“Inself. Or … pret,” said Hermia. “Names for the part of myself that’s always listening to my thoughts, always observing me. The judge who evaluates everything I do. But whenever I’ve ever been aware of that watcher, that judge, it flies away, recedes out of reach. Until now. Now I know where it is. I can tug on it too. Because Danny showed me how to find it.”

Because of what Hermia said, Pat felt her own inself in a curious new way. In Duat, that’s all she had been, just that ka, naked and almost but not quite alone. Because Danny was there. She was always aware of him, and therefore always aware of where she was in relation to him.

But now she was also aware of Hermia. Not of the woman, but the ka within her. The way she had been able to sense the ka and ba of Enopp and Eluik. Those, Danny had shown to her. And now Hermia was showing herself to Pat.

Showing it for a purpose. Showing it so that Pat would tug on it.

Only Pat didn’t know how. She had never done it.

Except that even as she thought this, she made the contact—just as she had contacted Enopp and Eluik, as she had communed with This One. Only she didn’t want that kind of intimate wordless communication with Hermia. Hermia was too strong and dangerous, she could not be trusted. And so Pat recoiled from her, and instead of that recoil taking a physical form, Pat moved her ka across the room and she was standing by the window facing into the room.…

And Hermia was not sitting where she had been sitting. She was standing only a few feet away from Pat. Smiling.

“I see,” said Hermia.

“I didn’t mean to do that,” said Pat.

“I don’t care,” said Hermia. “You were running away from me, I get that. But you were in contact with me. I felt that. Not a tug, just a touch. But when you moved, I kept the same position. See? I’m exactly as far from you as I was before. You’re standing, so I’m standing, but the distance is the same.”

“How very Mr. Science of you,” said Pat.

“I mean I know the distance. Not the name of the distance, but its exact length, and I was able to hold on to that. Is that how it is with you and Danny? You know where he is, and you can always jump to him.”

Pat nodded.

“So right now I’m anchored to you the way you’re anchored to him,” said Hermia.

“I don’t know,” said Pat. “He had to send me to you, because the only thing I know how to do is move a few feet, to a place I can see—or to go to Danny.”