“Every living person has that power, because when we die, our ka goes back to Duat, without a guide, without a ferryboat, without a spaceship, without a gate, we simply go. The power is in all of us. So my friend Pat no longer needs me or my amulet. She simply goes.”

“You were able to teach her? A windmage?”

“I taught her nothing,” said Danny North. “She died and went to Duat, and she saw all that I saw, and learned all that I learned.”

“So which will it be, Danny North? Will you waken the Queen, and drive out what’s left of poor Anonoei to return to Duat?”

“I can’t really do that,” said Danny.

“Meaning that you really can’t, or that you choose not to because it would be wrong?”

“Both,” said Danny. “When Bexoi killed Anonoei, she forfeited her right to have a body of her own.”

“So you’ll drive out Bexoi and leave her body for Anonoei?”

“I can’t do things that aren’t within my power,” said Danny.

“And here I thought you could do anything. Mage of mages.”

“I don’t have power to do things that can’t be done,” said Danny. “I can’t send Bexoi back to Duat—she has to want to go there, and given the kind of life she’s led, I don’t know how happy a reunion that will be for her.”

“I don’t care whether she’s happy there,” said Wad.

“But she cares,” said Danny North, “and if she doesn’t want to go, I can’t make her.”

“Then what can you do?”

“I can show Anonoei how to sink deeply and completely into the body. But that will only work if the body itself recognizes her as its rightful owner.”

“How can it?” asked Wad. “It’s Bexoi’s body.”

“It began as Bexoi’s body, and grew up as Bexoi’s body, but now its hands are covered with the blood of babies. The body doesn’t like to be dishonored like that. It may be done with her.”

“So if her own body rejects her…”

“It won’t happen that way,” said Danny North. “Her body won’t expel her. Instead it’ll accept someone else as its rightful owner. And I think that will happen only if the powers that be on Duat tell her body to do that.”

“So you might end up expelling Anonoei after all. Killing her.”

“It’s up to the body to decide.”

“The body’s just a—a puppet made of meat. It can’t decide.”

“So I thought, too, until I went to Duat, leaving my body behind. Set had it all to himself, but he couldn’t even begin to get control of it. It waited for me. It continued to be mine. But Bexoi’s body deserves better than a mistress who used that body to commit terrible murders. Don’t you think?”