough. Hermia could move the end of a gate and attach it to an object.

“Can you do it, too?” Danny asked Veevee.

“I haven’t tried,” said Veevee. “This is the first I’ve heard of it. I didn’t even realize she was listening while you were gone, or I would have been angry at you for not making me a viewport. I may not be as young and pretty as Hermia, but I love you more than she does.”

“Will you teach her how to do it?” Danny asked Hermia.

“Of course,” said Hermia. “I only succeeded for the first time just now, and I only had to move it a few feet. I have no idea how far I can reach with it. Probably not very far.”

“So the messages are delivered,” said Pat, “and Hermia thinks you handled it well with your family.”

“Actually, I think she was being sarcastic,” said Danny.

“No, I wasn’t,” said Hermia. “I really think it went well. You made your point with that bully Zog, and everybody else you treated respectfully. I don’t know if I could have done that.”

“He’s so ni-i-i-ice,” said Wheeler.

“He is!” insisted Xena.

Please get off my side, Xena, said Danny silently. Especially because I don’t even have a side.

“My point is,” said Pat, “the messages are delivered, so isn’t it time you took us through a Great Gate?”

“You?” asked Hermia in genuine surprise. “What’s the point?”

“To see what it does to us,” said Pat. “There’s a lot of bastard mageblood in the world by now. Who knows whether we might not have some latent abilities?”

Veevee laughed. “You don’t have to invoke all those happy impregnators among the corps of minor gods. Magery is certainly latent among the entire human race. Or so Danny thinks, since he’s so sure that humans began here in Mittlegard and only became mages when a tribe stumbled on a naturally occurring gate and got carried to Westil.”

“If there were such a thing as naturally occurring gates,” said Hermia, “don’t you think there’d have been one during the centuries since Loki ate all the gates?”

“The Gate Thief got any gate that opened,” said Danny. “And maybe they only happen when the planets are aligned somehow. Maybe there are cycles.”

“Or epicycles,” said Hal.

“Danny’s a Virgo,” said Xena. “I’m not sure how the planets lined up for him, though.”

“It’s just a theory,” said Danny. “And it has nothing to do with astrology.”

“Let’s test it,” said Veevee. “Take these little darlings through a Great Gate and see what it does to them.”

“If you’re going to do it at all,” said Pat, “you need to do it before you send any of the Family mages through. Once there are other great mages loose in the world…”

Danny thought of his father coming home with his power over metal and machinery multiplied by two. Or ten. And for that matter, what would his mother be able to do? There were gods in the past who really could hurl lightning. No doubt a mage of light and heat like Mama would be able to make lightning, after passing through the Great Gate.

Pat was right. The Family mages would be godlike, and if they weren’t quite scrupulous about keeping their word to Danny, he’d be busy dealing with them. He wouldn’t have time to work with his drowther friends to find out just how permanent their drowtherhood might be.

Well, he hadn’t told the Families exactly when he’d make this Great Gate he was promising. Obviously he couldn’t delay forever. If they became impatient, there was a Great Gate in existence, one that was not in Danny’s control.

And that night, as Danny was undressing for bed, he couldn’t stop himself from playing through in his mind a not-terribly-unlikely scenario in which he delayed far too long, angering the Families, which then united against him and attacked the Silvermans in order to show their displeasure.

Powerful as Marion and Leslie now were, because of their passage through a Great Gate, they could not stand against the united Families. Perhaps not even against one Family in a concerted assault. Yes, Leslie could detach all the beastmages from their heartbeasts. Yes, Marion could break up the earth under them.

But there would be threats they couldn’t see. There would be winds and water that they couldn’t stop. There would be fire.

And even if the whole farm in Yellow Springs was burned to the ground, there that public Wild Gate would be, waiting. As the victorious enemies gloated, walking over the burnt-out ruin of the Silvermans’ farm, their refuge, their lives, someone would accidentally step through the Great Gate. Wouldn’t that be the kind of prank that spacetime looked for?

No, Danny could not delay forever. But if he took his drowther friends through a new Great Gate right away, perhaps there would be time enough to train them a little. Maybe they would have latent mageries that bloomed into sudden life. Maybe …

Maybe pigs could eat with knives and forks. Even powerful mages born in Families took years of training in order to master their abilities. What fantasy was this, that Danny could bestow on his friends what his Family had as their inheritance?

I am not all-powerful. I may have the most useful magery in the world right now, the one that can change everything. I may have other people at my mercy. But I can’t even control a Great Gate that I made. I didn’t know the consequence of weaving into it the lingering outselves of long-dead rage-filled mages-but the fact that I’m not to blame doesn’t mean that I’m not compelled to live with the consequences of my foolishness.

How much more foolishness will I have to bring about because of the things that I don’t know? It isn’t my drowther friends who need training. It’s me. But the only person in either world who can possibly help me is my most dangerous enemy. The Gate Thief.

I have most of his gates under my control right now, but who knows what tricks he knows that I am not aware of? Who knows what danger I would be in if I went to him for help? He’s a Gatefather-he can lie to me as easily as he can breathe, so even if he promised to help me, how would I know that he meant to keep his word?

And that image of the Silvermans’ farm as rubble and ash kept coming back to his mind.

There was a knock at his door.

He felt a thrill of terror, his heart leaping with sudden adrenaline. The Families had found him!

Then he heard Pat’s voice. “It’s me,” she said. “I need to talk to you.”

Relieved, his heart still racing, Danny took the five steps to the door-the house was so tiny-without remembering that he was in the middle of undressing for bed. When the door opened, Pat looked him up and down.

“I see you were expecting someone else,” she said.

Danny was wearing his tighty-whities and his socks.

“I was in the middle of undressing for bed,” he said. “And I wasn’t expecting anybody.”

“I would have waited for you to put on a robe.” She stepped through the door and Danny closed it behind her.

“I don’t own a robe.” He walked into the bedroom, picked up his jeans, and came back into the living room.

“Don’t bother,” said Pat. “I won’t be here long.”

“Long enough to sit down?”

Pat looked around. “On what?” she asked.

That wasn’t really fair-the house had come with an old tatty sofa, and there was a kitchen table with three wobbly chairs. But Danny always tossed his dirty clothes on the couch and the chairs were stacked up with books.

Danny gathered up the clothes from the couch and dropped them on the floor.

“Tidy,” said Pat.

Danny put his hand on her back to usher her to the couch.

Pat shied away. “What are you doing?”

Danny pulled back his hand. “Offering you a seat?”

“I can find my way to your couch without your hands on my body,” she said coldly. “I’m not Xena, I don’t want your hands all over me. And for what it’s worth, she isn’t, like, in love with you.”

“I didn’t think she was,” said Danny.

“Oh, she thinks she is,” said Pat, “but it’s not you she wants, it’s to have a god’s baby inside her belly.”

“I’m not a god,” said Danny. “There are no gods, just people like me.”

Pat faced him with fire in her eyes. “On the contrary, buddy-boy. People like you are proof that there are gods. Dangerous powerful beings who can do terrible things to people who don’t obey them.”

“What terrible things have I done to you?”

Pat touched her face. “Oh, isn’t it wonderful, my kind master! You have bestowed smooth skin upon your pock-marked servant! Now at last she’s worthy to have your hands placed upon her body!”

Danny was completely flummoxed. He hadn’t meant anything at all by touching her. He didn’t know why he had even done it. He didn’t go around touching people.

There was nothing he could say to change her false impression. “Have a seat while I put my pants on,” he said.

“I told you I’m not staying long.” But she sat down and watched him pull up his jeans. “I don’t even know why I came.”

“Well, we’ve settled that you aren’t here to have sex with me,” said Danny. He meant it as a self-mocking joke.

“Right, just because I don’t want your hands on me, you think I’m some kind of cold frigid bitch.”

Her words were so out of proportion to anything that had come before that Danny couldn’t imagine what was going through her mind. “Is that what I think?”

“For your information, no, I wasn’t molested as a child, no, I wasn’t abused, no, I don’t have any repressed memories of terrible things that now interfere with the natural development of my sexuality. I’m just a private person who doesn’t like to be touched.”

Danny just stood there for a couple of seconds. “It’s so good of you to come all the way over here and tell me that,” he finally said.

Pat sat there, looking at him in surprise. It was as if she was only hearing now what she herself had just finished saying. “That’s not what I came here to say,” she said. Her face turned red and she looked away. “I can’t believe I went off like that, I don’t know what I was…”

Danny pulled up one of the kitchen chairs across from her-he didn’t even have to take a step to do it, the kitchen being the other end of the living room-and sat on it. “Let’s pretend I didn’t touch you and so you didn’t react the way you reacted for whatever reason you reacted that way, and let’s just say that I asked you to come in and take a seat and here we are.” He put on an air of jovial welcome. “Pat, my good friend, what brings you here so late at night, considering that you don’t want to sleep with me or have my babies?”

Pat was not amused at his humor. “My parents made me see a shrink because I like to be left alone.”

“Well, that explains the ‘repressed sexuality’ thing.”

“She had an M.D. and a Ph.D., but that just shows they’ll give those degrees to any bonehead who puts in the time. She was a fake who wanted to hypnotize me and put false memories into my head. She actually thought she had hypnotized me and started suggesting all kinds of sexual things my father had snuck into my room and done to me when I was three. She was, like, a volunteer hypnotic pornographer. Serious child porn. Ugly.” Pat shuddered. “My parents kept making me go back until I finally told my dad what that bitch was trying to get me to ‘remember’ he had done to me.”

“But you hung on to the vocabulary.”

“Whenever people go off on how I don’t like to be glad-handed or stroked, she comes to mind. Being an introvert isn’t a pathology, you know.”

“I know,” said Danny. “I don’t like to be touched either.” He thought back to the way Lana had accosted him when he first came to Stone’s house, and he realized that he hadn’t spoken the actual truth. He hadn’t liked Lana touching him at the moment, because it was such a surprise and because he didn’t like her having control over him. But his body very much liked being touched, and he still remembered that encounter with Lana. He remembered it a lot, and he had imagined several different endings to the event that he much preferred to the way it had actually ended.

But he knew that was nothing more than the impulse of his DNA to replicate itself. In fact, like Pat, he didn’t like to have people touch him. At least not without an invitation. “I have no idea why I did that,” said Danny, “and I’m sorry. I’m also sorry your parents didn’t get you, and I’m sorry the shrink was a schmuck. Can we please get on to whatever you actually came for?”

Pat turned red again and curled up onto the couch, turning her body partly away from him. He had never seen her look vulnerable before. “What am I doing? Why am I saying these things?”

“Really. Please,” said Danny. “Tell me what you came for.”

“I’m worried about you,” she finally said. Still not looking at him. Still embarrassed. “You’re so. So.”

“Stupid?” Danny prompted.

“Yes,” she said. “Not school-stupid, not even people-stupid. I mean, you’re actually very clever and kind of sweet and I think you don’t have a malicious bone in your body, though your sense of humor is sometimes kind of on the mean side.”

“Senses of humor usually are,” said Danny. “But I see your point. Thanks for the counsel.”

“See?” she said. “You’re joking, but you’re also making fun of the fact that I came here at night, alone, and I’ve said everything wrong until I feel so stupid I could die, and yet you’re also sitting there waiting so patiently for me to finally say what I came to say, because you are sweet, and that’s why I’m so afraid, because I don’t think you know how evil some people can be.”

Pat had no idea what it was like to live inside a Family. “I know a little more about evil than you think.”

“I’m not talking about your family,” said Pat. “You’re the expert on mages or gods or whatever you people are. I’m talking about-people in general. Regular people. Even people who mean well. You’re so trusting! You came here to Parry McCluer and you decide you’re going to be friends with us, and why? Because the principal assigned Laurette to be your guide on your first day, and you just had to tease her and sit down with us and how did you choose us?”

Danny had no answer to that. “I was going with the flow. If I hadn’t liked you guys, I wouldn’t have stayed around.”

“But you didn’t like us,” said Pat. “I mean, how could you? We’re a mess, every one of us, weird on the outside and certifiably insane underneath that repellent exterior.”

“But Laurette has nice cleavage, and I am of the heterosexual persuasion,” said Danny. “Maybe that’s all it is.”

“You’re not one of those panting morons,” said Pat. “And in fact we really are pretty decent people, so you could have chosen a lot worse friends. My point is that you didn’t know, you had no idea who we were, but you plunged right in as if we were friends and. And.”

“And then we became friends,” said Danny. “But isn’t that how it’s done?”

“No!” said Pat. “It takes time!”

“I didn’t have time,” said Danny. “I’ve only got a couple of years of high school and look, don’t you know how I was raised? I’ve told you-I never met anybody outside the Family. When I went to DC I only met a handful of people and one of them became a dear friend, one of them was a user who thought I was his ticket to easy street, the perfect burglar. One was a girl who really has the memories that your shrink tried to implant in you, and so she was completely unpredictable and selfish. One was her husband, for reasons I never understood. And then there was the convenience store owner who tried to murder me and my burglarizing partner, and the store owner’s assistant who I talked into murdering him and-am I boring you?”

Pat was covering her face with her hands. She shook her head without uncovering. “I’m so stupid,” she said. “I want to die.”

“Please don’t,” said Danny. “The police would wonder why my fingerprints were all over your back.”

She laughed in spite of herself. “I’m coming to warn you and you know more than I do. You know more about everything.”

“No, I don’t know anything at all. Really, I just gave you a complete list of all the people I knew in DC, my complete resume as a friend-maker. Unless you count the Silvermans and Veevee, but they kind of had an introduction to me and believe me, I didn’t do all that good a job of making friends with them, either. But I had to, don’t you see? I was on the run, my Family was after me to kill me, I had no idea how to live outside the Family compound. I had to make friends with people and only find out later whether I could trust them. Like Hermia, at first I thought she was out to kill me, but-”

“That’s my point,” said Pat, uncovering her face. “That girl. She is not your friend.”

Danny shook his head. “You don’t know anything about her.”

“I know nothing about her. But she. Is. Not. Your. Friend.”

“This is about Hermia? You came here to warn me about Hermia?”

“I came here to beg you to be careful. You trust people that you shouldn’t trust.”

“I trust you,” said Danny. “I let you into my house late at night. I listen to you because I believe you really are my friend. Why should I trust you and not her?”

“What could I do to you?” asked Pat. “But she-she can hurt you.”

“I’m not falling in love with her, if that’s what you think,” said Danny. “She’s older than me. But she’s like Veevee-a fellow gatemage. She taught me how to lock my own gates-she took terrible risks to follow me and we teach each other. We help each other.”

“See, that’s it,” said Pat. “She’s using you.”

“And I’m using her.”

“No, she’s using you. It’s all calculation, it’s all-”

“And you know this how?”

“I just do! She needs you right now, but the minute she doesn’t, the minute she sees some advantage in betraying you-”

“But that might be true of anybody,” said Danny.

“No,” said Pat.

“Yes!” insisted Danny. “People are human, even people like me. You can trust people until you can’t. They mean what they say until they don’t.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” said Pat. “People aren’t all like that. There are people you can count on because they’d die before they’d betray you or even let you down.”

Danny thought about that. It was a strange way of looking at the world. “I’ve read a lot of history,” said Danny. “It filled the time when the other kids were learning magery. And I don’t think I remember ever reading about anybody who wasn’t human, with all the normal failings.”

“Then you better go back and read again,” said Pat. “Joan of Arc, for instance.”

“What about her?” said Danny.

“She was absolutely true to her voices. She never denied them.”

“Well, actually, she did.”

“She was tricked and trapped and she recanted and died for it because in the end she was true. There are people like that.”

“Lunatics?” said Danny.

“Don’t joke, buddy-boy,” said Pat, “because I’m serious. Your cynical attitude about people is mostly right, but there really are good people who can be counted on.”

“My attitude isn’t cynical, it’s realistic. Who else is on your list, besides the girl who heard voices?”

“And led armies, and created France as a nation.”

“I apologize to dead Jeanne d’Arc for speaking of her so lightly.”

“There was Jesus,” said Pat.

That took Danny aback. “What about him?”

“True to his word. A true friend.”

“To whom?”

“To everybody,” said Pat.

“You’re a Christian,” said Danny.

“What about it if I am?” said Pat. “Even if you don’t think he died for your sins, he thought he did. And he went ahead with it, he was true to his word.”

He didn’t bother explaining to her that the Families just thought of Jesus and Mohammed and Moses and Elijah as Semitics. Mages, but not from the Families, not from Westil. “Jesus and Joan of Arc,” he said. “Not a very long list.”

“They’re famous, that’s all,” said Pat. “The list is very, very long. There are millions of people who gave their word and then kept it, even at the cost of their own lives, at the cost of terrible agony. Soldiers who did brave things and died. Businessmen who kept true to bad contracts and lost everything, but they gave their word. There are people like that!”

“All right,” said Danny. “I believe it.” And when he thought about it, he wondered. “Am I one of them?” he asked.

“I think you are,” said Pat.

“I’m a prankster, I lie all the time, I’m good at it, I conned people out of their money all the way to DC. But I also try to keep my promises. This is so weird. Is it possible that I’m actually an honest man?”

“I don’t know,” said Pat. “That’s not my point.”

“I know,” said Danny. “You didn’t come to tell me that I’m virtuous. You came here to tell me that you are.”

Pat sat very still, thinking. “Yes,” she said. “That is why I came.”

“To tell me that you’re not Xena, who just wants to have a baby with the most powerful man she’s ever met,” said Danny. “And you’re not like Hermia, who’s just using me and letting me use her because by helping each other we both gain. With you it isn’t a bargain or a trade, and it isn’t because you want to get something from me.”

Pat was crying now. “Yes.”

Danny got up and sat on the couch beside her and she nestled against his shoulder and he put his arm around her and she cried. “You came here to tell me that you’re my true friend and that I can count on you in a way I can’t count on anybody else.”

She nodded against his shoulder.

“You came to tell me that you love me.”

She pulled away, turned and flopped down against the other arm of the couch and cried even harder. “I’m so stupid,” she said. “If I’d known that was what I came to say I wouldn’t have come!”

Danny put his hand on her back and she did not recoil. He stroked her gently and said, “You came to tell me that you’re the best of my friends, that you’re the truest, the most reliable. That you don’t think this magery is cool, you think it’s dangerous, and I’m in danger, and you don’t want anything bad to happen to me, because what you care about isn’t power or coolness. It’s me. You care about me.”

She nodded, and she wasn’t crying now. His hand was stroking her back, and when she sat up his arm stayed around her and she turned her tear-soaked, red-eyed face to him and he kissed her.

It wasn’t like with Lana. Yes, it was, in that his body approved of what was happening. But he wasn’t afraid. He took her at her word. He trusted her. And he realized that in all his conversations with his friends at high school, Pat was the only one he actually listened to with any expectation that her words would matter to him at the level of reality rather than entertainment.

Which wasn’t strictly true, he realized. He respected Hal and liked him and he thought Hal was also worth listening to. But he wasn’t like Pat. He didn’t see as clearly and harshly and truthfully as Pat did. Hal told the truth as far as he knew it-but Pat was far more likely to know true things, so her honesty was more valuable. More reliable.

Meaning I can use her.

Danny hated the thought as soon as it came to his mind. It was an ugly bit of self-knowledge. He broke off the kiss.

“Please,” said Pat, and tried to resume it.

“No,” said Danny.

Pat nodded and sat back, facing forward, like a scolded schoolgirl.

“Oh, I want to kiss you,” said Danny. “You’re the only woman I’ve actually felt this way about, though I didn’t realize it until just now. I really do trust you and respect you and you’re my true friend, which is what you came to say and you said it and you’re right and I believe you. But here’s the thing. I’m not as good as you. I use people. I can count on you, but can you count on me?”

She gave a little shrug. “I can’t control that,” she said. “I can only control what I do.”

“Well, I can control what I do,” said Danny. “My body wants you right now. Tonight. You understand me? And if I hadn’t stopped kissing you just now, you would have let me sleep with you, am I right?”

She bent forward and hid her face in her hands again. “I’m a terrible Christian,” she said.

“But I don’t want to be that guy,” said Danny.

“What guy?”

“The guy who sleeps with a woman because he can. Like most of the guys in our Family history. Those gods who got women pregnant all over mythology. I’m not as good as you are, Pat, but I’m better than they are. Loving me is going to do nothing but make you miserable.”

Pat got up from the couch.

“Please,” said Danny.

“I have to get home to bed,” said Pat. “My folks will worry. They’re worriers.”

“But you would have stayed the night with me.”

“Because then you would be my family. But you’re not. They are. I have to go.”

“I didn’t lie to you,” said Danny. “I could have.”

She stood at the partly open door. “I know that,” she said. “You’ve been straight with me. You’re even better than I thought you were. I love you more than I thought I did. You love me more than either of us thought you could. We’re never going to sleep together, I’m not going to be the woman in your life, and yet right now I’m as happy as I’ve ever been in my whole life. Go figure.” Then she went through the door and closed it behind her.

I am the stupidest guy in the whole world, thought Danny. I let her go out that door without saying a single word more.

But Danny also knew that his decision was the right one. His desire for her was far more than the fleeting interest he had had in Xena, which was based entirely on Xena’s eagerness. What he didn’t know was whether his desire for Pat was also based on her availability. Maybe Pat was simply more the kind of woman that he was attracted to-quiet, smart, truthful, a little sharp-tongued but also kind-hearted. Sort of like Leslie. Sort of like Mama. Maybe that’s the kind of woman he would always fall for, and she simply happened to be the first.

He was about to do the most dangerous things in his already-dangerous life. Whether his attraction to her was just momentary or he really loved her in a stay-true-your-whole-life kind of way, this was not the time to complicate things. Besides, what if the Families had spies watching him? What if she had stayed the night? Then he’d be putting her in danger of being used as a hostage. Or of being tortured or killed because that would be a way to hurt him, the Gatefather that was always out of their direct reach.

He was right to break off that kiss and she was right to leave and that was how it had to be.

And how did it begin? With him touching her as he ushered her to sit down.

Did he unconsciously know even then where her visit to him was going to lead? Did he know deep inside that he felt something stronger for her than for any other woman he knew?

No.

He touched Pat because that’s what Marion did when he was bringing a guest into his house. Always the hand on the back, guiding them in. Marion was something of a toucher. Danny wasn’t. But without realizing it, he had picked up the idea that when you have a guest, and you want to bring them in, you put your hand on their back to guide and accompany them.

Danny had never had an actual guest at his house before, and so when Pat showed up alone, unexpected, Danny, in his nervousness, unconsciously followed the pattern he had observed with Marion Silverman.

That’s all it had been.

But where it led was to a place much deeper than that. Pat was the smartest of his friends, the most mature. Her caustic nature partly came from the fact that she stood outside everything, observing. The way Danny had always been a permanent outsider. She was the one who was most like Danny, at least in the way she dealt with people. Always detached. Always cautious, analyzing.

Except I’m not cautious. And where she’s silent, I talk, I say things. In fact, Pat is nothing like me and I’m nothing like her, but I’d be a better person if I were.

Then again, she’d be a happier person if she were a little more like me. Wouldn’t she? She always seems so sour.

Stop thinking about it, he told himself as he took his pants back off, and his underwear and socks, and slid into bed to try to sleep. Stop thinking about it.

But he didn’t stop. Pat was all over his thoughts before he slept, and while he slept, and he woke up thinking about her in the morning, cursing himself for a fool as he prepared to head over to Coach Lieder’s house. The last thing he needed was to have a woman on his mind.