“I don’t want to be rid of it,” said Danny. “Right now I always know where it is. If it leaves me and goes anywhere but Duat, then my real worries begin again.”

“So your parents taking over the U.S. military isn’t a real worry?”

“They haven’t started any new wars, just made it so our allies—America’s allies—have a better chance of winning.”

“So you don’t think it meant anything when Hermia took your mother to Westil?”

Danny shook his head. “I don’t know what that was, but they’re not insane.”

“Your mother’s not,” said Pat. “But Hermia?”

Danny had more confidence in Hermia’s sanity than Mother’s. “Let me walk you home,” said Danny.

“The others will be waiting up on the hill,” she said. And then, before he could protest: “Danny, they’re afraid you’ll lose interest in them.”

“When a guy has a girlfriend he’s really in love with, he always loses interest in his other friends.”

“And they all feel abandoned and resentful,” said Pat. “I’ve read the same young-adult novels as you.”

“I think this is important—seeing the Sutahites. Seeing where they cluster. Now it’s so obvious, I wonder that I didn’t see it before.”

“You’re always walking through dust, tasting it, inhaling it, collecting it on your clothes and skin. But you only notice it when it’s caught swirling through a beam of sunlight.”

“Well, Thou Beam of Sunlight, thank you for showing me. Wish I could hear what they’re saying.”

“I already told you,” said Pat.

“Every kid the same?”

“Pretty much. Come on, Danny. Adolescence is when you dream of being a superhero and come to understand your own worthlessness, both at once.”

“So which belief are the Sutahites pushing on these people?”

“Both at once,” said Pat, “and then they follow up on whichever message starts to succeed. At least, if I wanted to destroy teenagers’ lives, that’s what I’d do.”

Danny chuckled mirthlessly. “I guess they’re working me with both stories all the time.”

Pat stepped away from him and looked him up and down. “No Sutahites that I can see.”

“How many that you can’t see? Think of it as ‘unproven reserves.’”

“I think I can see them all, and you don’t have any,” said Pat. “And neither do I.”

“Maybe they gave up on you because you’re too strong,” said Danny.

“Or because we both went to Duat and got the ability to see prets and move as prets. Maybe they don’t even think of us as people now. Or maybe talking to This One made us immune.”

“Or maybe I don’t get any Sutahites because I have their master inside me, and so they keep clear.”

“Let’s sneak off and get married,” said Pat. “I think all this not going home with you is silly.”