“How can I?” she said. “It’s true. Danny gave me orders and refused to listen to my arguments. He assumed that because I stopped arguing, I would do what he said. But he was wrong. His plan was stupid and doomed to fail. Two mages per Family? While the Orphans would all get to go? My way, we aren’t actually at war with each other yet. His way, and the war would have been immediate. So I moved the only Great Gate I had access to and sent my family through. I made it all take time, so Danny had plenty of chance to respond and do the only thing he could do—take all the other Families through his own new gate. Don’t you think that was a better plan?”

“It was,” said Alf. “But you betrayed Danny.”

“I disagreed with Danny and failed to obey him,” said Hermia. “Please tell me, in all your lore of gatemages, whether you ever heard of an obedient one.”

Alf chuckled.

Gerd did not. “We will be totally dependent on her,” she said. “She can take us anywhere and leave us stranded.”

“I could do that right now,” said Hermia, “and you couldn’t stop me.”

Gerd wondered if a jolt of static electricity could stop Hermia’s heart before she could jump and heal herself. No, she would need to make that jolt strike Hermia’s brain, short-circuiting everything, including whatever part of her brain triggered jumps.

“Before you try to kill me,” said Hermia, “you should be aware that this kind of jump has nothing to do with any part of my physical body. You could fry my brain and I could still do it, and heal myself in the process.”

Gerd smiled. “It’s nice to know that we think alike.”

“I’m not like Danny,” said Hermia. “I grew up as a valued member of a Family, and so I learned to think like one. Your isolation of Danny allowed him to become soft.”

“Compassionate,” said Gerd.

“He’s a dear,” said Hermia. “He loves the drowthers and thinks their lives and their happiness are as important as ours. On even-numbered days I see his point. On the other days, though, I recognize that power only exists if you use it to increase your power. Every time you fail to act to protect your interests, you embolden your enemies to defy you more and more openly, until finally you have no influence at all, except whatever raw power you have. Danny doesn’t understand this. He has—or had—so much raw power that he didn’t understand that real power comes from getting other people to obey you before you have to compel them. But here you are in Taiwan, showing me that you understand that.”