“It seems the Great Gate has made a real gatemage out of you after all.”

“No,” said Hermia. “And Danny took all my gates anyway, so it wouldn’t matter.”

“Yet here you are.”

Alf was now standing behind Hermia, fury in his eyes and stance.

“There’s nothing you can do, Odin,” said Hermia, giving him his title. “Danny and his girlfriend taught me a different way of moving without gates at all. I can be gone—and healed from any damage you do—almost before you do whatever you’re thinking. Gone and with no trace of where I went.”

“Aren’t you the powerful one,” said Alf.

“You know that I’m not,” said Hermia. “Everything depends on gatemages, everybody’s power, healing in battle. But that’s all we are—transportation and medical. Everybody else has more real power.”

“How modest of you,” said Gerd. “Though of course you can ‘transport’ your enemies to the bottom of the ocean or deep into space or the heart of the sun or miles up in the sky. So I can’t really think of you as just ‘transportation and medical.’”

“All right,” said Hermia. “I’m very powerful. So powerful that I could listen to your whole conversation tonight without your knowing I was here. My purpose was only to gather information, but something occurred to me and I realized that you’re missing an opportunity by not doing exactly what Gerd is yearning for.”

“None of your business,” said Alf.

“Even if we can’t stop you from listening,” said Gerd, “we don’t have to empower you by listening to you.”

“‘Empower,’” Hermia repeated. “You are so American.”

“In gods we trust,” said Alf. “What do you want, Yllka?”

“I had a thought, that’s all. And since you’re the only people in either world who can do anything about it, I might as well say it to you and see if it leads anywhere.”

“Then say it,” said Alf.

“These planes and tanks you’ve enhanced—never run out of fuel, parts never wear out cause there’s no friction, make their own electricity, practically fly themselves, weapons that don’t miss—”

“We know what we did,” said Alf.

“You made them more powerful and useful, but you’re still just working with stuff drowthers made.”

“We’re working with the world around us, the way mages always have,” said Gerd testily. She didn’t like the implication that they somehow depended on drowthers. Though she knew that it was true.

“Oh, I know. But still, your planes may win more fights than theirs do—but they’ve got pretty good planes. They have to refuel more, they miss more, but they don’t always miss, so the two of you have to fight them directly. Go outside in the middle of the night and take them out of the sky with lightning, or by making their parts crumble so they stop working.”

“We know what we do, girl,” said Alf.