“Set,” Hermia said, her voice turning oddly seductive. Who feels the need to seduce Satan? “I invite you into me. I can do anything Danny North can do. You can leave him behind and really accomplish something with me. Come into me, Set.”

What Hermia didn’t realize was that Set made the jump the moment she first invited him. But Danny could see that it took Set awhile to find his way into Hermia’s body. He had learned something from the new skills Danny had acquired in Duat. Set rooted more deeply in her than he ever had in Danny.

Hermia fell silent, her face looking a little surprised, then vacant, then exultant.

“Should I kill your little friend again?” asked Hermia—but Danny knew it was Set speaking now.

“You can’t,” said Danny.

“Why can’t I?” asked Hermia.

“Because I forbid it.”

Hermia’s hand flashed out, holding a handgun that Danny had not realized she carried in her purse.

And then the handgun was gone. Pat must have moved it.

“Really,” said Pat. “Is that all you’ve got?”

Hermia looked at her savagely, then at Danny with complete loathing. “Do you want to know what hell is? Being trapped inside somebody as weak and stupid and … nice as you.”

“Thanks,” said Danny. “I won’t say I’ll miss you.”

“Oh, you will,” said Hermia. “Why haven’t you tried to kill me yet? Gate me inside the sun? Loki tried that. An inconvenience, a delay.”

“It’s all right for you to kill Hermia,” said Pat. “She asked for it.”

“I don’t kill people just because they ask for it,” said Danny. “And it wouldn’t work.”

“Do you know what else won’t work?” asked Hermia. “Trying to keep me from going to Westil.”

“Nobody’s keeping you from anything,” said Pat.

But Danny was doing something. It was what Pat said, about the Sutahites being inside Hermia like gates. Danny reached out, the way he had when the Gate Thief first tried to take his gates, and ate Hermia’s Sutahites.

And just like that, he had them locked inside himself.

But the Sutahites were not Hermia’s, never hers. They always belonged to Set. They had followed him out of Duat, the way that near-human prets followed the strongest prets, becoming their ba, giving them the powers that would turn into magery.

So when Danny ate Hermia’s Sutahites, it was Set who reeled at the sensation. Nobody had ever done anything like that to him, Danny knew.

In his alarm, Set did something by reflex: He polled his ba. He enumerated his Sutahites, called to them, kindled them, woke them.

Even though they were scattered over the surface of the Earth, accompanying billions of people, every one of them became clear to Danny North, not by number, but by location.

And he ate them all.